Part 2: Coming Home

If you are just joining me in my How God Brought Us to Luke series, and thinking: Part ???? Please go to this page and start at the top. Trust me...it will all make more sense when you start there!

So, we knew.

Knew we would had another China-grown McClelland waiting for us. But this time the details were so much more fuzzy. With Lily we had known so much!

Gender: Girl.
Age: Zero to three.
Special need: Limb difference (most likely).
Name: Lily Rose.
When: 5 years (gotta read Lily's story to understand this!).

Now we had nothing except where...China.

We also had a couple of new pieces of info burning in our brains. We had met 2 families in China who were adopting 2 children at once! The Chinese authorities had just changed policy to permit this if one of the children qualified as "Special Focus!" Upon our return we also learned that they were just beginning to allow families who had completed an adoption within the previous 12 months to adopt a Special Focus child on the previous dossier! Whoa! That is a major headache saver!

So with all these tidbits swimming in our brains and our hearts burning for those left behind, we began praying and seeking the Lord for His will and His timing.

When we got home, I was still receiving many emails about children waiting for parents. Those whose hearts were breaking like ours...for those left behind...were advocating for the voiceless.

One of those emails...just days after our return...spurred us to action. It had the faces of 2 little ones...a boy and a girl...with limb differences who needed families. If their agency would have let us, we'd have brought them home in a heartbeat.

But God knew they weren't Luke!

It was too soon, they said. So, the Lord closed that door.

And now, I look back and see it was too soon for many reasons. One of which is He had some heart work He wanted to do in us to prepare us for His plan.

In the weeks that followed, He began to stretch and break our hearts not only for the ones left behind, but more specifically for those who would were the least likely to be adopted due to circumstances that were neither their fault nor under their control. Their "advanced" age or their more significant special need(s)...or both.



In Him,