Repetition

I am extremely turned-off by redundancy, and I annoy myself when I think that I may be saying the same thing over and over.  Maybe that's because I spend most of my day repeating myself.  I teach the same lesson three times in one day.  Within that lesson I may give the same directions two or three times, and within that direction, I may repeat a key phrase twice more for added emphasis.  Obviously, I'm experienced in redundant, monotonous verbiage.  The deal is, as much as I hate to repeat myself, it really boils down to a subconscious feeling I have that nobody really wants to know all I have to say (and I have A LOT to say usually!).  I feel like if I write one more blog entry about how we're waiting...still...people might vomit.
And the truth is, there is absolutely nothing happening on our end of the adoption right now besides WAITING.  (My favorite.)

So for those of you patient enough to read as I drone on and on (thanks, mom!)...I still wonder what Zane looks like...I still wonder if he has a twin that we will adopt too...I still think about his mom and wonder how she's doing.  I wonder who his dad is and if he is an upstanding man.  I wonder what region of Ethiopia he's from and what it looks like.  I wonder if I will see it one day and maybe even meet his birth family.  I think about what I might say to them.  I dream of his curly locks resting softly upon his smooth skin.  I think of his cheeks and how I will want to kiss 'em and press them to my face every minute.  And his sweet hands that will gently rest in mine.  Most of all, though, I think of his eyes and the story they might tell.  His soul will pour out through those eyes, and I wonder so desperately about them.  What color will they be and what shape will they take?  What will they convey to me about his time with his birth family, his trip to the orphanage, his understanding that they are not coming back, and his adventure to a transition home where he will be given to Mark and I, his new family.

Better yet...more than what his eyes convey to me, I wonder what his eyes convey to himself.  What is his perception of his world?  What message did he receive from his birth families faces the day he was born?  What signs did he interpret as he made his way to the orphanage?  What did he perceive about life...about himself when no one came back to get him?
My heart hurts over this and yearns for God's intervention.  Satan will pounce at the opportunity to speak lies of abandonment and unworthiness to any child(ren) who will listen.  If he can convince us of our lack of value to God, he can render our lives completely ineffective, unproductive, and completely worthless to the Kingdom of God.  He wreaks havoc in the world's children everyday, and I am desperate for God to preserve the heart of my child.  I pray he will know, even now, his God in such an intimate way, that he feels His presence with him every moment.  I pray he talks about Him when he gets up in the morning and when he lie down at night, and that he knows Him as Father as well as I know my own earthly father.  While we are away from him, He will be his Daddy, and oh, how I want him to know His face, His touch, His words.  I pray for God to show Himself...for God to whisper in his ear the truth about who he is in Christ:  loved, accepted, rescued.

No matter how much I tire of talking, I never grow weary over praying for my Zane's relationship with Jesus, his understanding of God's love, and his confidence as a child of the Savior.  While English grammar, test directions, and rules grow mundane, some things are clearly worth repeating.