The Red Thread

"Prayer encompasses the epiphanies that happen during the day: turning a corner on a ski trail and seeing a gray fox skitter away, watching the pink alpenglow on the mountains as the sun sets, meeting an old friend at the grocery store. By incorporating those experiences into my prayers, I prolong and savor them so that they do not fall too quickly into my memory bank, or out of it." from Keeping Company with God

Twelve years ago today somewhere on the outskirts of Nanning, Guangxi, China, where the poorest of the poor live, a baby girl was born to a mother who for unknown reasons was unable to keep her. Four days later the orphaned baby was discovered in a box next to a deserted stand on the side of a road and taken to the social welfare institute in the city. That same day, March 7, 2000, I applied for my first passport so that I might travel with my wife Paula to pick up our adopted daughter, still unknown to us that day but known and chosen by you, Heavenly Father.

We had already chosen her name, JaneGrace, in memory of my mother and Paula's aunt. Six weeks later, on April 17, my mother's birthday, we received our long-awaited call that Chinese adoption officials had "matched" our American family with their Chinese daughter, complete with faxed pictures as an infant and a toddler. She was beautiful. She still is.

Father, you tell us that we have been "known" from before time, before creation, and it was as if we had known JaneGrace, too. She had been prepared for us and we for her, chosen in you and by you before the beginning of time. We are forever thankful. And bless her birth-parents this day.

 The Chinese have an old saying, the legend of the red thread.

Chinese folklore says that there are invisible red threads that connect a newborn child's spirit to all the people who will be important in the child's life.
As the child grows, the threads shorten, drawing closer those people who are destined to be together.
The threads are said to never break or fray, binding families and friends forever.