Esperanza

(Begun on September 13)

My Dear Little Sister,

As I lay here on the couch this evening (the rest of the house asleep) cradling your precious little body all bundled in blankets against mine—as I listen to your labored breathing and feel the movement of your chest with each rise and fall, my mind wanders over the events this day, and it is hard to contain my emotions. But please let me explain to you why, precious one.

You must know how loved you are. Yes, by us, your new family. But even more so by your Creator. Let me tell you about this day. When we left San Pedro La Laguna at 7:30 this morning to go get you in Quiché, we thought we knew how our day’s plans would pan out. Unbeknownst to us, there were multiple obstacles ahead. But your Creator is also your Provider and Protector; He knew what was to come and He made a way. First, there was a sinkhole that cut off our main route, but God provided us with an alternative route. Then an Independence Day parade left us stuck on a street (on our alternative route), but God provided us with a police escort through bumpy dirt roads to PGN. After much longer than it “should have been”, we arrived at the hospital. Anxious to meet you, we stood in the waiting area as the woman at the front desk tried to contact the correct person for the process of signing you over to your new family. We were informed that the three people that had authority to sign her over had all left the hospital and the time of their return was not known. We were at our wit’s end, but your Father was in control, and within the hour, arrangements were made for the correct staff to be there.

Suddenly, it was time. We were lead past all the others in the waiting room, down a hall, and into a small divided section of the hospital. As we walked, the nurses pointed to a room on the right and said, “This is the room that she was in, but we had to move her over here.” One woman opened a door up ahead and to the left. We stood in the hall and looked in the small room as she opened a door within the room and to our dismay, pulled your small rolling bed from a storage closet. I was horrified, but at the moment, my greatest desire was just to see your beautiful face. I wanted to meet you. The nurse pulled back your blanket, and gently waved us into the room, her expression difficult to read. Your new mom and dad (although you couldn’t yet know) stepped in first, and I followed closely behind.

The moment I saw you, my chest tightened and sorrow fell heavily on me. The emotion was almost more than I could bear…

…Because you were beautiful, and I saw that our time with you may be short.

We gathered close and tried to take it all in. Daddy asked to hold you and the nurse wrapped you in blankets and gently passed you to his arms. We cried silently, trying to contain our emotion but our welling tears betraying us. You were so small, your condition so rare…so severe.
Why?

We know facts such as you are believed to have Kleeblattschadel syndrome, or cloverleaf skull syndrome, and your skull fused too early leaving little room for your brain’s growth in combination with your internal hydrocephalus. We know more detailed descriptions of this condition. We know the facts, but we still didn’t know the answer to our question: Why?

Precious baby girl, we still don’t know. And, likely, we never will. But, there are some things that we do know. You are perfect. Your Creator fashioned you in the womb, and He delights in you, His treasured and precious creation. He brought you into the world through your birth mother and He carried you (through a long process) to the family that He had planned for you from before the moment you were conceived. In His great love for you, He provided for you long before we were able to care for you or even knew of your existence by leading your birth mother to a hospital that had nurses and staff that would love you and care for you and cry as they handed you over to your family because of how hard it was to let you go. (We later learned that these wonderful women had moved you to that closet to protect you from all of the hungry eyes that would wander down your hall for a peek. You were being loved!) And then our Almighty God had arranged for our group home to receive our license only weeks before this so that we could receive that treasured call saying that you would be joining our family…so that we could take this crazy trip to meet you and carry you home.

Now you are here. We have given you the name “Ruth” due to the love of the nurses and the name by which they called you and “Esperanza” due to the hope that is found in our beloved Creator, Savior, and God. You, Ruth Esperanza, are here in our home where you presently have four brothers, seven sisters, and one mommy and daddy surrounding you and loving on you every day. You are in a home in which Jesus Christ is acknowledged as Lord, and where each of us seek to know and love Him more every day. You are in a home of love where there will never be a shortage of snuggles, hugs, and kisses waiting for you.

And that seems right to me. You see, there are moments when a hold you close to me and I shake with sobs. I weep because I know that we may not have you with us for long, and I feel that you or we are being robbed of something, But our patient God has been giving me a peak into the pig picture of His perfect plan, and I am learning (very slowly) that my perspective is all wrong. You remember how I said that God provided for you by carrying you to those nurses who would love and care for you on the way here? Well, little Esperanza, our Father just reminded me that you are still on the way home. As much as this feels right to me, you have something far better waiting for you. And just as God let you be a blessing to those nurses as they had the opportunity to help carry you “home”, He in His infinite goodness and wisdom has given you to us as a blessing as we get to carry you Home!

What does this mean for us, you ask? Well, we will continue to lavish you with love and snuggles and hugs and kisses every day for as long as we are allowed. We will love, knowing that our love is imperfect and that true Love anxiously awaits you. And we will offer snuggles, hugs, and kisses knowing that the hands and arms of our Creator long to gather you up in His Fatherly love and give you snuggles like you’ve never known before. You are almost home…but you are not there yet.

I can’t promise that there won’t be moments that I forget. I can’t promise that there won’t be moments where my emotions and my limited perspective get the best of me and I try to cling to you. But there are some promises that I can make:

I promise to always come back to those promises of our God.
I promise to love you to the greatest extent that I know how for as long as I am able.
And hardest but most necessarily of all, I promise to let you go and hand you over with sincere joy (even through tears) when our Father extends His arms for you and says with a gentle smile, “It’s time”.

I am crying even as I write to you that final promise, but I can make that promise with sincerity because I am truly learning to know and fall in love with our Savior, and I know without a doubt that He is Good. And I know that His faithfulness stands whether or not we know the answers to the whys. I can think of no safer place to leave you than in His hands.

Come, precious little Esperanza. Let’s snuggle as we walk you Home to Daddy.

With Love, Your Big Sister