Sing Over Us

It's been awhile since I've written any sort of update.  There truly just hasn't been a whole lot to tell.  We are nearing the end of the homestudy process! Yay! (Happy dance, here!) After our homestudy is finalized we'll have some immigration paperwork to take care of and then we'll be able to send off our dossier to China Then, we will eagerly await a log-in date with the Chinese government.  After we receive our log-in date we will be able to be matched with a child. (Big smile, here!) We are trying to be patient, but sometimes it is harder than others.  I don't think that I was totally prepared to already feel like we have a child that is half a world away. I know that as we see her picture in a few months that that feeling will just continue to grow and our urgency to get her quickly will intensify.  This feeling of her being half a world away hit me the other day as I was watching Jessa play....

A few days ago Jessa was in my bathroom and she was singing.  I was in my bedroom folding clothes, but I could watch and hear her well.  I noticed she was singing to herself.  She likes to do this, but this time I noticed that she was singing a silly song that the boys and I made up for her.  You see when Jessa was born she was a very bald baby.  Practically no hair at all and we all thought it was adorable.  She still doesn't have much and she's cute as a button.  One day when she was about 6 months old or so, she was very fussy and I was trying to calm her down by singing.  None of the traditional favorites, "Jesus Loves Me", "Rockabye Baby", "The Wheels on the Bus", were working, so I started making something up just to see if it would surprise her into stopping her crying and listening.  The boys were playing in the room too and somehow we came up with these silly lyrics, "Myyyy sweet Jessa bug, She's the one we call our little bald, bald baby!".  Lyrical genius at its best folks! It worked, though!! And for months if she was upset one of us could sing that song and she would quiet right down.  We don't sing it quite as much anymore because thankfully she doesn't fuss quite as much and truthfully the little smartie knows that if I sing it now I'm trying to get her to go to sleep and she goes on high alert. But a few days ago when I noticed her singing, it was this song that she was singing to herself.  Over and over again.  Sometimes she'd use her name and sometimes she'd use other family members' names.  It was especially funny when she sung my brother's name, "My sweet, Jawad (Jarrod), he's the one we call our little bald, bald baby!" I'm sure he wouldn't have appreciated being called  a bald, bald baby! Ha! After I chuckled to myself, though, a thought began to sink in.  We sang that silly song over her in her time of trouble.  We sang it so that she would know that she was safe and that she was loved.  Now she knows it well enough that she can sing the song back to herself and apply it to others.......Isn't this what God does for us?  Zephaniah 3:17 says,

"The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing." 

The Lord God rejoices over each of us with singing! He sings over us in his great redemptive love.  He sings his song over us so that we can sing the song for ourselves.  He sings so that we know that we know that we know that He loves us. He patiently sings, until we know that we are loved and safe, He sings.  Then we in turn are able to go and sing to others of His great love.  What a great comfort.  

Then wrapped up in this moment I prayed that God would be there in China, where we can't be yet.  That he would sing over our baby.  That she would know even before she knows us, that she is loved and that she is safe.  That she would know that she has a family that is waiting and even better that she has a Savior and that He delights in her.  That he is a warrior who is present and will save.  That he will rejoice over her with singing.  

Jim told me that he heard this song on the radio the other day.  It pretty well sums it up.  Merry Christmas! Click here to listen to Third Day's Merry Christmas. :)