FEELINGS ABOUT FOUR SONS

                                                                            (In Belize 2001)

For some time I have wanted to record some feelings I have toward the younger sons in our Belizean family. Yet I am not sure who I would want to address this to as the feelings are very personal, perhaps even embarrassingly so. Probably others around me also like these kids. They recognize the alertness, friendliness, and vigor of their personalities. Perhaps some even notice that they are fairly manageable, particularly for their stage of life. Especially the four brothers are so teaming with energy that if you are not too old or tired, you have to enjoy seeing them in their better moments, which is most of the time. Ah, there could be a catch there. Because they also have their impossible times where a little offense can set one off crying, and there is little one can do to shorten the hurt feelings that have occurred. How can anyone enjoy them, or even tolerate them then without irritation when the crying goes on and on? Usually I can anyway.

I suppose the first time I picked up the second oldest when he was about 3 years old and he leaned so snugly onto my chest, I realized something special for him in my heart, a kind of instant bonding. Then this year it was the oldest, who is so loyal, intimate, and at times jolly, that he seems like the son I never had, who should have followed in our birth family after our youngest daughter who I often think of when I am with him. Finally, there is the youngest, only a year and a half old, who loves to be picked up, and sometimes just can’t stop burying his face affectionately into my neck. He has responded so well to my care for him. When I lift him up from the little overwhelming things in his experiences he is soon comforted and can forget his crises. He knows I care and that he can come to me anytime, and he does. The three year old is also special, even as he experiences highs and lows frequently. He loves jumping from the high places, and sometimes from my knees, as far as he can. He may wonder when no means no. He sings and sings the same line vigorously over and over again, and learns parts of new songs quickly. The three youngest already sing a trio, and last night the 3 year old was beating drums with his younger brother clapping through all songs from the March for Jesus CD.

What am I trying to say about these children? They are in my heart day and night. It is so easy to pray for them as they lie down at night in pairs. They may repeat the prayer line by line, especially the next oldest. “Pray for us,” his older brother said when I asked them once of what comes next as they lay down. When I said God is Good, the youngest, who doesn’t yet talk, made sounds recognizable of imitating those words. In only the few months we have had these kids, they have developed so much love and feeling and self esteem. When their mother comes here, they may hug her, but when she takes them home for a spell, they soon want to return here. They give me so much that it is so easy to love them continually. I pray for them every day. May God wrap his love around them even so as I do. I can bear with them their inexpressible disappointments, where it could be so frustrating not to know the problem they are facing. Not that I am not slightly tempted at times to loose patience. But their tenderness helps me to be calm until their crises has passed. I wish I could have them until they grow up. But they are still free from being needed for my fulfillment. I just want them to have the full life that my other children have, or more. That goal carries me on, what ever their future will be. I just want to love them until they are safely in another home where parents are younger, and committed as we are to carry them on into faith and maturity. I love them with the love that God has placed in my heart, so that they may be his children forever, and though mine for a while.