Thankful

Today I am thankful for friends and family who help me do hard things. We took down Lydia's room this weekend. We're still in the process of making it into something new, and I will post about it another day.

I'm thankful for a patient husband who will forgive me for snapping at him because he knows I'm not really mad at him, I'm just sad.

I'm thankful for having people in my life who I can ask to pray for me and I know they do.

I'm thankful that our girl got to have a birthday party one year ago today when she turned six months. And for friends who remember why this day means something to us.

I'm thankful for missionary friends in Nepal who remember our girl and wrote her name in the sand on a beach in Thailand.


There are people in the world who remember her and places on the earth that bear her name. For that, I am thankful.

The God Part

So. The God part of this story. This part is difficult to write because I'm still working my way back into being comfortable with being near Him. I'm anxious and that makes writing about Him like everything is OK and back to normal feel like a lie. So, just know as I say all of this it is true but it is still a struggle.

After Christmas I began to feel myself coming out of the fog I'd been in since before Thanksgiving. We had begun making changes and plans for changes and I was feeling good about it. Until, all of a sudden, I wasn't. We had decided to adopt, but we lacked focus and a specific plan. It became frustrating and unsettling every time we tried to talk about it, or any time I thought about it.

I knew why. He wasn't part of it. He wasn't part of it because I was unwilling to trust Him enough to allow Him to be. We had trusted Him with Lydia's life and He took her away from us. We trusted him with our plan for a family and were left now with aching hearts and empty arms. All I could think was, "If I trust Him now, what other hurt does He have in store?" Even His blessings can bring pain...how can I trust?

I was happy to have Him keep His hands out of our business and just let us take care of everything. Ha. As if He would do that.

I know too much to believe that any true, joyful and lasting thing could ever exist without Him. I was at an impasse. If I trust, I get hurt. If I don't trust, I get hurt.

Still unsure, we cautiously filled out the paperwork, believing that somehow the other pieces would start to come together. As I finished up the paperwork, we realized that in order to apply, we had to send in $25o for the application fee, which we were expecting, as well as $1750 for the home-study fee, which we were not expecting. I proceeded to have a significant meltdown. We don't have money for this. We have to get money before we can even START the process and I want to start now!

We furiously wrote down every cent we had in savings and figured out ways to pull money from every possible place to figure out how to make this payment. We sent e-mails and text messages to our friends who had adopted or were in the process of adopting asking for information on how to get money from people. We looked into adoption grants and loans. We (well, mostly me) were panicking.

Before we went to sleep that night, Micah got a message back from a friend whose family has recently adopted two little girls from Swaziland. His message was helpful and insightful and ended by assuring Micah that they found as they moved forward in His plan for their family, God provided. In my head, I snickered and said, "Yeah..except I'm not asking Him for anything."

We went to bed having a rough plan of how we could throw together a $2000 payment. We were disheartened, but we had a plan.

The next morning, I called a friend who was going to write a letter of recommendation for us and I needed to double check her address. She asked how the process had been going so far and I told her about the panic that had crashed down the night before and how we were scrambling to find $2000 to send in for our initial payment.

There was quiet for a second and then she said, "OK. I'll be over later today with a check."

Stunned, I tried my best to stammer out some kind of response.

"Yep. We'd already decided to give you between $2000 and $4000 and if you need the money now, I'm bringing it over."

I told her I'd have to call her back, hung up the phone, sat down on the floor and burst into tears.

We didn't ask Him for anything. We couldn't. He provided anyway. Our sweet friends who have walked this difficult road with us wanted to be a part of helping us build our family and this was their opportunity. They took it without hesitation.

We didn't ask Him. He provided anyway. I couldn't believe it. I called Micah in hysterics. I had nowhere in all of my categories and ideas about God to put this new information. I called my friend and tried to explain what I knew she already understood.

This made me want to try to trust again.

I can see it. He's bringing all the pieces together, even now as we move forward with unsure steps. He's saving the life of a sweet child from somewhere who needs to be loved and He's saving my life too. The beautiful thing is that I know He's not just doing this for me.

This gift, this adoption it's not just about me, just as Lydia's life and death was not just about me. There are pieces here that I don't see and don't understand but He's fitting them together, making the broken things into something beautiful.

I'd be lying if I said I've been able to keep this perspective in the past weeks. I've still had my doubt and my anger to reckon with. But I saw it. For a brief, glorious moment, I could see it.

Here We Go

This is now the fourth time I've started to write this entry. Every time I start I get utterly overwhelmed and can't finish. So, I've decided to break it down into parts. Today is part one and I'm just going to dive right in.

