The scars that I can't heal

If you look close enough you can see them. The scars that brought him back to life. The 6 hour surgery where they stopped his heart and put him on the ventilator. The surgery that turned his life around from death to life.
It's funny, he doesn't ever ask about the big scar that runs from his neck to his belly button. It's there and yet he doesn't seem to care much about it. The scar that brought him full circle. The reason he's with us in our family is because of that heart that couldn't pump enough blood.... and so the scar.
I love that scar. The reminder of where we started from. 





The scar that you can't see in Jo is the scar of missing his sisters in Africa. The two sisters named Ruth and Princess. They seem to cut him much deeper than any open heart surgeons knife could. He prays they have enough to eat and that they are safe. He prays for his African mother with the beautiful clothes that held him and protected him for 17 months. He prays..
I pray with him and tell him every little detail of my time with her and what she looked like and how she smelled of dial soap. How she was so determined to get him help that she was there everyday that I was there. Watching and letting go of her son little by little. I would hold him and he being so sick would not cry for her or cry because of me, he just sat between the tears that she and I shared.
She gave him up and now I live with a little boy who has scars of the heart inside and out. As he gets older he looks at their pictures more. He touches the colored copies of their faces and says "black like me." Yes, Jo black like you. Scars........I can't see, but nonetheless they are there. Adoption continues to be a road that I live more on my knees then my feet. Trying to say the right things, trying to always point him to Christ and remind him that we all are adopted. But the fact will always remain that he has a black mama that loves him more than I could ever love him because she found him help and then she gave him to me and rested in the fact that I promised her I would get him surgery. Could I give Jo up? Could I make it well with my soul somehow or would I hold him until he took his last breath because I was to afraid to let go? My own selfishness standing in the way of help.

She let him go and now I live with the scars that only God can heal. The scars that reach his inner most parts.
I don't want to mess this up. I want him to grow up being so very proud of his mother. I want him to love her so very much for committing to him even when the road was long and the cost was much she never stopped.
I have wished so many times that she could see him now. Running and playing and talking. He has never been to a Dr. for a sickness since he left the hospital. He's strong and he's my African Warrior. He's a survivor.
Oh, to hold his hand and to kiss his face. To teach him how to read and write his name. To teach him that God has been so good to Him even though it may seem like a hard providence, God has been good and faithful.

Teaching the lessons of scars in his life and I am remind that God uses our scars for battle cries and they make us stronger and deeper and more dependent on Him.

I love Jo scars and all....and I'm praying for a woman that lives half way across the world.....


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