Still Smiling

Why is this girl smiling?  What can she possibly have to smile about?  She lives in a place called Smokey Mountain.  It is a garbage dump in Manila.  Many people actually live there.  I wouldn’t really call it living though.  I think surviving would be a better word to use.  The children spend all day rummaging through the garbage finding trinkets or anything they might possibly be able to sell just so they have food to eat.  I have seen many pictures of street kids in the Philippines, but this one really got my attention.  How can she possibly be happy when to everyone else looking at her life it would seem so grim.  

That is what is so great about children.  They take each moment as it comes.  They don’t worry about the future or get depressed about how their life should be, the things they should have.  This girl probably isn’t even aware that she is living in such horrible conditions.  To her, it is her life.  It is all she knows and probably ever has known.  We can learn a lot from this little girl.  We should take pleasure in all the small moments in life.  We should not spend so much time worrying and wondering about things we might be missing out on or the things we don’t have.  We should not worry so much about what the future will bring, but should instead just take each day as it comes and make the most of it.  If this little girl who has spent her entire life, so far, living in a garbage dump can smile and find joy in life, then all of us can.  Life is what we make of it.  Either your glass is half empty or it is half full.  I hope I can live most of my life with my glass half full and not worry so much about the other things.

I wanted to post this today, because we received some more frustrating news about our adoption today.  I got an email from someone at our placement agency to tell us that they are missing our medicals.  I sent those to them 3 months ago.  I think the only reason they are asking for them now is that I just sent them an email asking if our dossier has been sent to the Philippines yet.  We sent this same person our home study a month ago to review and then give to the Philippine Program Assistant to attach to our dossier before it can be sent off.  Anyway I was going to write a long post all about this in order to vent away all my anger and frustrations, but then I remembered this photo and it actually calmed me down a lot.  It helped me to look at all of this from a different angle.  I could get really angry and upset and start blaming our agency for doing such a horrible job or I can trust that this is all for a reason and our dossier is not meant to be sent off yet.  Maybe it is the Lord who is causing all of these random things to happen so everything is delayed more and more.  Maybe our child is not ready yet or we are not ready for our child yet.  I know I have said all of this before, but how easy it is to forget when you think things are finally going to go smoothly just to hit another bump.  Oh well, what’s one more bump.  We’ve made it over all the other ones, I’m sure we’ll make it over this one too.  I know we are in the Lord’s hands, so I will just keep on smiling despite everything else.