Sideways Traci

Posted by Traci at 8:07 PM

It is so strange to think about sideways Traci.  (For those of you having not watched the awesomeness that is Lost, I mean the alternate version of me.  Think Gwyneth Paltrow Sliding Doors).  The Traci that grew up in El Salvador and speaks fluent Spanish and is completely nauseated by canned pineapple.  Because that’s not me at all, but it could have been.   I was born into poverty in a war-torn third world country.  My parents adopted me and brought me to beautiful Northeast Georgia.  I like the Georgia Bulldogs, The Varsity, and Coke.  And I speak Southern.

There’s this great Salvadorian/Honduran/Mexican restaurant in town that we recently found, and for some reason the place always gets me sideways thinkin’.  It’s so beyond strange to imagine me without my Southern drawl, living in a completely different world than the one I inhabit now.

In the adoption world there’s this debate about Plan A and Plan B.  Many adoptive parents say that God planned for them to have their adopted child all along, and other people get offended and say that every child is destined for their birth family and that is Plan A, adoption is just a very distant Plan B.  Etc, etc.  But here’s the thing – there is no Plan A or Plan B.  There is only what happened.  There is only what happened.  There is only what happened.

This is a messed up, make-your-stomach-sick, cry-til-you-can’t-cry-no-more terrible place.  Our kids ask us about Noah and the great destruction and we so calmly explain the theology of sin and deprivation.  But then we ask the same questions when confronting actual sin and deprivation.  No trite theology will do and I have no more answers than anyone else, but I know this:  somehow, someway, in some cases God turns trials into gold.  Bad into good.  It is the essence of his story.  It is what happened to me and every other child adopted into a loving family.  And I don’t really care if you think what happened is Plan A or Plan B.  All I know is it’s good.  Very good.