Almost three years ago, we adopted our daughter and we love her to bits. Our family life is messy, imperfect, full of laughter, sometimes difficult, and beautiful. This week is National Adoption Week (5-11 November 2012) and this is the story I wrote for our little girl earlier this year to celebrate finding each other...
There was once a little
girl who found herself all alone in the world.
I say all alone…
There was the thing that
she carried with her everywhere she went. It was a strange thing, she didn’t
really know what it was, but she knew it was beautiful and she knew it belonged
with her. Sometimes, when she looked at it, she felt like she could see
everything that had ever happened to her. And sometimes, deep beneath, she
caught a glimpse of something shimmering as it darted about, moving too fast to
ever truly be seen.
God watched the little
girl everywhere she went. It was he who had put the shimmering light in the
heart of the thing and, though she didn’t know it, he was always with her.
The little girl often felt
that there was something she ought to do with the thing, but try as she might,
she could not work out what it was.
And so she made her way
through the world, carrying the thing with her wherever she went, seeking and
searching for someone who could help her find the answer.
Sometimes, on her travels,
she met people who walked with her for a while and tried to help her in her
quest. Some carried the thing for her but that never felt quite right. Some hid
it from her where she couldn’t see it – but that felt even less right. Some sat
and gazed at it with her, but that didn’t help either.
Some of them walked beside
her for miles, protecting the thing from the wind and the rain, sheltering it
from the cold and the dark, and as they walked with her, she saw the shimmering
light a little more often and sometimes it moved a little more slowly, as
though it didn’t mind being seen. But still she didn’t know what the thing was
for.
Then one day, as she
walked, she saw two people she’d never seen before, a man and a lady. As she
looked closer, she saw that each of them carried a thing like hers, but there
was something different about them. For although their things were separate and
distinct, they were also joined together, they belonged to each other, they
carried them together. She was curious and looked at them closely as she passed
by. Their things were more beautiful together than hers was, on its own, but
still something seemed to be missing from them.
A few days later, she saw
them again, then again, and again. She began to look for them as she walked,
until one day she realised that they had seen her too. She stopped and looked
and they stopped too. The thing in her hands hummed and buzzed a little. Then
she turned and went on her way.
As she walked, the thing
continued to hum and to buzz, lightly and quietly at first, then stronger and
louder. She stopped. Turned.
And there they were. The
man and the lady, just a few steps behind.
Together, they lifted the
things in their hands towards the little girl, and smiled. She looked at them,
and stepped towards them.
She lifted the thing that
she had carried for so long towards theirs – and it was a perfect fit. At once,
her hands felt lighter. She looked deep into the heart of the thing and there
was the shimmering light, glowing steadily.
Then God gave the light a
little nudge and it moved next to the lights of the man and the lady.
And the girl felt happy.
And the man felt happy. And the lady felt happy. And God felt happy.
Their three things
together made a beautiful, imperfect whole.
They smiled at each other,
took one another’s hands, and began to dance through the world, and their
lights danced too, sometimes dancing in perfect step with one another,
sometimes dancing their own dance – but always knowing that they belonged
together and that their lights would always guide them home.
