The Album

In the top drawer of my nightstand there's a picture album I've been guarding like a hawk.  Several times throughout the day I have this moment in which I run to the bedroom thinking perhaps I left the drawer cracked and the album might be discovered.  The drawer would be cracked from last night.  And the last night. And the night before that all the way back to June 8th when I placed it there.  All those nights just before closing my own eyes when I reach for that baby blue album and pour over the pages of pictures.  Pictures of my baby, before he was in my arms.  

Inside there's these pictures.  Sweet baby boy...dressed in pink.  A huge smile standing with his China mama (nanny).  Picture after picture with some of the same children.  A precious old woman, "Nie Nie", grandmother in Chinese.  These pictures, along with his medical records and the clothes he came to us wearing, are the only links we have to his past.  

I want to preserve them.  I want to honor them.  I don't want to hide them at all.  I want Levi to know his story.  But there's a big piece of me that's been scared out of my mind to reveal them.  There's this gap and very few words to make a bridge between his heart and mine.  I feel like there should be words.  Words to explain and to offer comfort and answer questions and make promises.  

And maybe, too, I don't know exactly what to do with someone else's emotions.  Maybe, when I'm real honest, I don't know what to do with my own.  So sometimes maybe I avoid them.  

But grace keeps taking my hand and walking me back to that nightstand.  And for days I can't get it out of my mind.  This urge to bring the little boy into my arms and hold him tight and reach for the album.  

So I did it.  We sat together on my bed and flipped pages.  And I waited.  Waited for the floodgates.  Tears. Rage. But none came.  

Just like a kid, he was most interested in seeing himself in the pictures.  China mama was offered a short glance.  The friends received giggles as he tried to explain each one to me.  Nie Nie, a big grin.  And then a sweet "bye bye Nie Nie" before he closed the album.  Then we were done.  No big alligator tears.  No declaring China mama his real mom and scorning me.  

And then I knew it.  Words don't really build great bridges.  Digging down into the muck and mire and securing the posts. Measuring out carefully and forming concrete slabs.  Lowering them carefully into place and securing them tightly.  

That bridge from our hearts to his has been under construction for weeks.  There's been muck.  In his heart.  In our hearts.  And I'm sure they'll be more.  But maybe there's a post or two.  Maybe the slabs are being poured and the form of the bridge is starting to take shape.  

The hands and the heart are the bridge builders.  No, they are the tools.  Grace is the bridge builder.  In the failing and the flailing, digging out of the muck, its only grace that ever stands a chance of holding firm.  And the Grace Giver, Holy One...He built that first bridge that all the bridges run parallel to.  Then He asks us to do it with Him. Step out into that deep water and suddenly we're standing on dry ground.  He's making a path through the water.  We're walking. And on the right and the left, where I dare not turn my head, the water stands up scared straight stiff of the Almighty Hand.  That Hand, wind at my back, making step turn into step. I'm there on the bank and the enemy is swallowed up.  And the only words, are barely words, just uttering praise to the One who was in the beginning....was with God and was God. All things coming into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not...does not...comprehend it.  But runs from it. 

(John 1)