Sometimes I don’t even know how to pray through this adoption. I picture Noemi in my mind’s eye and become a bumbling mess. Sure, I pray for her safety, for her growth, for her happiness and for her to come home quickly; but beyond the “standards” there is something much greater that I have to depend on the Holy Spirit to interpret for me. It’s a pang of sorts. A pang of being separated from one’s hope for so long and then being gifted with a photo and a name. I see this hope revealed in still pictures. No sound or smell, a separation (of sorts) of the senses. I attach to her through the silent images and my imagination alone. She grows. She changes. I study the photos some more. I wonder if she smells like sweet potatoes behind her ears and how heavy she'll feel in my arms. I try to feel the texture of her hair between my fingers and the jiggle of her roly-poly legs. I picture how her toes must curl when I kiss the soles of her feet. The giggle I have created for her plays over and over again like a song on repeat when I close my eyes to sleep at night. And after the giggle dies down and the silent movies of someday-coming romps in the backyard go blank, I attempt to pray. Sometimes I come up short. But I believe that God knows the junk of my heart; he knows my aches and my joys and my anxieties and my hopes and how they all point to one beautiful creature. I don’t really need to say a word, because he has already heard my prayer. For it is in this meager space that I sense the Spirit; and that is enough.
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
Romans 8:26
