Encounter

This afternoon as I was listening to the CD we put the children to bed listening to through the baby monitor, my mind was brought back to our first days with them in Ethiopia.

Some of the sweetest moments of that week — that was a bit more chaotic than I’d like to remember — were at night after they were asleep. We all shared a room. Eden was on the bottom bunk and Caleb in a pack-n-play. Nate and I would put our heads together and debrief in hushed tones, hoping to not wake them. This children’s worship CD would fill our conversation breaks as we whispered like giddy children. God’s presence was thick. Joy was evaporating off our skin like the effects of rain on hot pavement.

We knew He was near. His presence was unavoidable.

Part of why I’ve been so drawn to adoption is because I have tasted the father-heart of God more, through this process, than almost anything else in my life — from the moment God first dropped it into my mind. Maybe this sounds selfish: we set out to rescue these two because, by doing so, we encountered God. Instead of seeing it basically as self-serving, I believe that God made me for encounter–just like this. He wired me to not just “intellectually assent” to this relationship we have — me and God — but to hunger … to thirst … for His breaking through into my daily life.

I mean we all want this, right? We memorialize stories where we had even a touch of the supernatural. Whether it was a piece of scripture that was sent to us by a friend–at the exact moment we needed it, a “chance” encounter with the person who introduced us to our next job, or even the lyrics of an old song that came across our radio which spoke exactly to where we were at that moment. We want to believe that God intersects the natural. That the ordinary really can be infused with the holy.

But the enemy of encounter is disbelief. And skepticism can so easily trump the childlike wonder that first drew many of us to God (or is drawing us now).

(All of this has been heavy on my brain as God has recently been using expressions of His power to break into my life-full-of-sippy-cups-and-legos. More on this later ..)

Tonight we are plopping the kids into the car for a 4-hour round-trip homecoming celebration. Katya – Kateryna – is finally returning to her home–via an arduous run by her parents through the Ukrainian government’s hamster wheel. All day long, as I’ve anticipated our trip, I’ve been choking back tears. In part because tonight we’re invited into the birthing room. We get to watch as God sets one of His lonely children into a family (Psalm 68:6). We get to see His promise in scripture fulfilled. And in part because my expectations are high. I know I will encounter Him. Adoption is heavy on His heart and He is doing a unique move in these days. And I’m going to drink deep tonight!

I’m finding lately that my hunger for God might very well take me to great lengths to find Him. It’s beginning to supersede my sense of what is practical.

So, 4 hours in the car with two larger-than-life toddlers … it’s nothing, compared to what we’re about to see.

(We have one extra seat in between their carseats that would fit a very small person with a high tolerance for noise and saliva –  drop me a comment if you want to come )