It is summer!

Today is the last day of this school year.  By 4pm today, school is out and summertime in!

Emma Kate, this marks in my mind a move towards you!  Each day when I go to bed I think, "one day closer to Emma".  Today when I woke up I thought, "one SEASON closer to my girl".

Joy!

Marking time is funny.  When your brothers and sister were little, the days seemed so long sometimes, but the years were flying by quickly.  I remember times when the clock said 11am, and we had done everything in my bag of tricks.  Naptime at 1pm felt light years away.  Now those days feel like a distant memory in many ways.  And yet, here I am still marking time.

These days I mark the days by your nights and the nights by your days.  Flip-flopped.  When I awake, I pray for you and wonder what you are doing as your day ends in Jinjiang.  While I prepare for sleep, I lift you to our Lord thinking always about your day beginning.  The days are flying by, however.  It is all inverted, in a way.  Instead of days seeming long, the days are a fast blur.  There's no marching of time.  It is mostly a warp speed experience where I look at the day only to realize we are launching into a new one.  Breathless sometimes!

I recall cradling your brothers in my arms as they rested tucked inside me while we waited for their births.  Waiting for Anna's arrival home I remember feeling myself just wanting to stretch to her in China.  A longing that didn't ever stop until we were there and with her.  Yesterday my heart had a literal ache for you.  A longing.

So even though the days are fast and flying, there are these moments when time seems to stand still.  Maybe not even move.  If I was back in math class in high school, I might even glimpse that second hand slowly moving backwards around the clock.  Time reversing.  Somehow it is like I step into a space of longing and wanting you that is so huge the passage of time goes away and all I want to do is step over and around it and be with you.

So I am grateful for summer's arrival and the marking of time in another way.  An entire season.  We are an entire season closer to you.  Almost like a giant step closer.  The calendar is full of fun things and good times that will make time blur for us here and bring us all the closer to the day we are all united.

This morning I'm pretending that we just took a giant leap outside the day to day marking and moved so much closer to being together face to face.  Forever.

We entrust all the timing of that to God.  Because we trust Him.

And in the meantime, whether the days be a blur or the moments stand still, our hearts and arms wait in expectation for you.  There isn't a moment that goes by that you aren't needed and wanted.  Here.  By us.  In our hearts, our family and our home.

You belong.

Love you, sweet YuXiao.
God bless your sleep tonight, because it is morning here.
Momma