Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy
All He Ever Does is Come Through
When I last posted in our blog way back in July, seeing our little Victor was still a long way’s off even though we were to be seeing him in only two short months. Since we didn’t know the dates we’d be travelling yet, the time between then and our first meeting seemed like an inestimable eternity. During that time I got to thinking about my life, my job, and what things I would have to rearrange once Victor gets here. I remember asking the Lord, “What should I do about my job? I commute four hours every day. That’s untenable with a new kid that I should be bonding with.” In response to my very important and urgent plea, the Lord simply said, “Wait.” Unafraid that the Lord of the universe, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, might react in righteous anger, I retorted flippantly, “All I ever do is wait!” It seemed like a fair response for such an important request, after all. But the Lord, full of grace and truth, before I could even finish my sentence, responded with, “And all I ever do is come through.”
He was right, of course. Despite the difficult things that I’ve lived through in my life (legal blindness, joblessness, penury, and the grievous delay in having kids to name a few), the Lord has always come through and heard my pleas for help. I’ve fended off total blindness all my life, I finally got a job at a company that treats me very well, I have enough money to live on and bless others with, and Mel and I now have the most awesome little son ever! I’ve waited, and waited, and waited, and He has always come through – usually just in the nick of time and always with a good lesson.
I bring this remembrance to light not because I simply wish to retell of God’s desire to reprimand my flippancy, but because the last time I posted in our blog, I asked the Lord to bless our son with growth, strength, wisdom, and grace while we waited to see Him. I made this request in our blog and Mel and I made a point of making the same request every day in prayer from that time until the day we first saw Victor. We prayed, and yes, we waited. And believe it or not, the Lord came through!
When we were in the orphanage’s waiting room eagerly expecting Victor to be brought in, we were both filled with lots of excitement and joy but also with a grain of hesitancy and uncertainty. We couldn’t wait to see our son, but we worried a little about what he would be like. I myself was expecting the orphanage workers to carry in this little blob of a kid, curled up, emaciated, and listless. I figured that since he had been eating gruel (no joke), that he would be practically half-dead. Despite the fact that we had both been praying for strength, growth, wisdom, and grace for our son, we expected little. But when Victor and his caregivers came bursting through the door, Victor walking and pulling on their arm of his caregiver the way a terrier pulls on its leash, we both saw that our prayers had been answered and the Lord had indeed “always come through.”
The first thing we had been praying for was that he would grow. Being fed nothing but gruel from a baby bottle is no way to live and it’s no way to grow. Victor should be puny and listless and without an ounce of strength. But he isn’t. He does have weaker lower legs, so when we walks, he has to have his hand held. But despite that, he pulls like a terrier on the very arm that is holding him up! Both Mel’s and my arms were practically out of their sockets by the end of the week. He also has much better eyesight than we’d thought. The orphanage had told us that he basically completely blind. They seemed to have given up on him ever seeing. But on our first day with him, we could tell he could see us. He looked at us, he made eye contact, he looked at other things, he looked for and found his toys. And when I played “seeing games” with him to test the level and breadth of his vision (the same types of games my mom used to play with me, like putting an orange toy on the orange linoleum floor just out of his field of vision to see if he can see it), he “passed” with flying colours. Yes, he still has problems – he is still visually impaired and may need surgeries and glasses. But he can see. His eyes are stronger than we were told, just like the Lord told us to pray.
We also prayed for him to grow in spirit. Growing up in an orphanage with no mom or dad is nigh unto a curse for one’s personality development. Again, we went in there expecting to find a kid that had either no personality whatsoever, or a personality that had been skewed by the lack of parental love and discipline. Again, we were proved wrong. Victor has not only a strong personality but also a very sweet and fun one! He smiled a lot, he liked cuddling, he laughed a lot, and while he didn’t talk using coherent words (since he hasn’t learned to yet), he was communicative. And beyond that, his personality was big and steadfast! He had definite preferences – when we rolled up his sleeves, he rolled them right back down again without barely a thought. He also didn’t care for the hood on his sweater being put up. When he wanted to stop walking, he plunked himself down on the ground and started to play with rocks (or broken glass, which wasn’t good!). He was the perfect three-year-old!
We also wanted him to be “wise to us” as his parents, so we prayed for him to grow in wisdom. Like the other two, this one was answered fully! When we first took him outside, I made a point of praying over him and telling him that I was his father. When I said this to him, he reached up out of his stroller and climbed into my arms. It was amazing! Over that week he and I bonded very closely. He also bonded with Mommy who sang him songs and cuddled him until he squirmed. He may not know exactly what parents are, but he definitely knows we’re supposed to be in his life, and he in ours. He is wise to us. The Lord came through.
Finally, we prayed for the grace of God to be on him. The grace of God, simply put, in God’s desire to see us, His children, beautified and made into the best people we can be. We wanted the Lord to make his favour on our little Victor evident to all those around him. And it was! The orphanage people loved him and wanted to see him adopted. They loved us and were pleased that we were the ones adopting him. They frequently told us, through our translators, how happy they were that he was finally getting adopted into a good family. We felt that they could have done some things better for sure, but their attitudes toward him were reflective of the Lord’s favour on him.
So the Lord always comes through. And He’s going to come through again when we bring Victor home in three to five months. This is not me presuming that God’s going to do something I want Him to do. It’s me acknowledging what He has done up until now and knowing that since He doesn’t change, He will continue to work His miracles and bring this adoption to its rightful and perfect conclusion. There’s still so much work to do, so much preparation to complete, so much money to raise. But we continue to rely on the Lord and wait on Him. Because just like He always has done, He will come through.
We are waiting for our paperwork to come back from the apostillers… it will just be a few more days. 
