LOOKING BACK NOW

I believe there are moments in our lives that stay with us, and their impact sometimes only resonates with us later on when we are ready to have the lesson sink in. I believe these moments only make sense when they are supposed to, when the weight of them can confidently be carried.

When I was in pre-primary, my best friend's name was Vuyolwethu.

I never thought of our friendship as different to any others I had seen in my class, except that she was my first best friend. I loved her. I felt so proud that she would choose to be my friend. Truth be told, I was immediately drawn to her because she was as tall as I was, and she made me feel like I fitted in, she made me feel safe.

I remember so clearly a particular day we saw each other in a store. We ran to one another and embraced. I only realised that our friendship was different when I saw the expressions on the faces of the people around us, as they stood and stared at us in the store that day.

Some faces in the crowd smiled, others showed their disapproval.

I felt embarrassed. I stepped away from her. I was only 5 or 6 years old, but I wish I had known better than to let other people's feelings affect mine to the extent that it changed the way I treated my friend that day.

Looking back now, I think God was preparing me for future moments like this.

When I was a little girl, I had one of those typical plastic dolls. I can clearly remember colouring in my doll's cheeks with a brown marker because I thought she was too pale.

I know this may sound silly to some, but looking back now, I think God was preparing me for something much bigger than I could understand at that age.

The pram in this photo used to be mine.

Nova is pushing it in the house I grew up in. Down the same passage I used to push my doll when I was a little girl. I tied that teddy in the same way I had done with my doll a million times.

I couldn't have imagined this image in my wildest dreams, and I am undone.

I'm undone at the thought of how intricate the story of my life is, how intentional God is with the details. I'm undone at the thought of how far back in the timeline of my life God would begin the story I'm living out now.

I am in awe of how certain moments I experienced over 20 years ago are starting to make sense to me.

This just confirms what I already knew, but what I need Nova to understand when she is old enough to: She was never a secondary plan, never our solution to infertility.

So many people ask me if I think we will have our own children one day. What I need people to know is that Nova is my own child. I know what they mean when they ask this, but words hurt. I've figured out how to (most of the time) guard my heart against the danger of words, but she is still so little, and so naïve to the harshness of this world.

Nova may not be our biological child, but she is our own child. Saying this does not erase her birth mother from her story, I wouldn't want to do that. But asking us this question (in this particular way) may suggest that she was our back-up plan, our only way of becoming parents, and that we may only feel completely fulfilled when we have a biological child. This is simply not true. Adoption made us parents. Nova is my first child in the same way a biological child would have been my first child - she made me a mother.

She has always been intended, there was always a place for her in our lives. A place in the shape of her in my heart. God started to carve that place for my little girl when I, myself was still one, and non-the-wiser to His grandeur.

I find such peace knowing that God is not surprised by our circumstances: our victories, our losses, our confusion and our frustration. I'm grateful that I am able to take a step back and look at the picture of my life a little more clearly, and that now I can see His hand in certain moments of my life when I was sure I was alone. I was never alone, I was just isolated by my own plan for my life and what I believed my life should look like.

I'm encouraged that the story isn't over yet, that in years to come I will again look back and feel overwhelmed by His goodness. At how marvellous His plans are, at His beautiful ability to make it all come together so wonderfully. And so, right now, I'm trying to take it all in: His majesty and grandeur.

The Master Author of our story.