Seeing Easter

Amidst the eggs and the dresses and the chocolate, it is easy to forget the true meaning of Easter. I got this reminder from my friend Karen in California, as shared by a member of her church family, also an adoptive mom.

Tonight I went to Walmart with my kiddos. I had one of my most tender moments...amongst the need for new underwear and socks, Noah and I went to the “Easter clothes” boy section.Today this little boy and his mom, bought a pink shirt/tie/vest/pants outfit thingy...with matching $12 black “fancy” shoes. I wish you could have been there. It was as if I touched some deep private longing in his soul.When I took it off the round display for a closer look, his voice began to quiver in disbelief. He whispered, “Is that for me?”, with a chuckle at the end like it couldn’t be true. He quietly beamed with a sparkle in his eye as if “somewhere over the rainbow” had finally been found right there- near a rack marked “$19.99”.

I laughed to myself as the new treasure was held on his lap in the car ride home. (You know EVERY Rwanda man who is anybody wears a tie...almost all the time for everything.) I saw him in my rear view mirror smoothing the vest with his hand, gently stroking it like a long lost friend. If I ever wished to read minds it was then. But then, again, what was happening that I couldn’t obviously see? A dream was coming true...and it was about much more than a clip-on tie.

I pushed away the tears as the little boy who I met when he was only 8 dashed upstairs to be transformed into the very dashing and grown up preacher/lawyer/doctor/groom/husband he had only dreamed ....or never dared dreaming of dreaming to be.

I’ve seen little girls twirl and princesses fawn, but never before have I seen a scared, used- to- be- orphan shed the clothes of scared- and out- of- place new American to proud and prancing Prince Charming all at the invitation of a mirror who called my handsome boy’s name.

There have been a lot of emotional moments on this journey when I am so ready to quit and so full of self-doubt some days I think I’m going to die. I just didn’t know my belief in love and mothering and adoption and Noah were all going to be revived in a shopping cart at Walmart.

I think I’ll thank God for His death, burial and resurrection in a new way this year. Because today I got to see...Easter.