Already? Not Yet

So, in trying to resemble a somewhat organized and functional family, we read to our children most nights. I slash my way through the Velveteen Rabbit and The Fraggles (what is your favorite children's story, by the way?) But, there are some nights when things progress differently as we head to bed, and someone (usually Anneke) accidentally slips U2’s “Vertigo” DVD in, and it doesn’t take long before the music is booming. I know that would seem somewhat of a stretch considering my oldest child is only seven, but it is our reality. Tonight was such a night.

Tonight we listened and watched Pride (In the Name of Love), which is preceded by a young girl reading the United Nations “Declaration of Human Rights.” I’m not sure how you feel about U2 or the UN, but tonight it hit me in a way that saw me covering up, lest my kids saw the tears in my eyes. Thankfully, we actually had to push pause as we soon realized my other daughter was answering a phone call from her kindergarten teacher (sorry Mrs. VB, we were just letting off some steam).

Why tears? Good question. I’ve been doing a lot of crying lately, and usually when I least expect it. But I think these were tears of contentedness, as opposed to tears of exhaustion, frustration, tiredness and confusion we experienced over the past month, knowing that tomorrow our youngest daughter Madelyn, who knows no existence beyond the walls of a hospital room, will be one month old.

Individually, the days have been very, very long. The euphoria of a Christmas Day baby seems distant, and her arrival in our own home seems a long ways off. It seems a little bit of the “already, but not yet” syndrome. Madelyn is here already, alive and healthy and tipping the scales at four pounds, but has not yet arrived at the place she will call home. Things are not yet the way they are supposed to be, or at least not the way we hoped they would be.

As I sat listening to the words of the Declaration of Human Rights, and the words to the song, I thought of Madelyn and all the things she has already received in her one month. I thought of her future, of toys and schools and sisters, of crawling, walking, and running, of reading, writing, and counting. I thought of things as I dream they should be one day.

And I couldn’t help but think of little Nyima Koroma. I think for the rest of my life, these two little girls will always be connected in my mind. One, my daughter; the other, a girl in need of a school. What does her future offer her. What opportunities will she be offered? Is she living in the “already, but not yet” of Sierra Leone? Can we possibly offer her a little taste of that Kingdom through a school? What might opportunities might be opened simply because this girl has something I assume will be there everyday of my child's life?

I remember a few hours before Madelyn was born, I said to Bev “I just want her to have a chance to live.” I was desperate in a way I couldn't of even pictured. I just wanted Madelyn to be born breathing; to just give her a chance to survive. I remember pleading with God for one day, I arrogantly remembering daring God to give her one day.

Madelyn has been given every chance and taken advantage of it. She has experienced the Kingdom of God through the blessings of doctors, nurses, family, friends, and people she will never know.

I wonder if in a few days or weeks or years, we will be able to say the same for Nyima Koroma. That we will be able to say we have given her every chance to make it, every opportunity to experience that Kingdom of God through the blessings of others. I dare us to build a school, I dare us to show a girl we will probably never meet that that Kingdom is alive and well, and that although things in Sierra Leone are not what they should be, Nyima gets to experience more of the “already” and less of the “not yet.”