Mind Pictures

Today I was reminded by a sweet friend of the "mind pictures" we conjure when waiting on our referral of our precious children. We are asked by social workers, co-workers, and even family..."What will the child look like?" I could never say for sure, until I saw her face, but I knew for sure that she was beautiful, and had the biggest brown eyes, and shiny black hair. The rest was just deatails. Now that I can see her image in photograhs, she is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, and she is mine. Not by my design, but by God's. His way is always better.
As I look back over the course of my life, I have always had a desire to have a dark-eyed daughter,who has shiny, black hair. Funny, I would see so many of these children, and long for one of my own to pick up and hug and hold and kiss. I have actually had to restrain my fingers from reaching out to touch the beautiful hair and brown skin of children at church or in stores. I often wondered why I had such a strong desire where these particular children were concerned. Now I know. God kept this desire alive in me so that I would seek out the daughter He had planned for me. Not the four blue-eyed children he has blessed me with, those children came to me, but the one I would have to go to, the one He fashioned in a far away place, where he knitted her together in her mother's womb, in anticipation of the "other" mother who would hold her in her arms and cherish her for all eternity.