How Will We Know?

I've shared about Memorial Box Monday that Linny started at A Place Called Simplicity (blog). I have not shared anything yet because, well, because I thought I covered them all. To my disbelief, one particular event was left unmentioned. I don't know how I could have forgotten something so amazing.

During our adoption process I wondered how we would know who the right child would be. How do you know? How do you choose? I worried about receiving a referral and "rejecting" the child or "denying" the child for one reason or another. In my heart, I felt our child would be the very first child referred to us. I truly believed that, yet I still worried. I would think about it so often, even to the point that anxiety would creep in. I prayed about our referral and in my prayer I would ask, "How will we know?"

As you could imagine, I experienced many sleepless nights. If I did manage to get some sleep I would be awaken by dreams. Two dreams that caught my attention were very similar in events. My first dream was a face of a white little girl with curly hair. I could see her face at a distance and in a quick moment it zoomed in to where all I could see were the details of her face at a close-up range. I could no longer see her hair, it was just her eyes her nose and her mouth. The nose in particular was the focus of the image. A few nights later, I had a similar dream, but this time the girl was black. I saw her face at a distance and noticed she had curly hair. In a quick flash, her face zoomed in close and all I could see were her eyes, nose and mouth. Again the nose was the focus.

I mentioned my dreams to Steve and told him I was worried that maybe something would be wrong with her nose. (Sometimes you just don't know what to think.) Did I worry? No. I was concerned. I felt that there was some significance to these dreams, but of course didn't know what.

The day came when our caseworker called and said she had photos of a referral. She told us she would send them via email. We were nervous and really didn't know how to act emotionally. We looked at the photos and could not help but notice that this little girl was a cutie pie. We spoke few words. I walked over to the couch and pondered. Is this our little girl? How do we know? Steve continued to open photos as I sat there on the couch, when all the sudden this photo zoomed up on the screen

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I knew this was our daughter. We were told that she was missing some teeth from reasons unknown. Because of this, they took a close-up photo of her. I can't be sure, but I don't think close-ups like this are taken for each child. This photo was specific to her case. God knew she was ours. He knew we wanted to be absolutely sure. He knew it would take two very similar dreams to get my attention (even if it meant a small paranoia about her nose). He knew how to point us in the right direction.

I can't believe I forgot to share that story earlier. Even more unbelievable, I never put a stone in my memorial vase.

By the way, I think she has the CUTEST nose.