Joyfully Overloaded

I found this tucked away in my school cabinet:   We didn't end up buying a truck load of food for the orphans that year, instead we brought home and fell in love with our very own orphan.  We got blurry eyed and stopped writing our joys on little notes so we never made it to 208, but we gushed over every sound he made.  We did a little less fishing that year too.   Just got home from the hospital. Five days old. Even though none of our goals were met I still consider it to be one of the best years of our lives.   Meeting our third son. Falling in love with him. Learning to love deeply, even though we had no idea he would be ours until 2019. Letting go of fear. Learning to trust in ways that cannot be put into words. Real life photo op right here. His shirt reads: Current Family Favorite I will forever be thankful that our plans changed that year.

Sometimes pictures say it best:  

Two of my favorite people...

This looks like your average-toddler-dressed-himself-learning-to-have-a-free-will-photo, and it kind of is, but it's so much more. This time last year my boy couldn't even roll over. We were just being put on a waiting list for physical therapy and I was sitting with some specialist learning that he was five months delayed where most kids at that age put everything in their mouths and were itching to move, he didn't even reach across his own body. All things I would have to learn to teach him... But now-this photo-lately he doesn't want to even snuggle while he feeds himself his bottle. Those boots he can put them on almost completely by himself. Sometimes when he's just doing ordinary toddler stuff I find myself staring in awe at how far we've come. I adore him, and the boy he's becoming.

In the two weeks since our adoption my sweet babe has eaten some of Aaron's crazy putty, put his shoe in the flour, colored on my windows, gotten into the cat food, given one of his cars a bath in the toilet, had strep and refused to eat by chucking food at me, thrown some very impressive tantrums simply because I've said no, played hard in the pool, snuggled in close, laughed hard, "loved" on our chicks, covered me in kisses and hugs, learned new words... every time something new happens all I can think is, "This is my son. I get to be his Mom, forever. These are stories I'll be able to someday tell him about. I get to be the one to watch him grow into a man...That is if the two of us survive the toddler years."

Tonight for the very first time I got to snuggle MY son to sleep while he snuggled his favorite fox. We have done this hundreds of times before, but tonight was different. Every night I dream of my boys futures. I pray for the soon to be men I am influencing. I hope and dream for their futures, that we teach them to be men of character, leaders in their own unique way. I remember their strengths and wonder how I can help them grow in their weaknesses. I pray all of these thin gs, but for this one I pray more. I pray that he would be in a family where he would know he is loved. I pray that his people would always protect him and keep him safe, taking care of his needs. But I also pray for my heart that if he's not meant to be mine that I would have the strength to worship like Hannah of the Bible did when she said goodbye to her son. That's how I have prayed every night up until tonight...My happy heart snuggled him close and saw that God said yes to so many of my prayers. I hav...

It's official, he's our Happy One!

Let's talk about friends, family, and community. Have you ever read about what the very first church was like in the book of Acts? It was a fearful time, Jesus was no longer physically on the scene and this new group was emerging. They weren't really sure what to do so they just started doing what they had seen Jesus do. That's my heart and biggest goal in life to love people like Jesus did. After Silas and I talked that day we sat down as a family and asked each other what w e could do to be like him. We all agreed helping hurting families was the best next step for us. We all agreed that Silas was on to something. That first hospital stay we began to experience ourselves what it was like to be loved in a Jesus way. People snuck into our house and left breakfast in our freezer for when we got back from the hospital, others made meals, I was given so many clothes and baby gear that I ended up donating some of it to other foster families, at one point we had strangers mowing...