The White Jeep

I saw you

In the car behind me.

I didn’t notice you in the passenger seat at first—

Were you bending down?

But when I saw you my heart leaped with a joy I cannot express,

Simply in the fact that

You did not look like your mother.

Her hair was graying blonde, yours was glossy black,

Her eyes were tired and patient and content,

Yours were the kind that disappear in your smile, full of wonder, full of life.

Now don’t get me wrong,

My heart breaks under the weight of the fact that your birth mother,

On the other side of the world,

Left you.

Yet I cannot help but revel in the fact that your mother

Here, driving you home,

Loves you.

I took the right turn and pressed on the gas to get up to speed,

Then glanced in my mirror

And panicked a little when I saw you didn’t follow…yet.

The white jeep you were riding in took the curve a little slower

And without thinking I eased off of the acceleration to let you catch up—

Then changed my mind because I didn’t want to be that person

Who can’t drive the speed limit.

So I just prayed

For the light

To turn red.

Why?

Is it because I wanted you to notice me?

I wanted to do something to make you laugh, like make hand puppets out the window—

You weren’t watching…

That’s okay.

Is it because I wanted to somehow convey, from my car to yours,

The love that I feel for you, for your family?

The light flicked to red and I let out a breath and gently rolled to a stop,

Then watched as your car approached the light and stopped and I—

Oh my heart.

It is because in you I saw my story, weaved in your expression,

Painted between the lines of your life,

Thumping out from your chest to mine—

Redemption, redemption, redemption.

I don’t know if you understand yet, but I was an orphan too.

I wandered in the throes of the dungeon of the captor that did not, could not, love me,

Broken underneath the weight of darkness with no light,

Crying on a street corner in a cardboard box, struggling to live,

Fighting for breath,

Beginning to die—

Yet I was already dead.

God’s hands were gentle,

Father’s hands.

His eyes were loving,

Father’s eyes.

His voice was soft,

Father’s voice.

And His love was fierce, pounding through the alleyways,

Echoing through the corners of my world,

Piercing the very hardness of my abandoned heart with one word,

Live.

You see, you and I—

We are more alike than you would think.

The light turned green and we moved forward again—

I fought the tears, you cocked your head as though you heard something.

Your mother drove slow.

I went five under, slowed for the speed limit change early,

Coasted to thirty,

Checked my mirror—

The blinker was on.

You were turning left.

“Goodbye,”

I whispered,

And you disappeared.

And I was silent the rest of the way home,

But my heart, my soul, my strength cried out—

Abba! Father!

~~

Romans 8:14-17