This is Amazing Grace

"Who brings our chaos back into order
Who makes the orphan a son and daughter
The King of Glory, the King of Glory" ~ Phil Wickham, from This is Amazing Grace

For the last week or so, I've been very emotional. We sang this song at church a week ago and the tears just started rolling. I'm an orphan again but not really. I'm not a minor, I'm not a child, I'm not without support or care, so I don't really fit the true definition of orphan. But I have lost both my father and now my mother, so in a sense I identify as an orphan, I am a daughter without parents. 

It's been almost two years since my last "In Her Arms" entry, and so much has happened. Sometimes I think I should have blogged more frequently so that I could better remember the details, but on the other hand, it is also good to leave the memories of chaos as a distant fog which slowly dissipates with the rising sun. My adoptive mother passed away just 5 months ago, and today the family will gather by the graveside to lay her remains with my dad's from so long ago. I suppose that's why the emotions have been sneaking up on me over the past week as this final good-bye was approaching. Saying our earthly good-byes brings into reality the fact that we are now the next generation. We have been left with no parents to walk by our side as we journey through life.

So many thoughts swirl around in my mind as I re-read those lyrics. For one thing, my chaos has been brought back into order. Being on the front lines dealing with an aging parent is a challenge in itself, but couple that with having to fight the decades-old demons of addiction and the mind and mood altering effects of dementia and it makes for a wild and crazy ride. As I look back, sometimes I wonder how I made it though in one piece, but here I am, relatively normal with minimal emotional scars, a decent sense of humour, and a thankful attitude. That my friends, is amazing grace.

I am also considerably young to have lost both parents (the first at 15, and now at 50), but as I reflect over how I once was essentially a true orphan, a mere infant without the care of either mother or father, then brought into a loving adoptive family, I can only marvel at the grace and care extended to me. I was also a spiritual orphan, lovingly brought into the family of God through my gracious redeemer Jesus Christ. And God in his infinite wisdom so carefully crafted the pages of my life story so that even as my parents have passed on, He has brought my biological mom back into the picture to stay. While one mother cannot and does not intend to replace the other, and neither does the presence of one nullify the grief of losing the other, it has been a precious gift that I marvel at again and again.

I've often told people that I've been adopted twice. Once into my earthly physical family, and once into my heavenly spiritual family. I suppose now I could even say I've been adopted three times, as I've now in a sense been adopted back into my biological family. 

I am a daughter of Dicky.
I am a daughter of Pam.
I am a daughter of the King of Glory.
Wow. This is amazing grace.