Rewind to China~Part 2~

So in part 1 I told you I was not the poster child for composure on this third trip to China.  This is where I came apart at the seams.  Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, capital city of Inner Mongolia, China and where the Lord had us unite with Gabriel.

September 19, 2010, roughly 1:30pm.  Here are some "before" shots....checking in to the famous Holiday Inn and sweet Grace anxiously waiting to hug her little brother and hand over the well traveled Mr. Panda.



Moments later we would see the little man himself walking in armed with a lollipop.  Let me tell you he had a death grip on that lollipop.  I shot the not-so-great video below of Tony receiving the scared little guy.  I wanted him to take him since on both Forever Family days with the girls I had received them.  I also wanted to make sure it was captured.....both other times our uniting was never captured due to other nervous parents and camera difficulties.

This is when the fun started.  He totally went to Tony but the look that Grace & I received was of warning.  Warning from a trapped, frightened and completely terrorized 2 year old boy.  I feel the tears from this moment return today as I am typing.  For the next several days.......it was hard.  Hard not only for me but for Grace.  Really hard for all of us.  Tony was thrown into a role he had never played....complete & total care giver and Grace & I were mere bystanders forced to watch.  Again, I would love to type here that every book I had read, every preliminary parenting course I sat through with our home study agency, and most of all the faith I had in the Lord would have guided and kept me focused but none of it did.  I was under attack.  I felt Satan laughing at the back of my neck even in Beijing......he was all around me the moment I stepped off the first plane in China.  The presence of my Lord was missing in that country and I was much weaker in spirit and in faith than I could have imagined.  Satan attacked those weaknesses and just kept coming.  Throughout our entire time in Hohhot I never once relaxed and was so defensive and eventually I started to shut down.  The little boy I had fallen in love with in the picture at the top of this blog  did not seem to exist.  All I saw was a little boy who looked at me with eyes filled with hate.  I was nothing to him.  I saw the love I had yearned for for so many years being only given to Tony and I saw nothing but red.  My mind knew it all made sense but my heart had taken over and the enemy had buried himself deep within.  I had only the heartbeat of despair.  Sweet Grace was rejected too for those 5 days in Hohhot & it did not stop with our leaving that forlorn city.  At one point dear Tony reached a breaking point and put it to me straight that he could not live like this and if this is how life would be we should consider not completing the adoption.  The Lord filled my heart and I refused to even discuss that but did announce once more I felt I should have never come to China this time around.  See I was walking parallel to the walk I had to both girls and Gabriel was a different path.  The Lord was making me see that even though it was ME who had disappeared from His grasp in my self-centered, panicked, and distraught state He was still there.....I needed Him as my life-line once more.  Good grief!  We look back in scripture and wonder why the Israelites were so stupid to wander the desert all those years instead of just giving it all up in complete obedience......well, I am right there with those fools.  I had to give it up......all up and not try to control or fix the situation.  I had to have faith.  Faith that the Lord would make this all work out for His good....not mine, His and at the same time I would find peace.  I would love to say this happened before we left for Guangzhou but it didn't.  I wandered around in my own desert like a fool who had given up on her faith walk.  I look back on this time and shudder.....my sweet six year old handled this time with more maturity & grace than her 40 year old mother.  She loved him when he would allow & let it go when he wouldn't......she was completely secure in who she was and her place in the universe and that was enough.  Oh my, what a realization that was.......where was my security.  Had I not learned one thing that the Lord showed me through Anna's death and my grieving of her?  Yes, I knew what to do & the Lord gave me strength to do it in one of the darkest places in the world.  Even Grace said to me one evening, "Momma, I now understand the reason for foreign missions.  How can all these people believe in so many Gods?"  I had to let go and put it all in prayer.  Prayers were needed from everywhere.  So I finally got computer access and started asking for everyone to join me in praying for all of our hearts.  Oh, He heard us & oh, He answered.