It was the night before the landing
counting the minutes and the hours
praying for new brothers walking
from their life to ours
We've talked of the change
We've meandered over our cares
To know what it means
To give our lives for theirs
Pain is everywhere, the poverty never ending
But God has blessed us so much
We had to do something
So when I look in their eyes
I see not one guarantee
Of a rose colored ending
Where we are all "home free"
I sense bodies that need hugging
I see healing that needs to begin
I will try to ask nothing in return
Just my Father's "Amen"
I know this is all
Easier said and harder shown
If their parents were living
I would tell them their sons have a home
But what I suspect will happen
And it will have to be given
From the greatest of gift givers
From our Father in Heaven
And when His gift is opened
It will be humbly realized
That our boys were the ones
Who rescued us and opened our eyes
-Dedicated to Ephrem and Anteneh
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
What Do These Numbers Mean?
6/3 1:24 pm #3757
If you don't have the slightest of inklings, then I am happy to tell you that on Sunday, June 3rd at 1:24pm, our sweet boys Ephrem and Anteneh will be arriving on United flight #3757 at the Raleigh/Durham Airport.
Please come help us welcome our sweet boys home into our family! We would love to see you there at the airport. This day is as exciting as my wedding day and the days my sweet babies were born.
This life is crazy good. Woo Hoooo!!!!!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
News Flash!!!!!
Our case cleared embassy this morning!!! The aunt arrived and we have moved on to the next step which is to get a visa appointment. This will not pose an issue at all. As I have stated before, we are having our boys escorted to the US. The agency rep from our adoption agency will be the escort. According to her, she will not be able to leave Ethiopia with our boys until May 31. This will put their arrival date somewhere between June 1st and June 2nd. I was actually hoping that they would come earlier, but honestly, I am ecstatic that they will be coming in the next 10 days.
I can't wait to see them for the very first time and my husband can not wait to see them again. Our children have made years and years of plans with their new brothers It will be like watching the birth of our children....except this time I won't be naked and in sheet gripping pain. I am sure you are all breathing a sigh of relief on this one.....this scene would not bode well in an airport and would land most witnesses in therapy and me in the slammer.
As soon as I know the dates of their arrival, I will let you know. And to all my local friends, it would bring joy to my heart to see you at the airport as we wait for our boys. I really want them to see how anticipated and wanted they are. It would mean a lot to our family as well. All of you have been so encouraging with support financially and through your friendship and prayers. This is going to be an amazing day for our whole family!
I think I now officially need a pair of Depends.
I can't wait to see them for the very first time and my husband can not wait to see them again. Our children have made years and years of plans with their new brothers It will be like watching the birth of our children....except this time I won't be naked and in sheet gripping pain. I am sure you are all breathing a sigh of relief on this one.....this scene would not bode well in an airport and would land most witnesses in therapy and me in the slammer.
As soon as I know the dates of their arrival, I will let you know. And to all my local friends, it would bring joy to my heart to see you at the airport as we wait for our boys. I really want them to see how anticipated and wanted they are. It would mean a lot to our family as well. All of you have been so encouraging with support financially and through your friendship and prayers. This is going to be an amazing day for our whole family!
I think I now officially need a pair of Depends.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Today Is The Day
Today...........
Pretty soon all the todays will be yesterdays that we will gaze back upon and see the perfect timing of God's hand in all of this. The waiting will always have the emotional photo in my mind of longing and impatience. I will put this in their scrapbook too. And I will look back, and I pray they will look back, and see the beauty and perfection of it all.
Today is the day............
Friday, May 11, 2012
A Little Light...
This morning I woke up to a voice mail on my phone. It was from our adoption agency informing me that our boys' aunt initiated a call to the agency and told them she would be back in over the weekend. If she is to be taken seriously, this would mean that the embassy interview would take place this coming week. AND if this happens, I imagine that we will have our boys in about two weeks.
