Same Song, Brand New Verse

As I buckled two year old Ivy into her carseat, she got uncharacteristically still, head cocked to the side, listening. It’s late summer in Texas, or some might call it mid-summer, since chances are good that we’ll still be sweating when it’s time to carve pumpkins in October. The birds don’t seem to mind, though. They sang on this particular morning through the already scorching temperatures, twittering away in their various styles while a toddler who misses nothing stopped to take note. She sat there, processing all of the birdy noises from the trees around the neighborhood, and then she lifted her arms in a shrug and asked, “Why the birds not sing Jesus Loves Me?”

I felt my face relax into the kind of smile that bubbles up from someplace deep in your heart. It’s the kind of thrill that you sometimes gets when a child says something truly priceless. I told her about how the songs that the birds sing actually are about Jesus because the Bible teaches us that everything God made shows us how great He is, especially the singing birds! And their songs remind us how much He loves us, because He didn’t have to give us birds that sing pretty songs. “Oh! Ok!” she said lightly, as if everything made perfect sense now, although I strongly suspect she had no clue what I was talking about. She smiled at me with confidence and gave me a reassuring pat on the arm. Then she settled into her carseat and was content to let me drive her to unknown destinations.

We met her when she was almost three months old. We adopted her only a matter of weeks ago. On her adoption day, she wore a little pink smocked dress with princesses on it, and as she sat in her stroller surrounded by the three children who had welcomed her into their world and loved her sweetly and sacrifically, we all heard her practicing her new name under her breath, “Ivy Joy Edgington.” A few days ago we stopped by the attorney’s office to pick up her birth certificate. It clearly states that she was born in a local hospital on her birthday to her two parents: Chad and Melissa Edgington. It’s so fascinating that adoption literally rewrites a baby’s birth certificate. In all of our hearts, that piece of paper may as well be true. Yet, we will always love and cherish this precious one, our daughter, with the grateful knowledge that two other people who gave her life will be loving her, too, from afar.

Ivy knows lots of songs. You might say that she lives her life as if she’s in a musical. The soundtrack of our family is currently her loud, sometimes pitchy, often inconvenient, but always endearing twittering. Given that her repertoire consists of everything from monkeys on the bed to a particularly catchy song about heavy construction equipment, I was surprised that of all the songs she expected the birds to sing, it was natural to her that they would sing about the Lord. She flits around me day by day, singing in her own style like the birds in the trees, and day after day, God reminds me that simple truth: Jesus loves me. Oh how He loves me to give me the gift of Ivy Joy Edgington.

Since that day I have noticed the birds’ songs more often. I remember the reassuring way that Jesus talked about taking care of the birds of the air, and I hold my little daughter in my arms, tight as I can, knowing that I am not in control of her life. Trusting in my Savior. Knowing that the God who put a song in her heart and my name on her birth certificate has a plan that He mapped out before the beginning of time. Consider the sparrow. Consider Ivy. Consider the goodness of the God who brought us together. For her sake, for my sake, for the sake of God’s glory. Now a new verse of our song has started. We may be a little pitchy here and there, but Ivy and I will be singing it loudly. I hope the world hears us.