Zoe's Freedom

Zoe was serious for a while this morning as she stared at her mama crying.
"She's free" I said to Tim. "She didn't ask to be brought to this country. God chose her and she was brought here." I looked into Zoe's big brown eyes and said in a broken up voice "You can do anything you want." "Except be president," Tim said, "because you have to be born in America to be the president." Then after a pause, he said "But maybe she can change that."

All of this was going on while two songs were being played over the t.v. "I'm proud to be an American" and "The star spangled banner". We were watching an old football game from 2000.

I was reminded of the last time I cried about Zoe's freedom. It was on the plane that landed in Chicago, Illinois. We had been told from the beginning of our adoption paperwork that our children became U.S. citizens immediately upon landing on U.S. soil. On December 28, 2007, when we felt the plane's tires touch the runway, a woman's voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that 22 Chinese children just became U.S. citizens! The entire plane clapped and cheered in their honor and new found freedom. It was a moment in which I had waited 3 years for......giving freedom to someone who had no chance of ever gaining it themselves. I couldn't hold back the tears and I just held Zoe tightly against my body as the tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't stop crying and smiling. It was a far greater moment than the moment they put her in my arms.

She was now finally free! She will never know what it is like to be under communist rule. She will only know what it is like to have her own thoughts and dreams and have every opportunity to carry them out to the best of her ability. She will have every opportunity to do anything and everything she dreams of. No one will tell her how to believe. No one will tell her how many children to have. No one will force her to give up her children. The list could go on and on.

Today, the fourth of July, is the day that I have looked most forward to than any other day since Zoe became my daughter. Today we will celebrate our freedom but today will seem so much sweeter as we share freedom with Zoe.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow!