Drive-thru Exodus

Israel was told to eat quickly as they planned their escape from Egypt. I sort of took this same approach as I ate the manna of Exodus tonight. Several meals have been shared between Moses and myself, and, over the years I have experienced the entire feast more than once. Purist, forgive me for a less than "word for word" feast tonight.

I was drawn to Moses' mother, an unnamed Levite woman who created an adoption plan for her son. The choice was unbearable--kill your son, or, let him live and lose him forever. I imagine how she, as so many birthmothers after her have done, readied her son. Hiding him for 3 months, she watched him grow from a sleeping infant to a more alert, strong little boy. But, she knew from the day he was born that she could not hold him. When that dreaded day came, she created as safe a place for him as she could, covering a reed basket in tar. Filled with gut wrenching pain, her eyes filling with tears, she wrapped him in a blanket one last time. She kissed his cheek and called him by his birth name, knowing he was about to lose his identity forever. Many call the acts of modern and ancient birthmothers "abandonment." But she cared and loved for him the best way she knew how, placing him where someone would find him. Watching from a distance was his birth sister, who was sent by their birthmother to watch over him. Then, Moses forever family arrived--Pharaoh's own flesh and blood. The man who ordered him be killed was now his forever grandfather. A broken world is revealed.

As an adoptive parent, the story of this Levite woman touches me deeply. Like modern birthmothers faced with making life or death choices for their children, God's forever family is touched by the same pain as millions of women throughout history. Below are some thoughts I wrote on the plane back from Ethiopia after picking up our 2nd child. We don't share the specifics of our children's birth stories, and many international adoptive families do not either. But, below you will find my general account of meeting with our child's birth mother. The group we traveled with (about 7 families) traveled to southern Ethiopia to meet with birth families. At the end of the meeting, we had an entrustment ceremony, where we prayed together and the birthfamilies gave the forever families a candel as a sign of trust to raise their child. If you wish to know an adoptive child's birth story, don't ask the child's parents. Instead, read about Moses' mother and you can begin to imagine to heartbreaking reasons birthfamilies create an adoption plan. But, here are my thoughts as a forever mother, meeting my child's birth mother.

How will I do their birthmother’s justice? What is justice? Is justice abject poverty paradoxically linked to gluttonous wealth? Is it giving birth in a hut the size of my office? Does justice come out of such places, born among cattle, sheep and shepherds? A dark, seemingly hopeless place springs forth hope for the world? The birthplace of humanity is the place I return to find my children, among a proud people who love and value their children, yet can not raise them? A SON, sent to a world that can not hold Him? A world that will reject Him? Yet, from the simple place where cattle graze, hope is born? Christ coming as a simple boy in a manger isn’t a sign of Him lowering Himself, below us, to an awful, sad place, but rather being born as so many are and were born. How different the story is to those also born among grazing cattle.

We held a candle, standing on opposite sides of the room and opposite sides of the world. I knew nothing about her world, how she grew food, ate, survived. She had never heard of the US, and frankly had no need to. SHE held the light. All around us, darkness and uncertainty reigned. Poverty, death, starvation, abuse led to this moment, our lives were all so separate, but the human emotion of sorrow and loss penetrated the hearts of the wealthy and poor alike, but who was really poor? All that was shared was the light of the candle. The light which brought hope, a future. “I will not abandon you, but I will give you hope and a future.” The light shone in the darkness, among the shepherds, the farmers, the orphan, the widow. It lit the room for the Pharisees, the foolish, the broken, the whole. The light would not burn out, but shone equally bright for all the deserving, the undeserving, of every tongue and creed, every tribe and land. The light brought hope—it WAS justice, the only justice in a barren, beautiful, broken, holy, splintered, whole, unjust, just world. The light shines in the darkness, and has OVERCOME it.

Hope IS here, people care and love and want the best for their children. And this is why we mourn. We mourn because even as children are saved, they are lost. We get on a plane and take our children, children of this homeland away from their birth home. Away from their first families in order to survive. We receive a blessing from God, a gift because others experience loss. My greatest joy comes from her greatest loss. The soldiers role the dice, “they divided my garments and threw lots for my clothes.” God’s people are scattered, separated among the nations. BUT, we are all united under Christ in the same family. We are not our own.

Give us this day our daily bread,

Pastor Tracy