We've decided to adopt a baby. As I type this, there is an application and a check folded neatly into an addressed envelope, ready to be sent off to our adoption agency. Even now, weeks after we've decided to move forward, my heart races every time I think about it.

I've been going back and forth about writing about it here but I've finally come to a conclusion: We wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for Lydia. In a very real way, she is the inspiration. Until she was born, I never knew how much I loved being someone's mother and I never knew how amazing Micah was at being a father. Those were gifts she gave to us and now we feel like it's time to give that to someone else. This child, wherever they are now, will be loved exceedingly because Lydia taught us how to love. That is why I want to be able to talk about it here. Because whatever it is, she is a part of it still.

There are some incredible things that have already been happening in the wake of our decision but that will come in another post. Right now, we just want all of you who read and participate in our lives through this blog to know this. We would ask, as we have many times before, that you would lift us in prayer to the Lord as we begin to move forward.

Somewhere in the world (or maybe not even in the world yet) is a little person who is ours. We're ready to find them.

Winter River

On Christmas day I walked through the woods. I cried and talked aloud to Lydia, to Jesus, to the cosmos in general. I wrote Lydia's name in the snow. It made me feel like the earth and sky wouldn't forget her.

I came to the river. I leaned up against the boathouse dock, closed my eyes and listened. At first, all there was was the sound of my breathing. Then, from somewhere deep in the water I heard a whooshing sound. The river was groaning - singing. It was beautiful and made something in my heart vibrate.

Even while frozen, the river was alive and singing.

In months, when the spring comes, the river will thaw and will be again a hospitable place for things to live and grow. It will move, and the song once in the depths will rise again to the surface to be heard by any who pass by.

My soul is the winter river. There are layers of ice sheltering my heart. Still, quiet, frozen. But somewhere in the deep places is a groaning song. I am alive. I am singing. And the spring will come.

8 Months, 8 Days

Today our girl has been in heaven as many days as she was on the earth.

Tomorrow she will have been gone longer than she was here.

I don't even know what to do with that, but there it is.

Headbands

In an attempt to feel closer to my girl who feels so far away, I've been wearing her headbands as bracelets.


It makes me feel a little better. And then a little worse. And then a little better again. It's not her. But it's something of hers I can have with me all the time. It's my way to bring her with me.

A Timely Gift

Usually I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of year. We cut down a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and the house gets completely Christmased by the end of the day after Thanksgiving. Last year when Lydia was here was no exception. Difficult as it was, I wanted to fully enjoy the Christmas season with our little girl.

This year has been different. I've listened to no Christmas music, cut down no Christmas tree and decorated nothing. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I've been cursing at my television when cute family Christmas commercials come on and staring down anyone seeming remotely jolly about the Christmas season. But in the past couple days, the Christmasy feeling has been sneaking up on me. I start to think, "Well, maybe we'll get a tree this year and put up a few decorations" and then I start to get excited because I love the way our house looks when it's decorated. Then, as soon as I start to get a little happy, there's a catch in my throat. I don't want to celebrate this year without our girl. But then I do. But also I don't.

Today, we bit the bullet. We were out and about and decided to get a Christmas tree - just a small one that would require no re-arranging of the living room. It was simple, quick and easy. We got it home, got it set up and got the lights on it. I put up a few other decorations here and there and then got ready to do ornaments.

I wasn't looking forward to this. Tree decorating has always been a big thing for me. When I was growing up, it was a family event as we'd take out ornaments from years gone by...some really ugly ones we'd made, some with favorite cartoon characters. It's one of those traditions I'd always looked forward to doing with our children. Lydia, in the one Christmas she spent with us, managed to accrue several (I think six) ornaments. She should be here to put them up. The angry and sad was welling up, but decorating the tree was something I needed to do for myself, so I was going to do it.

Then, the doorbell rang. It was the mailman. He only rings the bell if there's something a little too big for the mailbox. There was a package for us. It was from the mother of a former student of mine. Inside was this beautiful thing.


It's a handmade, quilted ornament made from a pair of ladybug pajamas. These were some of our very favorite jammies that Lydia wore. Her friend Molly had a pair too.


I promptly burst into tears. Besides it being an incredibly sweet gesture and overwhelmingly thoughtful gift, it was something else altogether. Nothing could ever make Christmas without our girl OK. But this ornament, is a reminder to me. Despite my struggle to trust and follow Him now, the Savior of the world who came to die so I could live, He is still with me. He still sees me. He still loves me.