this is really about that

First thing this morning I packed cereal in plastic baggies, put milk in sippy cups and took the boys on a walk. The air was bright and fresh with dew; you could still feel the sunrise. Those are my favorite winter hours.

We have had unseasonably warm weather here for several weeks now, so as we walked through our neighborhood we took stock of all the signs of early spring: cherry blossoms, tulip shoots, blooming rhododendron bushes. It was beautiful, but sad too, because I don't think winter is over. Next month will probably not be kind to these springy things. Later, while the boys napped, I wrote a little 'stream-of-consciousness' poem about it. Then I read it back to myself... and realized that it was about more than flowers. It was about our stage of the adoption process.

Here is the poem:



More Than These

It is early February, but you wouldn't know it.
Four straight weeks of April weather and nobody knows what to do,
least of all the rhododendrons.
What is it like, opening a bloom and knowing
four weeks from now its pistil will be frozen to a broken petal?
Do you do it just because you can?
In February it is joy and beauty, early and lovely
but with a bright sadness;
March will surely kill it.
Why don't you leave it alone today?
Tuck it tightly in the bud,
safe and sheltered until true April sunbreaks tease each blossom
from the wrap, in good time.
That's not your way.
Your ways are not our ways.
Is there love in the coming freeze? Surely you love us more than these.

At times I feel a bit like that doomed rhododendron blossom. As I read the profiles of waiting children and see their faces, an unseasonable warmth makes me open up and (even though I know better) fall in love. It may be months until I have any business falling in love. In the weeks ahead, a bitter cold may come -- a child I love may not be mine. It is not time... but I feel so ready. And in the midst of all of this, God still is love.