Jocelyn has talked about traveling around the world, helping people and telling them about Jesus, since she was 2. International adoption has sharpened that desire, so as we prayed about the trip to Uganda, we felt certain now was the right time to take the kids out of the country.
Jocelyn was ecstatic. Every person we've met since then has heard about her upcoming Africa trip and the siblings she'll meet there. Her love for adoption and missions and the world is constantly on display.
Except for at the travel clinic.
We went to get our vaccinations. Yellow fever for all of us, typhoid for all but Zoe who is too young for that one, and boosters for a few things for Lee and me. Zoe was angry about it, but got over it quickly... because chocolate was available. Robbie made some impressive faces and shouts with each shot, but he bounced back too.
Jocelyn? She sat on my lap at first and then both fight and flight kicked in. She fought me, tried to bolt from the office, and yelled, "I don't want to go to Uganda!" As we brought her back to the chair, she whimpered about staying with friends of ours like she did when we went to Taiwan.
Lee and I both restrained her, the nurse moved quickly, and she cried for 20 minutes after the shots.
Even though she tried to convince us otherwise, we knew she didn't want to stay in Raleigh while the rest of us went to Africa. We knew she wanted to see the world and meet her siblings on their home soil and understand the world from which they are coming.
As she hollered, "I don't want to go to Uganda!" we knew she really did. And so, we held her down and made her endure temporary pain for the trip of her lifetime.
It made me think of this:
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. {2 Corinthians 4:17}
How many hard moments in my life have been like her hard moment in the travel clinic? How often has my loving Father held me down for pain, knowing the future glory I couldn't see or imagine at the time? How much might I have missed without those light and momentary afflictions He not only allows but also inflicts, that I might be prepared for the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison?
Someday, Jocelyn will feel a different kind of pain and ask me why. I'll be able to remind her of the pain in the travel clinic that prepared her for the trip to her siblings. I'll tell her that I don't know how her present hurt will benefit her but that I trust God when He says it will.
And, just as I did after the shots, I'll hold her for as long as it takes to cry it out.