Oh, the times I have estimated "two more weeks" is countless. I am even afraid to speculate a date as to when they will actually arrive to be mobbed and absorbed by our family. At times I feel embarrassed as the dates come and go with no boys.....like I am crying wolf with no proof to back it up. Excited friends come and ask, over and over, if I have heard anything more about our boys and the date of their arrival. At some point, I fear they will give up and shake their heads wondering if these boys actually exist.
They exist. Look at my heart. When I speak, my emotions prove it. The tears that have been shed due to waiting for them is evidence. Look at the sparkle in my husband's eyes when their names are mentioned. Converse with my son about his memories of harassing his new dusty brothers and a grin spreads with pride and excitement. Oh yes, they exist.
The only thing that does not exist right now is our boys' physical presence in our family. This is the ache. This is the expectation. This is what will be so sweet when it happens......and we will breathe a sigh of relief when it does.
The power of prayer has been incredibly exposed and unveiled due to this adoption and I have all of you dear friends to thank for this. Thank you so much. I know, without a doubt, that your prayers have kept me sane, calm and full of hope.
Oh, the times I have estimated "two more weeks" is countless. I am even afraid to speculate a date as to when they will actually arrive to be mobbed and absorbed by our family. At times I feel embarrassed as the dates come and go with no boys.....like I am crying wolf with no proof to back it up. Excited friends come and ask, over and over, if I have heard anything more about our boys and the date of their arrival. At some point, I fear they will give up and shake their heads wondering if these boys actually exist.
They exist. Look at my heart. When I speak, my emotions prove it. The tears that have been shed due to waiting for them is evidence. Look at the sparkle in my husband's eyes when their names are mentioned. Converse with my son about his memories of harassing his new dusty brothers and a grin spreads with pride and excitement. Oh yes, they exist.
The only thing that does not exist right now is our boys' physical presence in our family. This is the ache. This is the expectation. This is what will be so sweet when it happens......and we will breathe a sigh of relief when it does.
The power of prayer has been incredibly exposed and unveiled due to this adoption and I have all of you dear friends to thank for this. Thank you so much. I know, without a doubt, that your prayers have kept me sane, calm and full of hope.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Pray.
What was assumed would only take several weeks has now turned into an indefinite wait. Our whole adoptive process, at this point, rests on the shoulders of our boys' aunt. She is needing to come in for an interview at the Ethiopian embassy which would free the boys to travel. She has cancelled two previous embassy appointments and now she is off in a different region for mourning ceremonies related to her deceased mother. Many attempts have been made to contact her. At first, it looked as though she would be back as early as the end of this week. Now we have information that she may not be back for weeks. She has to have some inkling as to what her absence is doing and preventing. I'm just not understanding her reasoning.....at all. I am having a hard time chalking this down to cultural differences when it feels so blatantly like apathy. I just don't understand what is going on. There is a small voice inside me saying that things are not what they appear. Something is up.
So, this adoption and all involved need your prayers. Pray for a quick resolution to this mess. I have been in contact with different entities trying to get a feel for what alternatives we have to get our boys home. Pray for Ephrem and Anteneh. Pray that they have peace and the continued confidence that we are fighting for them and that we are coming to get them.
My heart is aching...but I just don't know what else to do. It just hurts so much to wait. Please pray.
Below is a link to where you can see Ephrem and Anteneh read a letter from us assuring them that we are coming for them and that they have a brand new baby sister. It is precious.
http://sharing.theflip.com/session/412f2c3caa36fb591c2e0643f0297cec/video/142564241
So, this adoption and all involved need your prayers. Pray for a quick resolution to this mess. I have been in contact with different entities trying to get a feel for what alternatives we have to get our boys home. Pray for Ephrem and Anteneh. Pray that they have peace and the continued confidence that we are fighting for them and that we are coming to get them.
My heart is aching...but I just don't know what else to do. It just hurts so much to wait. Please pray.
