Here's the blog I've been waiting to write for 19 months. This is the one that feels a little bitter-sweet, even as I type it. After all of this time, after all of the praying, waiting, filling-out-mountains-of-paperwork, talking, dreaming, thinking, and falling in love with a three year old Ethiopian little girl named Biruk, I am so over the moon excited to tell you that we are picking her up. Our baby girl is coming home. The waiting is sweetly and finally over. I think I may have felt this way as I was laboring to deliver our other children. So very, very excited to hold and cuddle, kiss and snuggle this newest blessing to our family; and also feeling a little nostalgic and thinking that this was the last day that we were a family of 2. Then of 3. Then of 4. Then of 5. Then of 6. Now of 7. It's that understanding that things will never be the same again. It's the letting go of what was to grasp the new that God is doing. And it puts a small twang in my heart.
What I love to think of is when we were finally introduced to our newest additions as they came into the world. All of the wondering, the asking of questions, (will I be able to do this well? will I be able to love this one as much as I love the one who came before? how will this change our little family? what will "everyday" look like now?) fled out of my mind and I just knew. They were always meant to be with us. Such a short time after birthing our children into this world I remember thinking, "What was life like before them? I honestly can't remember." It will be that way with Biruk. We will get her home and we will say with all honesty, "She was always meant to be with us. I can't remember life before she came."
We leave on a plane Thursday afternoon. We arrive in Ethiopia on Friday night. We come home a week later, forever and blessedly changed. Our missing puzzle piece will be home...not just a picture on our refrigerator but a sweet baby girl padding down the steps in a Tinker Bell nightgown holding blankie in early morning sunshine. It has been a year and a half I will always remember. I think I understand Mary, the mother of Jesus, a little bit better now. I, too, will be pondering these things and treasuring them in my heart for years and years to come. How I praise the Giver of all good gifts.
What I love to think of is when we were finally introduced to our newest additions as they came into the world. All of the wondering, the asking of questions, (will I be able to do this well? will I be able to love this one as much as I love the one who came before? how will this change our little family? what will "everyday" look like now?) fled out of my mind and I just knew. They were always meant to be with us. Such a short time after birthing our children into this world I remember thinking, "What was life like before them? I honestly can't remember." It will be that way with Biruk. We will get her home and we will say with all honesty, "She was always meant to be with us. I can't remember life before she came."
We leave on a plane Thursday afternoon. We arrive in Ethiopia on Friday night. We come home a week later, forever and blessedly changed. Our missing puzzle piece will be home...not just a picture on our refrigerator but a sweet baby girl padding down the steps in a Tinker Bell nightgown holding blankie in early morning sunshine. It has been a year and a half I will always remember. I think I understand Mary, the mother of Jesus, a little bit better now. I, too, will be pondering these things and treasuring them in my heart for years and years to come. How I praise the Giver of all good gifts.
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