Day 37: Letting Go for Good

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16–17

I’ve gotten a lot of parenting credit I don’t deserve over the fact that Missy and I had an uncommonly smooth adoption transition. And while I’d like to think she connected with me so quickly because I’m such a good mama, the truth is our relatively fast and deep mother-daughter bond is Fifi’s fruit. Fifi is Missy’s great-aunt. She’s the sickly, gentle, huge-hearted saint who took my little girl in when her lovely biological mama was too sick from AIDS (which she never knew she had because, like far too many impoverished people barely surviving in Third World countries, Marie had never been diagnosed) to care for her. Marie was simply too weak to produce milk, much less scrounge for food for her infant. Too cold to snuggle her daughter at night and provide necessary warmth. So Fifi stepped in to rescue Missy and is the main reason my baby girl survived infancy. Fifi is also the one who championed me to be her new mama, because though she had stepped in to care for Missy soon after she was born, she’s elderly and suffers with serious health problems herself, so she didn’t have the capacity to do so long term. Missy needed a forever mama, and Fifi helped make that happen. In spite of the fact that I was an American stranger who, if approved to adopt her beloved great-niece, would take her to a land far, far away filled with four-wheel drive trucks and fried food called Tennessee.

The first time I met Fifi she smiled shyly and then placed this scowling toddler named Missy into my arms and said to her firmly in Creole, “This is your white mama.” Both Missy and I protested; I wanted to give Missy ample time to warm up to me and Missy was obviously alarmed by my pale ampleness. But Fifi just smiled again shyly, crossed her arms, and quietly refused to take the indignant two-and-a-half-year-old back into her embrace. It took a few minutes for Missy to quit trying to wriggle out of my arms but when she realized she didn’t have a choice in the matter, she grudgingly relented to let me feed her beans and rice.

The next day, at Fifi’s insistence, Missy allowed me to hold her hand and walk around the village for an hour. The second night I was there, Missy condescended to sit on my lap during a stifling hot worship service, after Fifi gave her a very direct you’d-better-mind-me-right-now-young-lady look. With each new baby-step milestone in our budding relationship, Fifi’s smile got wider and she’d nod with approval. When I hugged her fiercely before leaving at the end of that first of many visits, all the while babbling about how grateful I was, she replied simply, “I love you, praise Jesus”—one of the only English phrases she knew.

Over the next two years those five words became our regular conversation. During long, hot, bumpy bus rides together from their village to Port-au-Prince for a doctor’s checkup or an appointment with the US Embassy, Fifi would hold my hand the entire two- to three-hour trip and repeat softly, “I love you, praise Jesus” every so often. When I tried to engage her with my pitiable attempts to speak Creole (I still have several introduction to Creole books in my library and an “easy” English-Creole app on my phone but much like Frenchy in the musical Grease, I proved to be a language school drop-out), she’d nod and listen patiently but would inevitably respond with, “I love you, praise Jesus.”

Finally, on April 14, 2014, when I hugged Fifi with tears streaming down my face, Missy sleeping in my arms, and clutching a manila folder with Haitian and American documents stating that I was now legally Missy’s adoptive mother, she squeezed both of my hands, looked deep into my eyes and said again, “I love you, praise Jesus.” By then I knew what she really meant by those five words was, “I’m entrusting you to take good care of her. It’s breaking my heart to know I’ll probably only see her again a few more times before I die, but I know this is what’s best for her. Remember that she likes her mangos on the firm side and she loves to be sung to sleep. Don’t let her be lazy in school, or be disrespectful, or eat with her mouth open, or bite her fingernails or forget how very much I love her. Okay, I’m going to kiss her head one last time and try to memorize her face and her precious little girl smell and the shape of her toes before I turn my head. And please know the reason I won’t watch you drive away toward the airport isn’t because I’m ambivalent . . . it’s so I won’t chase the van and beg you not to leave quite yet.”

Fifi willingly gave up her claim on my daughter’s heart so that my daughter could live. Hers is one of the most sacrificial affections I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing. How much more so is our heavenly Father’s affection for us?

The situations are obviously different between Missy and Jesus, I know. But after experiencing that day with Fifi, I can’t help but be amazed that God willingly watched His only begotten Son depart from Glory knowing that He would be pierced for our transgressions. With the full knowledge that Jesus would soon scream in agony, “Dad, Dad, why have You forsaken Me?” God also knew He would have to choose not to lift a finger to help His incarnate child when He cried out from that cursed tree. Because in order for His image-bearers to live, His boy had to die. That God would part ways—even momentarily—with His own child. For you. For me. For all of us. What sacrifice!

• Has God ever prompted you to sacrificially step back from a relationship with someone you love for their own good? Maybe with one of your children as they prepare to leave home and become more independent?
• If so, how did you respond?
• Where might God be calling you to give up something precious to you for the greater good?