Ever After

Ah, sweet Meggie, the first baby that I brought home who would not stay, the baby that I fell in love with in a matter of days and spent five and a half months loving and raising before she was taken from us.  When she first left I e-mailed each month on her birthday to see how she was doing.  After several months I called her caseworker to check on her.  I was devastated to hear that, while Meggie was at that time still safe with a good foster family, it appeared she would soon be going to live in a very bad situation.

And I stopped e-mailing.  I stopped calling.  I couldn’t bear to have the worst confirmed.  I wanted to hold onto my fragment of hope that maybe she would be okay, that God wouldn’t let that happen to her.  So the months passed and I hid in my fear, embracing ignorance of the truth rather than facing the pain that truth might bring.

Finally, as an important meeting loomed, things were dredged up that I had tried to keep buried. I found that I was just barely brave enough to seek some answers.  I was going to have to face the truth of Meggie’s fate no matter how much I wanted to keep my head buried in the sand.  And so, with shaking, hands I e-mailed her new foster mom and asked if Meggie was still there and how she was.

I very nearly couldn’t open the response, so terrified to have my fears confirmed.  I sat on the porch holding my laptop in the sunshine as my girls picked flowers in the garden, but I did it.  And rather than the worst, which I had expected, I found the opposite.  Tears began to run down my cheeks unnoticed.  Because the e-mail contained a mother’s love, the same love that I feel for my Meggie, coming from another mom.  Meggie is safe.  Meggie is loved.  God in his goodness did not abandon her.  He protected her and delivered her and brought her to a place of love and stability, just as I ask him to everyday.  She is being safely adopted by her foster family.  She’ll have a big family with brothers and sisters and love and craziness, a family that loves Jesus and will teach her about Him.

I clicked the first attachment and saw a beautiful brown eyed toddler smiling back at me; I would have recognized her anywhere.   And I was humbled.  I had let fear rule my heart.  I had questioned God’s goodness.  I doubted that He would respond to my pleas.  So, many kids languish in the foster system; why would He take note of this one little baby?  I had forgotten the power of prayer.  I cried a lot that day, but it was more for relief and joy than sorrow.  Joy that our God does hear our prayers, does take notice of one small baby, and did in his infinite goodness bring her to a place of love and safety.