Camping

We just got back from a weekend at Girl Scout family camp.  The first night I just could not sleep.  Maybe it was the heat, maybe the people talking outside, maybe a small child kicking me a little, but none the less I was awake a lot.  I am a person who likes to check things and make sure everything is okay, especially my kids, so I woke up whenever they moved, kicked the wall, coughed, etc.

It got me thinking about moms around the world.  I have been reading a lot of powerful books lately, which I want to blog about soon to share some wonderful reading recommendations.  Many of these are about Africa or India and the ways of living there, especially in poorer areas.  Even while camping, I could protect my children by getting a cabin, bringing nice sheets and blankets, packing lots of things for "just in case" and despite all of that I knew that if we needed to, or just wanted to, I could drive them home in an hour.  But what if I couldn't?  Parents all over the world have children and love them and want them, but do not have a house for them and do not have food to give them and certainly do not have extra clothes and educationally stimulating books and toys and money for enriching classes.  How terrible would that feel to love my children and want to protect them and help them and encourage them, but have no resources at all to do so?  It breaks my heart.  It also makes me pray that I will remember this when we are deciding how to spend our money, and to realize that I am no different than that mom across the globe who loves her children and wants to give them food and clothes and a house and all of the opportunities that I want to give my children.  Yes, this is really what I think about when I am up in the middle of the night in the middle of the woods.  Oh, and my husband said that the cabin we were staying in to "rough it" for the weekend was bigger than the house he helped build for a family in Guatemala.

On a lighter note, so that this is not such a heavy post, we do have a funny story (well, it's funny now) from this weekend.  We were all supposed to bring white elephant gifts from our homes as prizes for BINGO and the kids were looking at them before the game started.  Well, A right away saw this little stuffed unicorn that was definitely well-loved, but she just loved it.  She actually won the second game and picked out the unicorn.  She loved on it all through the rest of the night, until me, her loving mother, took it from her for her to go to the bathroom, set it on the pillows that I was holding and ended up leaning over and dropping it down the long hole of the camp potty.  She was so upset and I felt terrible!  However, thanks to Amazon, we have a new little unicorn arriving on Wednesday.

The Bible verse of the day on my phone seemed to be a good one to memorize, short and to the point: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."  Romans 12:21

First Blog Post

Sometimes I can be a perfectionist, although  you wouldn't  know it by looking around my living room right now.  I think that's why it's been difficult for me to start our blog.  I didn't know how to start and I wanted to find the best way to start.  Well, there is no best way and this whole experience is passing by and I'm ready to start blogging with God's help.

It's odd to realize that if we had gotten pregnant at the time that we applied to our adoption agency, we would have a 6 month old baby by now.  Since we have been blessed enough to go through pregnancy twice, I can say that there is definitely comfort in the time frame.  Although you always know that something could go wrong, there are regular doctor's visits, fun things to plan for and a definite time frame.  Adoption is nothing like that.  There are periods of excitement and anticipation and periods of waiting and periods of frustration and periods where life goes on and you almost forget you're adopting for a few days.  It is a scary and wonderful test of patience and trusting in God's plan.

Adoption is also sad.  When you get pregnant, you are just so happy and when you have the baby, you're even happier.  With adoption, I feel like a transplant patient, waiting for something tragic to happen to someone else so that something great can happen for me.  I want our child or children, but I don't want them to go through what they are going through or what they will be going through.  I would never want that for the two children that I already have, but it will be happening for our future children.  It's messy.

I just read a blog from Jen Hatmaker tonight about the ups and downs of their first year with their adopted children and I love her candor and honesty.  Being a parent any way is hard, but doing it to children who have been broken is even harder.  It's a different path, but God never promises us an easy path, especially if we choose to ask him to make the path for us.  He promises us rewards we couldn't even imagine, but not without a cost.

So, I've made it through my first blog posting!  Now they don't have to be perfect, just real.  :)  I'll finish with M's absolute favorite Bible verse:  "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life".  John 3:16