Can't help but share more of our beautiful Aliyah.
We are SMITTEN!!
On the little train at Zilker Park. We really were a grouchy bunch by this point, but it's a family pic so I had to post it!
Fun times in the back yard baby pool!
Itsy Bitsy Tiney Winey Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
So on to more serious matters...I'm starting to forget that Aliyah was an orphan. I mean that in the best way I think. I guess she's just part of our family and it's kinda like she showed up and all was right in the world. But there is a part of me that longs for the year that we missed. I ache to know more. I find myself desperately wanting to go back to Kigali and the Home of Hope to ask the nuns and caretakers to tell me MORE. Every detail about every day they spent with her. What she ate, how she slept, how she grew, how she interacted with the others, when she started crawling, how she was consoled when she woke at night, or if she was, her quirks, her specific cries and how she showed love, etc
And then I want to know her birth parents. Not just her mom, but her dad too! Mother's Day was great, but it made my heart ache again. There is a woman and man out there somewhere who know NOTHING of their precious little daughter. They may have been wonderful people of maybe not. I will NEVER KNOW and neither will Aliyah. It is my hunch though that Aliyah was blessed by a mommy who loved her deeply and who held her and nursed her as long as she was physically able. I really do believe that it was in a moment of desperation that she had to place her baby down and relinquish her rights in order that someone more "able" could take care of her. I HURT to think of that moment and the agony of the steps she took, her back turned away, with Aliyah out of her arms for the first time. How did her heart not break in two right then and there? I feel sure she hurts deeply still.
Some day we will cross this road with Aliyah. I don't plan out that conversation yet. There is no reason to. But I know that our world is forever broken until Christ returns and this is just one horrible piece of evidence. Aliyah will never know her roots, whose side of the family her little button nose comes from, nor the answers to the questions I have plus many many more. And the questions at some point will feel endless and painful I am sure.
But Psalm 12:5 says this:
"Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,
Now I will arise," says the LORD; "I will set him in the safety for which he longs."
Aliyah Grace is not free from the devastation. It will forever be a part of her story. But I pray that one day she will know the Father who set her in the safety for which she longed.
Could it be that God would set peace in Aliyah's birth mom's heart that she is now in a place of safety? I pray it is so.
Oh Laura, how beautiful. I have tears. I pray it is so for the mommy and daddy of my Mugisha.....that they have a sense of peace. I too think of them often, but I admit...I have mostly thought of JP's birth mom and not so much the dad. Thanks for the reminder to pray for the birth dad too.
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