It´s not what I thought it would be

This leaving my heart on foreign soil.

I expected to have my heart change and I embrace that.

 

But this Immigrant Child of mine

Has a foreign stamp on her I hardly recognize

She´s him and me and…

…and something else.

Something vaguely familiar

(Because I have lived in many places, too.)

But it left a different impression on her

A mysteriously ethnic mark on her soul…

 

It´s beyond her “native speaker” ability in the language

That is way too obvious, simplistic

It´s ways of thought, values-based decisions (on values different from mine)

Relational patterns, things held dear, things subconscious

Something colorful & mystical to me.

 

Sometimes she feels completely other-worldly

She doesn´t fight my causes, defend the same things I hold dear,

Get motivated by the things I do,

Or cheer for the same teams as I.

 

And though I thought I wasn´t nationalistic about my home country

When she attacked it

I defended it!

I didn´t anticipate that.

 

She is her own world, her own person

And she´s making her own life with her God.

 

So I lay things at the altar I didn´t expect;

There are many of them.

And when I lay down the right to understand her as her mother

It is a holy moment.

 

It is a holy moment of sacred surrender,

And of a tender trust in the One who loved her first.

In the One who completely understands her.

 

Her destiny is still unclear.

But as I release my right to understand her

Tears begin to fall…

And I decide, I make a choice

To open-handedly and open-heartedly celebrate

My Immigrant Girl.

 

© 2012 Women of the Harvest.

Questions to Consider: Poetry often captures the deeper emotion; what does this piece stir up in you?  As you reflect on the MKs you know, does  the “immigrant child” concept ring true?