How beautiful and sweet

 

Over a year since this little monkey has been home.   One year home progress report on its way to our agency to be forwarded to her beautiful birth country.   And I still cannot get over how beautiful and sweet she is and how she is mine.    I love you Faithie.  Keep shining bright.   xoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo

LOVE that little beauty mark on her shoulder! 

One year together....

 First time meeting you sweet Fluff!!!!!    One year ago today, this is what you and I were doing!   I was staring at you in complete amazement wondering if I this was really happening!   You had travelled a long journey, and were hot and tired and hungry and scared!

 And the tears started to roll down your big red cheeks, mommy felt so bad for you and I remember how big I thought you looked compared to your photos!   but part of that was all of those layers!

Sweet sweet slumber....after crying in absolute terror for 20-30minutes I put you on my shoulder where you sucked your thumb until you fell asleep, then I was able to slip the ergo carrier on and was so proud to walk around the hotel corridor with you, my beautiful sweet new baby snuggled tight to my chest.   And there you stayed for many hours while I filled out all of the adoption paperwork.

Oh sweet Faithie how mommy adores you!    I remember this like yesterday.   Happy Gotcha day beautiful girl, you are a dream come true!
xoxoxoxooxxoxo

God is in the details....and pink paint

God is so Good!   

  I am so so grateful to be painting a room pink!!!!!    So so very grateful for who I am painting it for, and so very grateful to who gave her to us!

As I started to paint the wall I was struck with the memory of  not so long ago when we had just started on our adoption journey and had no idea who our little one was, only that she was a little girl who God had put on my heart so long ago.   

I sat in the empty corner of the room and cried and wondered and waited, and Dan assured me that in not too long from then she would be sleeping in her crib in that very corner, and now she is. 

Amazing.   How does HE do that?   How does He place a child in your heart and daily grow your love for them as you wait to see their little face?

Little Faithie was so excited when the color began to show up on the walls, and she realized it was all for her!  She sat still on the ladder away from the wet walls and watched me roll the color on, and I was filled with so much love for her and for my Jesus.  So much gratitude for allowing me to have this little one to call my own!

God loves us so much more than we could ever fathom, and oh my does He love these little treasures.   

God is in the details of our lives.  He cares about all of them.   God is in the details....and pink paint!

Praising God today for our sweetest little treasure,  one year ago at this time I was looking out the window of a plane about to descend in China and marvelling, just marvelling at how He brought me there!  

xoxoxoxoxoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Bless the Lord oh my soul

Bless the Lord oh my soul......I worship your holy name......

Sing like never before.....and worship your holy name

Tiny little toes....thanking you for tiny little toes!

Tiny little toes fill this Mama's heart to overflowing!   Thank you Lord Jesus for all four sets of tiny little toes!

My man

My man.    Dan was a reluctant hubby at one point.   Resistant, ok hostile, to the idea of adoption.   Resistant to the idea of more kids period.  Done.   No room in the house.  No room in the food budget.  No room in the car.  DONE!  NO!  NO! NO!
 
It is amazing that the same thing happened with our children that we sponsored, there would always be one more little face that I would see and fall in love with and he would say no!   Then a few months later I got a card for Mother's Day with a note inside saying yes!  Yes, go and sponsor one more child.   And the joy and delight I would find in clicking on that little face would abound.

So I stopped talking about it and began to pray more.   And then one day to my complete and utter amazement he said yes!   Yes to one more.   Yes to adoption.   Yes to China.   Yes to special needs.  Yes to GOD.   Yes to GOD.   That is the most important.  Not yes to me because I wanted to add to our family.   Not yes to me because I wanted to give an orphan a forever family.  Yes to GOD because He called us.  YES YES YES!

One of my favourite things about him is that he is perfectly willing for me to write about this.  He is willing to be a "fool for Christ".    To allow people to see that in the beginning he said no, if it will bring God glory, and allow people to see the truth, which is a miracle.   The very fact that Faith is here is in so many ways a complete miracle.  He does not pretend to be perfect.   He will tell you very honestly how he struggled in the beginning when Faithie came home.   It took time to build a father/daughter relationship even though he loved her instantly.   And that is ok, that is normal, and maybe it will help someone else who needs it.

I did not have a moment where God spoke to me and told me to adopt, neither did Dan.    I asked Him many years ago to break my heart with what breaks His and this is the answer I have received, this is the fire that He has put in me, this is definetely the heart of Jesus.   To love the orphan.     It is not the same for everyone, God calls different people to different things.   But this is the answer He gave me.   A longing in my heart for a child thousands of miles away.   Only He could orchestrate that.   The surprise of our third child, a complete surprise.   And during that pregnancy and years before I was praying to be able to adopt, and as only God could do, he intertwined Noah's birth with Faith's birth, one month apart even to the date.  Faithie's birth mom and I were pregant at the same time.   Only God.

And so now I wait.  I wait again and I pray.  And I watch my Jesus work in Dan's heart.  I watch Him soften it and I pray for Him to open it up to one more daughter, our beautiful little one waiting for us in that amazing country in the far east.   Not in my timing, but in His timing, as His ways are not my ways, and His thoughts are not my thoughts.    I wait and I hope and I pray that God will allows us the miracle of adoption one more time.   To give one more child a family, one more child a mommy and a daddy who will love them to the moon and back.   So that we can make a difference to this one.   What else on this earth is of any value than to love?   To simply love, all who God puts in our path, and those we have to make a path to.  Sweet baby girl I am hanging on to the hope that I will hold you one day soon.   Hanging on the hope that yes, we will touch your soft skin and tell you that you are orphaned no more.   Hanging on to hope...........I already love you so much xoxooxoxoxoxoxo

Shhh!

                                                           Shhhhh!    I have a secret!

HOPE

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen

Hebrews 11:1