Braden

First impressions tell you a lot about a person which is why folks often talk up the importance of them when you go on a job interview or meet you girlfriend's father for the first time. Generally speaking first impressions are have no bearing when you meet your children for the first time because in most cases your child is a wet bloody mess screaming at the top of their lungs because someone just pulled back the covers and turned on the lights.

With adoption it is different, especially when the child is six months old when you greet them at the airport. Braden was sleeping when we first met him and you would be too considering you spent the whole day on the plane from South Korea to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. Braden did not even stir when they took him from the carrier he was strapped in and placed him in Heather's arms. He simply layed his face against his shoulder and his cheeks which to this day are still rated the best cheeks in the Barbour family, him pressed against his new-found mother causing his lips to stick out. He was also chubby which is quite the contrast from the thin fellow that bounds down the stairs at 7 AM every morning.

Our impression of Braden in the first minutes and first hours have carried through these first five years he has been with us. Braden is the quiet one, reserved and meticulous the very polar end of what you are told boys would be like. Young boys are often rambunctious and wild. When there is a group of them Braden remains the quietest kid in the room. If a classroom full of boys could be considered a hurricane, Braden would be the eye sitting in the middle reading a book or building Lego car or asking how he might help while the tempest swirls around him

Braden is also the eye in the hurricane in the Barbour family wedged between two sisters who on the elder side is assertive and makes herself known and the younger side is the mischievous one bound for some type of trouble. In the midst of the constant swirling created by his sisters, Braden is the one content to sit and read a book. When there is work to do he can be depended on to do it. He was born with a servants heart and takes up whatever cause we set him to without complaint or argument.

The part of the adoption process that has always been the most powerful is the way you see God ordaining a child and destining him for your family. When I look at Braden (and the same is true of Kinsey as well) I see a child God chose, a little boy who God, in His omniscience and foreknowledge selected from the countless options on the table. We could have received any child but we did not receive just any, we were given Braden whose fit into our family is as perfect as those chubby cheeks pressed against Heather's shoulder in terminal at Dulles five years ago this day. Happy Gotcha Day, Braden!! We love you!