Everybody needs a little Mercy in their life

This is a "little Mercy."








Keeping Mercy the last 18 days has taught me a lot about God and a lot about myself.

God commands us to care for orphans. I think he “commands” it instead of “suggesting” it because it’s not always easy, fun work.

It took until about day 16 for Mercy to “groove” with the Taylors.

I think she finally figured us out and loosened up. She is laughing, smiling, dancing, and now…we have to return her to her momma.

I can’t imagine what must be going through her sweet little brain, but I’m so glad she gets a chance to bond with her mother again this week, and soon, she’ll be bonding with her whole family in Kansas.

My children have been playing a lot of what they call “lego city” while Mercy was here.

They would build a lego town for all their miniature Disney princesses, Batmans, Spidermans, and army guys to live in.

The past couple of days have been different though.

This is what I’ve been listening to…

Batman (as Prince Charming, of course) and Cinderella as a couple

and Spiderman (as Prince Eric) and Ariel as a couple

will both go to an “orphanage” to adopt some children like Dopey, Jasmine, Snow White, etc.

My children probably would have never come up with the idea to think about playing "adopting orphans" if it hadn’t been for Mercy. Of course, God wants us to do more than play-act. I am amazed at the number of my friends who have felt a call from God to adopt. Their walks of faith are treaded deep.

My girls have been changing diapers, something I never did until I had kids.

They have been dressing Mercy and giving her baths.

All of a sudden, I have these two grown helpers in the house.

With a little one to take care of, they really stepped up.

One day, without asking, Kylie took all the clothes off the line outside, folded them, and put them in everyone’s room.

She has volunteered to wash the dishes. She has swept the floor, and the list goes on.

The point is, with the extra work that Mercy took, Kylie and Karis noticed a need, and they did something about it. All the speeches in the world wouldn’t have taught them that.

Mercy has also taught me (for the millionth time) how selfish I am. I wanted the holidays to be all about me and the rest I wanted to have (since home school was on holiday) and the books I wanted to read while I wasn’t in language class, etc. But alas, someone needed me to take care of her.

I was reminded how my dear Savior had to get up extremely early in the morning to have some time to talk with His Father and be alone.

People followed Him wherever He went. And even though Mercy was my shadow for the past 18 days, she is just one small child. Jesus had the masses to contend with. His would have been a complete meltdown situation for an introvert like myself.

Anyway, I told one of my friends that I was sure God orchestrated Mercy’s whole delay of adoption to use her to teach me a thing or two about Himself and how selfish I am.

She and I will fly down to Entebbe tomorrow. A family she is familiar with will have her for about 36 hours before her mother arrives. And I have no doubt that her mother will have smooth sailing from here on out with the adoption because Mercy has served her purpose in Uganda…teaching me a few things about sacrifice.

Thank you Busby’s for letting us love on Mercy and take care of her for you while you re-connected!

If you want to continue following Mercy's journey to her new family, here is her mother's blog:

http://roadtomercy.blogspot.com/