By Your Side...

(Picture of Tedi and I at our Embassy Appointment)

I was listening to one of my favorite songs, "By Your Side" by Tenth Avenue North. I wanted to share the lyrics with you. In January, after we saw Tedi's picture for the first time, I really got into this song. My draw to this song was two-fold: 1) this perfectly sums up my relationship with Christ in that He is constantly reaching out for me. No matter how many times I screw up, I can never outrun him. He is alway by my side. I constantly live within God's grace. What a great feeling for someone like me who is far from perfect!!! 2) The second verse and chorus was my song to Tedi before I met him. I desperately wanted to hold him and tell him that I would always be there for him. In fact, when I held Tedi for the first time, he was very apprehensive and shaking. I repeated the lyrics of this song to him.

Why are you striving these days

Why are you trying to earn grace

Why are you crying

Let me lift up your face

Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love

Why are you searching as if I'm not enough

To where will you go child

Tell me where will you run

To where will you run

And I'll be by your side

Wherever you fall

In the dead of night

Whenever you call

And please don't fight

These hands that are holding you

My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side

They swallowed the grave on that night

When I drank the world's sin

So I could carry you in

And give you life

I want to give you life

*This song is on our blog. If you would like to hear it, go to the audio box on the right side of our blog.

I am shocked at how Tedi has changed in the eight weeks since we met face to face. It seems as if we have been together forever. He is just like me. He loves to laugh, make others laugh and be goofy. He is the most OCD three year old I have ever met. Sometimes it is hard to believe we do not have common DNA. When you see the two of us together, one cannot argue the omniscience of God.

I have been thinking about Tedi's birth mother a lot lately. My heart aches for this woman who I may never meet. All of the joy I experience with Tedi for the rest of my life is at her expense. She has a huge hole in her heart that completes my heart. I wish I could speak to her although I do not know exactly what I would say. I pray for her that God would somehow speak to her and assure her that Tedi is warm, fed, comforted, and LOVED!