"You are such a lucky boy! Lucky, lucky, lucky!" she gushed over Bogdan upon meeting him for the first time.
I mumbled the response expected of me, "We're the lucky ones." But it felt awkward and stilted.
We are blessed to have him, beyond blessed actually, on so many different levels. It's not even that I hate the word, "lucky," although I do. Something didn't sit right with her pronouncement. She's not the first. I've heard said before that our son is lucky to have been adopted by us, and it always makes me uneasy.
I pondered her words and my response to them for quite awhile before the reason behind my discomfort took shape.
He's not lucky. In fact he was, what many would consider, decidedly unlucky. Given an extra chromosome, abandoned at birth by those who should have protected and loved him, open heart surgery with complications, the list goes on.
He is finally being given what is rightfully his, what most children in this country receive without fanfare...love, security, family, quality nutrition, medical attention...acceptance. That doesn't make him lucky.
It makes him redeemed.
His story, once about rejection, loss, abandonment, is now about redemption. The ending has been rewritten.
Healing and restoration have begun in earnest, but that early trauma and loss have left their mark. We have no way of knowing how much of his health and function will be restored. He has come so far in four short months, but there is much to do and learn.
The tragedy is that he shouldn't have to start over at three-and-a-half. He shouldn't have to learn to understand a new language, to appreciate a new cuisine, to learn to love as family those who were once strangers.
That is not lucky.
But he is learning those things and so much more. He was not left to just exist. His future is ripe with potential instead of assurance of eventual institutionalization. He is an orphan no more.
He is known and loved.
That is redemption, and God, not lady luck, is the author of that.
The tragedy is that he shouldn't have to start over at three-and-a-half. He shouldn't have to learn to understand a new language, to appreciate a new cuisine, to learn to love as family those who were once strangers.
That is not lucky.
But he is learning those things and so much more. He was not left to just exist. His future is ripe with potential instead of assurance of eventual institutionalization. He is an orphan no more.
He is known and loved.
That is redemption, and God, not lady luck, is the author of that.
Awesome. Redemption is sweet, incredible, and amazing. I praise God for using people like you to show HIS awesomeness.
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