Saturday, October 11, 2014

"Light! Give Me Light!"

I was recently reading "Helen Keller: The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller.  I was struck with emotion as I read about the day she met her teacher, Anne Sullivan.  Her words:
"The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me.  I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects.  It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant.  I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps.  The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face.  My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring.  I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me.  Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen?  I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was.  "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps.  I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother.  Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me."
Amazing!  It is just amazing to contemplate Helen's life at this moment.  The "light of love shone on her that very hour".

Can you imagine?  She had no idea how her whole world was about to open up...how everything was about to become much clearer...how she was no longer going to be wandering around in this world without being connected to it.  And she was almost 7 years old when this awakening came!  Anne Sullivan would change her world by connecting her to it through the gift of communication.  Helen Keller would change our world by showing us that people with differences have so much to give to our society.  The contrast of what her childhood was like, and the woman she became, is inspirational.  But the most touching part of Helen's life is the relationship she had with her teacher.  Such love for one another...they were not only connected through communication, but in love.
 
I thought of our Sue Ling.  She is at the same age that Helen was when her life changed.  I want to hope that the day we meet our girl for the first time, it will be a turning point in her life.  That we will help bring her light and direct her to the Compass that knows her future. 
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11
An awakening in her spirit.  An opening up of the world to her.  She will leave out of the orphanage gate and begin to experience places, people, animals, things she has never known.  Her eyes will be opened, her senses stimulated, her mind will be broadened as she learns new things. 
 
How she will fill our world.

Wilson and I dream, often, about what it will be like the day we meet our daughter.  We get so excited about it.  I can only imagine that Sue Ling will wonder what is going on that day.  She will go on a long car ride that will take her away from everything familiar to her.  I can't imagine what will go on inside her mind.  She will know something unusual is happening.  She will know that she will be meeting her "Mama" and "Baba".

What will she think about it all?
 
She will be at the threshold of a new life, just as Helen was that day.  Our prayers are, that her response to us will be as fond as Helen's was to Anne.
That she will find love...that we will show her Love.
 
"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"  1 John 3:1
 

 

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