Until Morning

"I pray to God - my life a prayer - 

and wait for what He'll say and do.  

My life's on the line before God, my Lord, 

waiting and watching til morning, 

waiting and watching til morning."  

- Psalm 130:5

It's Gotcha Day.  But where is she?  I'm looking everywhere, but I can't find her.  They are supposed to bring her to me here, but no one comes.  I check my paperwork one more time and my heart skips a beat - I am waiting in the wrong building!  

I run for her.  

I push past vendors and crowds of people on the street until I see a gate up ahead, and I know this is the place.  It's a large circular gate used for crowd control, and a group of women stand in the center, fussing over a little girl.  They are scanning the faces of the people who walk by, asking the same question over and over again...  

"Where is her mother?"

I can tell that they are going to leave; that they do not think I am coming.  I yell out her Chinese name as I run towards them, and her eyes meet mine from a thousand miles away.  

She heard me.  

She smiles in her usual way, as if she knows a secret that the whole world has missed out on, and things begin to move in slow motion.

They bring her to the edge of the gate.  I reach for her, and she leans towards me over the rail.  The sound of traffic disappears as she places her hand on my cheek and says two words...

"Piaoliang Mama."

I am mesmerized by her beauty, and I tell her what I have known to be true since the moment I first saw her picture...

"Wo ai ni.  Ni shi wo de xingan baobei neur."

She smiles even bigger, 
and then she is gone.  

The sound of my alarm clock rips her from my arms, and I can't even open my eyes until the prayer has left my lips...  

The Lord is the Strength of my Life. 

These words whispered into dawn's darkness are the only way to survive the transition from dream to reality that repeats itself so often in This Wait.

I am hidden in His Pavilion; I am set upon a Rock.  The reality of this is that His hand is upon her, and in this knowledge is where I find rest.

I pour my coffee, I drink in the silence of my morning time with the Lord...and I wait.  
I get to be the one to wait for her.  To petition for her.  I get to.  I get to.  I get to.  I get to.

I Get To.  

And I thank Him.

Because I am her Pretty Mama - "Piaoliang Mama".  

This is what she calls me as she points to my pictures.  

That detail is not part of a dream 

- it's real - 

and the thought of her whispering those words 
as she turns the pages of her photo book is enough ... 

Piaoliang de nuer,

Wo ai ni.  Ni shi wo de xingan baobei neur.

Wo lai gei ni.

Pretty Daughter,

I love you.  You are my cherished daughter.

I am coming for you.

- Piaoliang Mama