Final Thoughts in China

In a few short hours we leave to drive to Hong Kong, where we will spend the night and fly home tomorrow at Noon.  Due to the travel (with 2 children and a baby!) this will be our last blog until we get home and settled.  I've decided to keep blogging, so those interested can follow Grace's surgeries and our family life, but I likely won't blog everyday!  I did find it to be very therapeutic and an easy way to update the ones we love.  And a fun way to send pictures too.  So, if you were following to "watch" the adoption process, this will be all.  But, if you are inclined, stay tuned...you never know what Barnett bits and pieces will bring you!


A week or two before we left for China, I was talking on the phone with a young woman who was pretty mad at God for the suffering she had endured.  She wanted me to explain suffering so that she could be "OK" with God's nature.  It just didn't seem fair.  It sometimes isn't.  
I told her if I could do that, I would be a whole lot wealthier than I am and likely on the New York Times Bestseller list.  She laughed, knowing this was a true statement.  There will always be some mystery in suffering, because God's ways are higher than ours.  We will only understand in part on this side.  And, that is really OK.  Because the other side is far greater, far better and things will be made right.  I could only talk to this young woman from a place of what I know to be true.  What I know to be true in the Bible and how that matches what I know to be true in my own life.  God is God.  He has unlimited power and rights.  He is in charge.  He is sovereign.  While He can certainly take out cities and nations for disobedience, He also is the perfect Father and never, NEVER takes pleasure in His own children hurting.  His own children suffering.  He is in charge, but He has given a measure of control to the enemy for a time and given us unlimited control in our own lives.  As a parent, this is the perfect scenario.  It is the joy of my heart when my children respond righteously or tell me they love me because they chose to do so.  Not because I programmed them or forced them.  Because they wanted to.  There is a "divine tension" that exists in suffering, God's absolute sovereignty and our free will.   I don't understand it all but I know it exists to grow me and not stunt my growth.
Almighty God, who I know and serve, is a good Father.  His mercies never end and His lovingkindness outlasts His anger for His children.  Always.  There is always a way out and it is always available because of Jesus.
So, when I talked to this young woman about her suffering, she could easily look at the suffering that she invited and the suffering that "seemed to come out of nowhere."  If the "out of nowhere" looks like killing, stealing, destroying then it doesn't look like God.   Before this phone conversation, this young woman may have looked at my new daughter and asked, "How can a good God do that?"  The overwhelming and overriding thought that has stayed on my mind and Cory's too is that our God says, "Let the little children come unto me."  Sickness, disease, birth defects, sin....they are all products of that garden spot decision with the two trees and have snowballed ever since.  But, here is the good news.  The overwhelming and overriding thought that God works EVERYTHING for good for those that love Him.  EVERYTHING.  Even cleft lip and palate.  It is not His nature to strike a young child and get some sort of sick pleasure from giving them a disabling birth defect.  No, holiness can't stand there.  God is good and does not manipulate and play games.  It is so contrary to His nature.  BUT, He can allow it and work it for good because that IS His nature.
What if Grace's cleft lip and palate are her ticket out of here?  Out of here and into a family.  Even better, out of here and into a relationship with the living God?  Yes, you might say, but what about the others?  Well, what if they have tickets out too that are just waiting to be bought and purchased for them as well?  What if God wants to work all of this for not only her good, but immeasurably more than she can ask or imagine?  Not because we are that for her, but because HE is. Yes, He loves her that much to move a family to move heaven and earth to go after her in what is the craziest thing we have ever done.  That's the God we know.
When we were visiting a temple in Xi'an, our guide picked up really quickly that we were a Christian family.  We politely opted not to be blessed by the monk or have our zodiac sign read.  Just a personal conviction for our family.  As we walked around looking at the different buildings and statues, I saw Carter go up to Grace, who was being carried by Cory and whisper, "Don't worry Grace, we serve the One True Living God."  Please understand, this wasn't an elitist comment by our son.  He is only 9 and takes NOTHING at face value...I am pretty certain that at times past, he has thought we were off our rocker and crazy for what we believe and how we live.  That's OK, we trust the Lord with him.  And, Carter has had bits of suffering along the way too, but has learned and is learning that God is real and active and interested with a great abounding love for His children.  His Carter.  Nine year olds don't whisper that into the ear of their adopted sister unless there is an element of reality there.   Real relationship that is tangible.  Real relationship that is saving.

So, we prepare to leave China, knowing that Father God is working all things for Grace's good...every piece of her story for good and that He does make all things new.  He is making all things new.  Not just her little face, not just her new family, but her new heart and new inheritance in HIS family.  No, He never leaves us as orphans, but grafts us into such a new place as sons and daughters.  Such sweet grace for us all.


Daddy and the crew in China on his birthday at a good Mexican restaurant!!  I'm serious, it was good!  And, Grace likes rice and black beans A LOT so she can definitely find food in San Antonio!