Two Countries, One Family: December 2015

Well....I officially fail at blogging! But I have two of the most wonderful reasons in the world! If you are still following this....you are very, very patient (perhaps to an extreme, friend ;-)!). However, I have a hard time leaving loose ends, so here we go anyway! It is my joy of joys to share with you that we did indeed welcome our precious Hannah GuangYue on March 2, 2015. She is just incredible, and these 9.5 months have flown by far too quickly! This baby girl is sweet, caring, smarter than her mama, and has a real flair for the dramatic! She is an amazing sister to Vivienne, and we are simply so, so blessed with her. Those of you who helped bring this child into our family....thank you is just ridiculously inadequate. We are so grateful! I could talk about this child, and about watching her change our family in wonderful ways, for pages and pages. But if you know us in "real life"....I think I may have already done so (eeep!).

Suffice it to say we are home now, we are doing truly well, that adoption is this rich, crazy, beautiful thing that God graciously did in our lives. The vast majority of adoptive parents will tell you that adoption will change your life....and they will immediately tell you they would not have it another way. This self-centered, entitled culture tells you not all life is equal....that some lives are not worth pursuit or protection. That if it is work, it isn't worth it, or is less authentic. That you just can't love someone you don't share biology with (Long side note, but it throws me that the people I hear this most from are generally married...so a person can love unrelated adults, but just not unrelated children... just saying...huh? They also had no idea beforehand how much they could love their biological children, if they have them! My adoption mama friends with biological children would tell you it's not different). Oh my gosh, how upside down wrong. How turned on its head. There are hard parts to adoption, some parts very hard....as with anything you will ever do that has any value at all in life.

There are things that will be difficult, but they are so rarely the things people who have never adopted before or known an orphan (including social orphans) gossip about. The hardest things for us have been that "stuff" deriving from the realization of the harm done, the brokenness of this world, that sinks further and further in when you choose to enter the suffering of your child and walk it with them towards healing. And the sleepless nights...yeah, totally do not often get to "skip that" in adopting a toddler or older child, sorry friends! Trauma is a real thing. So is Healing. The best things are those blessings and joys you already know children bring with them by simply being themselves, and the incredible work God really will do in your life as He knits your family together until the alternative of never having known this precious little child is just almost literally unthinkable. The love. The grace. The JOY. This is not rosey-painted speaking. It is not everything I would tell you if we were face to face over coffee, but these are my overarching thoughts about adoption packed into in a short, simple blog post.

We are in a "nesting" season right now and for some time, spending some time not "in process," just nurturing each other. We are open to adopting again (okay, yours truly may never be emotionally "done"- you can't undo what you know once you know it, right?), but are also open to however God wants us to fulfill that call we were all given to care for these little ones, whether that's through adoption or giving, praying, advocating, volunteering....

I have been dying to say this through two blogs now, and since this is it for a while, I am just going to go for it! If you are ready to accept a child where they are, and accept that healing that takes longer than a couple weeks is going to be necessary....If you are someone open to learning a lot in preparation for this child and as you take one step at a time together....If you are okay being the grown up and delivering love even when (when!) a child is hurting or struggling (that whole little thing where you are the person in this relationship who needs to "grown up" :-))....And most of all, if you are willing to allow God to do something awesome in your life in bringing you into a deep, forever relationship to a child. My advice from the other side is to dip that toe in...no, DIVE! Trust that His desire is for these precious children to be in families, to have roots and foundation and relationship, to have the chance to know Him. Trust that He will equip you as you seek to gather up one of His own, and that He is trustworthy with your life- and your whole family's life. Deep breath and go, they don't have time to wait where they too often are, and love is waiting. Thank you so much for listening to me ramble, for praying, and for caring!

With much love and appreciation,

Elizabeth