Beautiful things

 All this pain, I wonder if I'll ever find my way...

I wonder if my life could really change at all

 All this earth, could all that is lost ever be found?

 Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

 You make beautiful things....

 You make beautiful things out of the dust...

You make beautiful things out of us

All around, hope is springing up from this old ground....

Out of chaos life is being found in you

You make me new, You are making me new

*Lyrics from "Beautiful Things" by Gungor

**********************************************************

I cannot even begin to tell you how astounded I am by my fast and furious love for my daughter Mila. God makes beautiful things. Like a beautiful garden growing from an empty ground, my love has sprung. As I sit back and think about what the Lord is doing in my heart it truly is a beautiful thing. I worried I couldn't love another child like I love Zoya. I worried that after losing Laina my heart wouldn't be able to love a child that wasn't her. I laugh when I think about those worries now because I can tell you I already love Mila with the same intensity and depth as I love Zoya. Only a week after meeting our second daughter, my heart is already forever changed. Mila is sewn into my heart in a way that will never be undone.  God is doing beautiful things.

This morning for our visit, I peeked my head in and didn't see any caregivers right away but I saw Mila laying in her crib all alone just crying. It broke my heart. Someone comented about hearing the cries of the other babies in the background. It is heart wrenching to listen to the cries and screams sometimes through our entire visit. This is a good orphanage by orphanage standards. But it is not a home. Love isn't in the job description of the caregivers. They are caregivers, not parents.  There are not enough hands to pick up the babies and love on them...there are only enough hands to get their basic needs met.  Lately during our visits the cries of the other babies have really been piercing my heart. It is so hard to sit there and listen to them cry, knowing they just need love. For Zoya's adoption it was different....her groupa was older....by that point they had learned not to cry for the most part because it never did any good. These babies haven't yet learned that, so they still cry as their only way of communicating their need for love and nurture.

If you've even had the tiniest whisper to look into adoption of orphans in Eastern Europe, please don't ignore it. Oh there is such a need for mommies and daddies for these lonely souls. I wish I could reveal to each and every one of your hearts the pain my eyes have seen in the eyes of orphans. People sometimes feel guilty for wanting to adopt a younger child because maybe they are not facing imminent transfer to a mental institution, but oh how I wish these babies could all be rescued before they begin to understand their fate, before the damage really starts to set in. 

Mila is changing so much in such a short time. She smiled more tonight than we've ever seen before. She still has big eyes taking it all in. Her soul seems so old and so aware. She knows we are her mommy and daddy. She knows that it feels good to be loved and she can't get enough. I am having such a hard time leaving her at the end of each visit, knowing she will just go back to her crib until we come back the next time. I keep telling her soon enough it will all be a distant memory. She watched videos of Zoya on Shawns phone for a good 5 minutes straight without taking her eyes off the video. She smiled when I tickled her. She snuggled her Daddy and stared into his eyes while he loved on her. She looked at me when I said "where's mama?" She is changing before our eyes. As I looked at her tattered and torn clothes with her toe poking through the hole, all I could think was that her outside appearance does not reflect the internal changes and beauty that we are witnessing. Soon enough sweet Mila bean....soon enough.