We could be an advertisement for 3M post-it notes. Except mine are invisible and are plastered all over the inside of my mind. I'm quite sure there are filing cabinets with notes all over the exterior...cheery looking as they hang askew on the doors and drawers.
Jim and I have the my list/your list/our list deal. Some things are just on his list because I have no more room to even wonder if they are done. I trust him and what a relief to divide up and know our respective items will be completed. My list looks a lot like organizing family life for three weeks in hotels, and family life for three weeks at home with grandparents and various and sundry friends for playdates. Oh, goodness gracious.
Yesterday I worked on the day to day book for Anna and Luke. It is a little booklet that they can read each day featuring the events of their day, and then pictures and a description of what our day will look like. Writing about the Great Wall and finding pictures of the Summer Palace was so fun! Sharing with them about Emma Day, and recalling for Anna the day we met her made my heart ache with joy and wonder. Each day ends with a prayer, and our love. As each day does end.
Today is eight days to China!
Jim is completing a closet system for the girls. Anna and Emma are sharing a room, and a closet. It will be done today! So fun to put it back together with both girls belongings in it.
Each project is a step closer to Emma, and a love letter to our family and our new daughter.
My prayer for our little Anna is that with each thing she sees us doing, she realizes this is what we did for her, too! The love and longing is immense. We loved and longed for her.
Yesterday as Jim did the girls closet Anna was looking through a box of items, some school, some life, some her adoption trip. She pulled out the little outfit she met us in, the little whirlygig toy her nanny gave her that day, and the darling pink shoes with bells that she wore. She chimed as she walked, and it was such a fitting sound of joy. As she sat on the floor looking at these things again, and I explained again what each one was and how special they are, Anna took those little pink shoes and tried to put them on her feet. They only went on as far as her toes!
When we were in China, we received an "adoption barbie" from one of the hotels. It is a western looking Mom-barbie carrying a little dark-haired baby barbie. All that Anna wanted to do in that hotel room in China five years ago was to put Mom Barbie's shoes on. She was so perplexed that they wouldn't fit on her feet. And she diligently kept trying one foot and then the other in an effort to make those high heeled shoes fit. It is such an endearing memory for Jim and me.
Yesterday, my adorable Anna sat on the floor of her room, and laughingly tried to put her tiny little two-year old shoes on one foot and then the other. Silly, sweet Anna. It took me right back to that hotel room and the lovely memory of Adoption Barbie's shoes.
The days are going by quickly. Just at the right pace. God is drawing us ever closer to the day we leave, and the day we all receive.
"I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD."
- Psalm 27:13-14
We do see, right now, the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. We see Him here. Now. And we look for Him there, with us with Emma when we are there. His beautiful hand at work drawing our family together. His incredible provision for each one of us.
We wait on the Lord as we wait for the Lord. And we take heart because He is our strength and our song, He is good, He overcame, He is worth enough and He was then, too, and He is our Father. Our rock, our redeemer, our sustainer, our savior.
Thank you, Lord, for this day. For the day you have made today, where we are eight short long days from leaving for our beloved, Emma Kate.
1 comment:
EIGHT.
HOW WONDERFUL.
AND SO YOU FEEL BETTER, OUR TUMMIES AND MINDS ARE TWIRLING FOR YOU!!!
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