Rupa

Every once in awhile, I take out a certain Valentine card and remember. 

I remember that we make our plans but God directs our steps.

I remember why it was important to raise our children to love others.

I remember, we are not our failures.

This is a picture from 1988 with a small bio of a little girl in India named Rupa. Our family was adopting Rupa. She never came home to us but she changed the direction of our lives forever. When we first started our adoption journey, we had three wonderful little boys and wanted to adopt one baby girl. We were open to any race or nationality as long as she was a baby. After multiple failed starts and thousands of dollars lost, we gave up, until someone sent us this photo of Rupa. Bob and I talked with our little boys about adopting an older sister. Once we received three yes' from the boys, we quickly moved forward. This is a picture of the envelope written by eight year old John to Rupa. 

A few months before Rupa was to come home to us, John asked if he could send this Valentine to her.

Even though John had never met Rupa, he loved her. He understood love at eight better than many adults. He understood it was a commitment and a choice not just a feeling. And because he saw we were all in, he was all in. I cried when my sweet eight year old handed this Valentine to me. It said everything I ever needed to know about his heart and it encouraged me that we must be doing ok as parents. Because honestly, there were many times we failed as a mom and dad and those failures were hard to not focus on. 

Rupa never made it home to us but she had opened our hearts to the idea of adopting an older child which led us to Rachel and Belen. I will forever be grateful for the journey that brought our girls home to us. It wasn't a pain-free passage but truthfully, it was worth every scar.

I saved this Valentine for a purpose. I look at it as a reminder to pray for Rupa who would now be forty-five. I talk to God about her and have ever since I first saw her picture. 

I also am reminded that as parents and now grandparents, who we are and how we live makes a much bigger impression on our children and grandchildren than our failures do. For that, I am eternally grateful.