Everyday Life

So I started this blogging venture with the purpose of keeping my relatives posted with family photos and funny stories.  Since then, God has led our family on the journey of adoption to Rwanda and updates on that have become a purpose mixed in as well.  But since I have no idea if any family reads my blog, or anyone else for that matter, I simply effort to write about what I'm thinking about on any given day, if I consider it noteworthy.


And there enlies the reason for relative silent blogging over the last several months.  I have nothing to say.  My mind is full, but it is reeling with many "why's" and "what's going on's" not just with adoption but with my kiddos at home.  It's been a wild ride and I'm just not sure what to say about it, so I've said not much at all.


On a very positive note, we don't use diapers in our house anymore. That's pretty darn noteworthy I think.  Diaper-free living.  I haven't known that feeling in almost 5 years.  And depending on the adoption gig, this could last a while.  I'm rejoicing in that!

This day, we weren't so sure we could trust him through his nap.

The things pressing in on me though are our child far far away in an orphanage surrounded by many other children whose wait is much harder than my own.  My selfishness has kicked in big time since September.  It's been almost 8 months and I feel entitled.  Entitled, but then also just sad.  Sad for me and that my plans aren't working out on the time line I'd anticipated.  But sad for her.  She may be too young to know she's waiting, but I truly believe somewhere inside her, she knows that something is desperately wrong in her world. Something dear has been ripped away from her.  And she is broken and she is waiting.  Her wait is much harder than mine.


And as God is teaching me to see Him in this wait from a far off land, He is also teaching me that He is in the pain that exists right here in my own.  

Our son's "disorder" as I've called it before, seems to be getting worse.  We are seeking therapy and using lots and lots of material to help us in our parenting.  We are working so hard with almost every word we speak to say things "just right" so as not to set him off.  We feel WE are making progress as we grow in knowledge, understanding and compassion. But we see that HE is significantly more irritable.  


We are praying our guts out for wisdom and for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control to consume him.  Sweet and dear and yet so conflicted with turmoil inside.  And he waits as well.  It's not just our struggle, it's his.  


God is IN this with us.  He is IN us and using these things to strengthen our NEED for HIM, not solutions and knowledge, and brought home babies, but Him.  We are a work in progress as we learn mostly to wait on Him.


Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Mexico.