The Beginning of the End

We're finally coming upon the end to this long drawn out process. Kids are "delivered" to where they'll stay while we are gone. The house is quiet....eerily quiet. I don't like it....I want our kids back home already and yet there is a little girl thousands of miles away who is need of her new mama and papa. As we were coming home in an empty car I remembered the family meeting we had with the kids about 2 years ago when we told them that we thought that maybe God was asking us to adopt this little girl:

She was 10 months old at the time. I remember the first time I saw her - I actually

fell to the chair and lost my breath. I remember the very first thought I had of her "I'm going to hold that little one some day" It was as if God spoke directly to my mother's heart that she was our daughter. We told the kids we were going to pray about it and wanted them to as well. After that family meeting I think it was Andrew who said, "Mom, God told me that we're suppose to adopt her!" Oh the faith of a child. And then I think of Abby who from day one has prayed every single night "and please let the paperwork for Lydia to go really, really fast" (even after all these months she continued to pray that prayer. Oh the faith of a child.

Then I remember Caleb and Luke saying that the next one has to be a boy because we couldn't have more girls than boys, and yet both on different occasions admitted that God really wanted Lydia to come home. Oh the faith of a child. And we have a tattered picture of Lydia that we just received out of Seth's box of school things. On his birthday we opened his Memory Box that Karen Schuitema from school had put together of his school things and amidst the crayons, journals, and drawings there was one picture of Lydia that was so worn on the sides that I just know that he fingered that picture of his little sister dreaming of the day when he'd get to play with her "for real" He kept that picture taped to his desk for the last 2 years. Oh the faith of a child. And Gracie....sweet Grace....wanting her little sister home so badly at times that I'd find her crying when we had another set back in the process. "Is God ever going to send her home, mom?" she asked me one night - someday, Grace He will - oh the questions of faith of a child. They all have taught me alot about faith in this journey. God is faithful - and God is good - all the time, no matter what the circumstances. So we leave to pick up our little girl tomorrow morning....the beginning of the end of this process. One that has come with excitement and tears and testing of our faith. We're coming sweet Lydia - mama and papa are coming.......