Happy Mother's day, to all of us

Do you see my new picture in my blog title.

That's Jack's foster Mom holding him. Do you see the way her hand is gripping his arm. Do you see the way he's looking up at her.

I am there, in fact I took the picture sitting across the table from them. At that moment, the moment the picture was snapped, it is clear who is the mother.

As far as his foster mom was concerned and as far as Jack was concerned, she was his Mommy in that moment.

I wanted to use that picture because when I look at it I see the beauty of adoption.

It's complicated, there are steps you have to go through, there are so many people involved, there are mixed emotions then and years down the road for many of the participants.

And yet, it's simple. Jack's mother gave birth to him, she loved him the best way she knew how and decided to place him with a family that she could not give him. Jack's next mother took him home from the hospital and cared for him, dealing with the stresses of feeding a baby with a cleft lip and palate, caring for him through surgery, loving him fully. Jack's final mother went to Korea to find her son, I watched as he cried for the mother that was now gone and I earned his trust and love, I allowed him to steal my heart, experiencing a new love I had never known.

We are all three his mother. When I grief for the mothers Jack has lost, no matter how hard I try, I cry for her. The one in the picture holding him like that. She was perhaps the bravest of us all, she loved Jack, her son for a brief moment, as much as she loved her children.

Happy Mother's day, to all the mothers, the ones who give birth to their children even when everyone else tells you that it would just be easier to "have it taken care of", to the mothers who bring children into their homes to raise as their own even though they know in the end they will experience heart break, and to the mothers who are bold enough to trust God when He nudges you down the path of adoption. The Lord will make your path straight before you and along the way you will find blessings you never dreamed of.