The Mother I Was Created to Be

A mother reflects on her adoption journey, as the adoption of her daughter from India is made final.

By: Michelle Mckay

Six days before Mother’s Day, our third Child, Manna, will be legally and officially ours!

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a year since I flew to India to bring home our daughter. I remember sitting on the airplane at JFK airport waiting to take off. I had never even been to Canada, let alone India! I was scared to death, but knew the Lord was with me every step of the way.

The hard part was over…the paperwork and the waiting. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy the next hours of travel that lay ahead…or so I thought.

After nearly 48 hours of travel, I made it to my hotel room in Bangalore, settled in, and went to bed for about 18 hours. I woke up the next morning bright and early and after my time with God, I was nervously, but excitedly, ready to meet my new daughter.

I remember sitting with Mary Paul, the director of VCT, waiting for Manna to show up. Finally she arrived…a beautiful 3-year-old girl…who showed absolutely no interest in me! She wondered aimlessly about, too fast to catch and repeatedly went for the telephone (the girl still loves phones!). I didn’t know what to do? I was her mom, but what on earth should I do? Should I stop her? Should the foster amma? or the director? I decided to, for the moment, take the backseat approach.

We went to her foster home and spent some time there. Her amma finally placed her in my arms after saying good-bye and we crowded into the VCT jeep with a social worker. Within minutes, she threw-up all over me and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except try to keep her calm. People and traffic were everywhere and on a hot and muggy Indian June day, this was not exactly ideal conditions for getting to know one another.

Later in the hotel, Manna kept getting sick, and on the airplane to Delhi, she screamed at the top of her lungs and slapped me in the face. I decided to be as lovingly firm as I could be, knowing she needed strength and stability, all the while knowing my strength was rapidly depleting from me.

What had I done? Here I was half way around the world, alone with a child who kept getting sick, took whatever she wanted, couldn’t speak a lick of English, and I didn’t even know her! Had I made a mistake? No…I knew this was God’s plan and I went over many scriptures in my hotel rooms comforting me and telling me to wait, trust, and rest in the Lord. Also, I kept remembering the words of Beth Moore in a Bible study I had taken: “Hard does not equal bad!”

Fast forward to today…Manna is one of the loves of my life. Once we got back on US soil and she met her new brother, sister, and dad, I began to get my bearings straight. There is no way in this world I would trade her or my experience in India for anything. I am so glad I went to India and met the people who are a significant part of my daughter. The experience was truly priceless.

Manna’s laugh and smile light up a room and she follows me everywhere I go and does everything I do. Tonight I watched her flipping through a Bible, licking her fingers before turning the pages, just like me. She loves piggy back rides and lots of tickling. She and her brother and sister act as though they have always been together, and she and her daddy love hot sauce! And boy does the girl love to sing (with her momma of course)!

From my point of view as a mother, Manna has lived up to her name. God has provided the daughter I needed to teach me how to be the mother He created me to be.

I began to pray every day for God to kill my selfishness. I asked to love and live like Jesus, to love all of my children and see them the way He does. And you know what, He was faithful!

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul talks about God adopting believers into His family. I didn’t really understand that until Manna. When we first enter into His family, we may not seem much like a member; we still have an awful lot of growing and maturing to do, and it’s often a hard but necessary task. At first, I “knew” Manna was our daughter, but she didn’t seem like it (and I probably didn’t seem much like an amma to her!).

Nonetheless, we kept working and growing together, and one day, I saw her run towards me down the grocery aisle and I thought, “This is it! She is my daughter!” Hopefully the Lord can now look at me and say, “Yes, this is my daughter!” too.

Thank you, God, and thank you, Manna, for helping to make me more of the mother I was created to be!

Celebrate your mother or someone special this Mother’s Day by giving a Gift of Hope to a homeless and vulnerable child….