My Dangerous Territory, My Quest

She is fidgeting.  Shuffling through the basket of makeup on her lap in the passenger seat.  It's early morning and the sun has not even come up yet.  Her fingers are nervous, everything about her is anxious, unsettled.  She is high. She must be high.  "He called me dangerous. I know what that means, Sandra,"  she says as she rummages through the pile for the umpteen time. "I am going to write a book about that word, you know? I started yesterday."  Up all night, Sarah was not ready when I arrived at her grandma's house to take to her court appointment two and a half hours away. "They say I'm crazy and they love it at first. But when they call me dangerous.  That's when they leave me. And they always do." 

I think of the new book  DangerousTerritory - My Misguided Quest to Save the World by friend Amy Peterson.  Sarah is my dangerous territory. She is my quest. Everything about her unravels me and reveals my heart full of conflicted self righteousness, Is this really love or my misunderstood Christian obligation in attempt to be awarded some holy badge? If love truly perseveres, how far must I go?  Dear God! How do I even ask such a question when you went to the cross?  

When we first started the foster care/adoption journey, there were a few people in our lives that were concerned, rightfully so, about the safety of our babies and the disruption of our simplistic ideal lives. And honestly, I was one of them.  I tested myself by playing out awful scenarios in my head.  What if an emotionally disturbed child pulled down a book case crushing my two month old while I was in the laundry room? Would I take responsibility for the decision I made for having brought "that" into "our" home?  Foster care/adoption would mess everything up. And it should.  Often our kingdoms need to be turned upside down...

"I use to climb this one tree when I was little," Sarah tells me as she puts in yet another CD.  "I would sit on one of the top branches with my nose to the sky. My uncle would ask if I was a bird. 'No' I'd say 'A dolphin. But I want to go up not down. I want to swim in the sky.'"  Her words make my heart ache. So much has happened to that little girl in such a short time. She is only eighteen and has had a more than a lifetime of pain and tragedy.  I imagine Lily in The Secret Life of Bees. She is standing in the middle of  a swarm.  She calls upon her love to overcome her fear and to ease the bees. "I love you. I love you. I love you," she whispers under her protective covering .  "I love you. I love you. I love you," my soul reaches out in the dark of the car.

The day is long. The drive back home even longer.  We return just as it gets dark.  My two year old adopted son - Sarah's son -  runs out to meet me.  I hold him tightly. Many people enter into adoption to save children.  I don't think we can. I don't think it should be our goal or even our calling.  But to love, to persist in love perhaps is the Cross we are to carry.  This is salvation. Amy's book concludes with Saint John Chrysostom's words, "Our mission is to put love where love is not."   It has been a week since I heard from Sarah. She is on the run now.  My soul continues to shout into the darkness, "I love you. I love you. I  love you. "  And hope she hears and is healed.