This Week

Well. I got no pictures for ya. I really like having a photo or two. Oh well. This has not been the week for photos...and I keep saying I'll catch up my mercies list...and I will...

Oh, but I've got lots to share! I'll start with this past Sunday. After working around the house till late, then Baby waking right as we went to bed, I was dead Sunday morning. I turned the alarm off and let myself sleep a bit longer than normal. BB was not home, having left super-early to help with some things at church. I woke up to my room bathed in sunlight and a little person skittering out my bedroom door. CA then came to me and said, "They bwought you breakfast, mommy." I sat up, put on my glasses, and saw it: a cookie sheet, set on my cedar chest, with yes, breakfast on it!

LC and EG had made me scrambled eggs and some leftover coffee cake. They included napkin and fork and hot black coffee (BB had made a pot before he left). There was a little note threaded through the tines of the fork: To mom: the one who always makes breakfast for us. Love, EG and LC. Wow. After a short, short night and with an allergy headache that morning, having them be so thoughtful and kind was the biggest encouragement, sweet to my soul. And you know, they actually put together their own breakfasts most days of the week! Precious girls! (and we made it to church nearly on time, too!)

So, I keep thinking about the Israelites and how God had them be on the ready, bags packed, eat standing up, shoes on, prepared in every way to flee Egypt. Obviously, we're not fleeing anything. Rather, we're headed away to retrieve someone who belongs with us here. But it feels like we're living life "eating standing up" for now. We've had no word yet on when we can leave. Every week we live and work hoping we hear by the end of Thursday, so we can throw our things together and leave on Friday afternoon. God is in loving control of this. It is hard for all of us to wait, but He reminds me that giving me my will rather than His own would be bad for me. Holding out in faith for His will results only in good all around.

Things are amazingly ready around here. The Lord has been beyond kind. I cannot believe we've accomplished (I'd say we're 95% through, if you don't count the garage) a whole-house purge and reorganize; we've switched kids around, moving furniture all over the place, reorganizing closets and such along the way.

Last night we had the most wonderful show of the love of Christ. BB hurt his back over the weekend, and so our plans to go get a chest of drawers at IKEA needed to be postponed. No biggie. We knew it could wait. It was literally the last item needed in order to feel ready to bring AH home. Of course, we'd bring her home anytime, but it is nice to have things increasingly settled before her arrival.

So our dear friends, who are also adoptive parents - of two sets of twins, called us last night and told us they were at IKEA picking up the chest of drawers for us!!! Wow. Tears. Happy tears! What a selfless, thoughtful, amazing act of kindness! In about an hour they were here, bringing cinnamon rolls for us along with the chest. Once they got the boxes upstairs, our friend offered to assemble it for us! He did so, with a little help from the girls. While they assembled, I was able to empty and move the chests from EG's room, transfer them to MK/LC/CA's room and get them into place there. Whew. Crazy, wonderful night. How beautiful is the Body of Christ! The kids were up past 10:30pm, we didn't even eat a real supper, and the dishes certainly didn't get done, but oh my! The rooms are so much closer to done now!! Praise God!

On another night this week, Mrs. M came with me and CJ to IKEA while I grabbed odds and ends we needed...another backpack hook for the wall, more bookends for the homeschool cabinets, and so on. I'm so thankful for the help and support and prayers of God's people!

In so many ways, I've sensed God's protection over my walk with Him. There is much to distract and not enough sleep and still that bit of uncertainty (the when are we traveling part), but in His own creative ways, He's helped me carve out time for prayer and reading the Word.

I've been thinking about the pregnancy analogy. When this all began over 20 months ago, I had four children. Three months into it, I was unexpectedly pregnant with CJ. At 7 months pregnant, we got the word that AH's birth father was, for the first time, considering terminating his parental rights. Unbelievable. God, and only God can make such miracles happen! We thought things might move quickly from there. They did not. CJ was born and all was still limbo and question marks and confusion with the adoption possibility. AH was here when Baby came, though, and that was so, so special.

Only in the past 2.5 months did the ball really get to rolling in a for-real way toward adoption. It's been guess how many months, then, since we first heard adoption *might* be possible? Exactly 9 months now. It's the longest labor ever, I tell you! I am confident of God's timing and goodness in this wait, but yes, we are asking Him to send us packing.

Anyway, so to me, it's been a pregnancy within a pregnancy....the hoping for AH when there was no hope, humanly speaking, and then carrying and birthing a baby while waiting for AH. And today, I found the journal I was keeping when AH very first came into my parents' care...

Two days before she came to live with them, I'd spent some days trying to listen carefully to the Lord. Here's one thing I heard from Him, and I'd written it in all caps in my journal:

June 9, 2009: I AM ABOUT TO DO A BIG THING.

Then this, June 13, 2009, two days after we found out she'd be coming to mom and dad's: Lord, You know my heart, my desire, my prayer - to see You do a huge thing here...to see You bring her here to us indefinitely.

I know You are able. You are the Lord of Hosts. I worship You for Your Sovereign power and plans. Be glorified!
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And He has been, and He is! Soli Deo Gloria!