From a Child

I know I haven’t blogged in a long time! Lots has happened and lots is coming up. Let me give you a quick update: David and I are in the midst of a home study in preparation to adopt, we are going to Africa in June on a missions trip, and we hope to adopt a child from Uganda. There you go! More details to come…

I wanted to blog about Madeline today. There’s been much talk of Africa in our house. We spend a lot of time looking at pictures of people from Africa and talking about what mommy and daddy are doing. Madeline understands things pretty well for a 4 year-old. She talks about our child in Africa, and prays every night for him or her. She also has put in her request for a baby girl, and has promised she will change the diapers and take care of her

Today I was online reading a blog of someone serving in Uganda. I passed my computer to David so he could read a blog post about a sweet 4 year-old little boy who had passed away due to severe malnutrition. He was basically the same age as Madeline and weighed about 14 pounds when he died.

As David was passing the computer back to me, Madeline wanted to know what we were looking at. For a split-second I questioned whether I should show her the picture. She’s so young, maybe it’s not appropriate to show her a picture like that?

Instead I chose to show her the pictures and I explained to her that the little boy was her age, and how kids in other parts of the world didn’t have food like we do. She had just gotten done eating an ice cream sundae, and I explained to her that kids like that little boy didn’t have any food to eat, let alone special treats. I don’t even think I bothered to tell her that he had died. She asked me a question, and I honestly can’t even remember what she asked, I only remember that I heard her choking back tears. Not the tears I’m used to hearing when she is whining about wanting something, or upset that she didn’t get her way. These were genuine tears, coming straight from her heart. I glanced over at her and saw tiny, little tears forming in her eyes.

It was then that I realized I wasn’t stealing her child-like innocence by showing her that picture. I was just giving her a chance to show it. She hasn’t been hardened by our society, or jaded by all of the ridiculous stuff on TV. She is still innocent, and showing her that picture and explaining to her the truth of what other people are going through only allowed her to feel those genuine emotions deep inside of her.

Most of us have seen TV commercials with pictures of emaciated children asking for our support, but most of us continue to eat our snack and wait for our show to come back on without giving it a second thought. I’m so thankful for the empathy and concern that Madeline was born with. I know she was born with an extra dose of it, and I pray that we will be able to encourage her to grow in these gifts that she has, and that she won’t become hardened by life.

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