Give Me the Words to Say

I had quite a conversation with a five and a half year old little sprite of a girl at Seth's baseball game last night. She was petite, with curly red hair that was escaping in tendrils from her ponytail. She wore wire rimmed glasses, and had smooth pale skin with a few freckles dotting her nose. She came over to join my girls to play with legos on the blanket I brought. She was very interested in Gwen. She looked at her, talked to her, asked me her name.

Finally, she asked, "Why is her skin brown and your skin white?" I explained that Gwen was Chinese, that we had adopted her, and that she had darker skin than me. She was amazed that Gwen was Chinese, it seemed to surprise her. Adoption, she had heard of that. Someone in her class was adopted, she said, but she didn't think it was from China.

Next she wanted to know Gwen's Chinese name. A higher level of questioning began. I told her, it was Wang Yu, but that it wasn't pronounced how we thought it would be. I said it for her. It's very difficult to say correctly. Her little mouth tried to form the foreign sounds several times.

A little while later the next question came, the trickier question.
"Why didn't her real mommy want her?"

Deep breath. I can answer this question that a five year old stranger is asking me. It is a child's innocent question. Never mind that I am not in a hurry to have this question asked of me by another little innocent child, my own daughter. I will practice on the stranger. I can do it.

I did it. And I did okay.

"The lady who gave birth to Gwen couldn't take care of any baby. So she brought Gwen to a place where I could come get her and adopt her."

The little red headed stranger was satisfied. I am satisfied too. I passed the test. I will practice again, many times I hope, before Gwen asks me this question. And when she does, I know that God will give me the words she needs to hear.