Below is a link to where you can see Ephrem and Anteneh read a letter from us assuring them that we are coming for them and that they have a brand new baby sister. It is precious.
http://sharing.theflip.com/session/412f2c3caa36fb591c2e0643f0297cec/video/142564241
Friday, April 20, 2012
Attitude 'n Earrings
The book narrowly missed his head. Yes, this is what I was fantasizing....vividly, in fact. Several months after my fifth child was born, he so kindly commented that if I ever wanted a tummy tuck, he would pay for it. Please note that I, in no way, felt I needed one, nor had I ever hinted at wanting one. In fact, I was proud that my body was still able and willing to bounce back after so many pregnancies. I was feeling blessed and beautiful.....until the comment. It was obvious that this is not what my husband had thought. He thought he was being kind. I thought otherwise, hence, my visions of hurling a book at him. If the closest book hadn't been titled "Managing Your Emotions", I imagine I would be writing this post from a prison cell. May I enlighten you wonderful husbands out there with a little tidbit? Never suggest a body altering idea to your wife if she has not brought up the topic first. This will bode well for you.
Fast forward several years to the months after my seventh child's birth. Our whole family was stuck in a hotel room due to repairs being done to our house because of water damage. Why we had water damage to our house is post worthy indeed, but it will suffice to say that we had a particular child that thought it necessary to use a rain forest's worth of toilet paper in one sitting. The toilet rebelled secretly with an hour long water ladened tantrum and now we were all holed up in a hotel room. We watched a lot of TV. One of the shows I happened to catch was "John and Kate Plus Eight" where Kate herself was getting a tummy tuck. I was secretly and horribly intrigued but would instantly appear uninterested when my husband would enter the room. There were before and after pictures of Kate, and before I even realized it, I was sold on the idea. Kate looked amazing! I would agree to stop having children if I could get a tummy that looked like Britney Spears....a tummy where my belly button would re-surface from the dead and come back to life....in the right spot.
Now the tide had changed.
Several days later I approached my husband regarding my idea of getting a tummy tuck. Although his initial approach on this topic did not end in an injury from a book, I had (in my special way) let him know that he was way out of line for mentioning it. I am sure if you asked him today, he would have preferred the book being thrown at him. My mentioning the word "tummy tuck" made him flinch out of self protection. You could tell, as he furtively looked from side to side, that he didn't know if this topic was truly safe to talk about or if I was playing a dirty trick on him. Poor guy. After some discussion, I learned that his offer was still on the table.
Now I had some thinking to do.
I stood in front of the mirror naked. It is definitely not the body I started out with by a long stretch...no pun intended. I dreamed. I studied. I wept as I ran my fingers over every fold, sag and stretch mark. My body's imperfections tell an amazing story and I was considering erasing the proof that it ever happened.
Memories flooded back to every pregnancy I'd had, every child my body nourished, every race I had won and all the abuse I had doled out against my body in my younger years out of stupidity and through addictions. And, yet, my body remained faithful to me throughout all of it. And here I was, contemplating taking a knife to it. What was I doing? It hit me hard. This body of mine. This gift from God. What has it ever done to harm me? Why did I feel the need to slash away at it? My body bore and sustained every child I could hear outside playing and laughing. Why was I now forsaking what has been so faithful to me just so I could subdue society's desire of what I should look like? Why was I buying into this bill of goods? By choosing to cut away and change my appearance, I was treating my body as the enemy and showing shame. Oh how wrong I was to believe these lies.
What would it say to my daughters and sons to know that I had gone under the knife for cosmetic reasons? Would it teach my daughters that their bodies were not fearfully and wonderfully made? Would it teach my sons to encourage their wives to surgically alter themselves if they didn't look "just right"? Would it teach either gender not to be content with what God has gifted them? Would my actions perpetuate the lie I had fallen victim to?
If you can not tell by now, I chose not to have the tummy tuck and ended up bearing three more children. Sorry Kate. I have chosen to see my body as a warrior that God used to protect me and allow me to have the family we have. One of the best gifts the Lord has given me besides salvation is a healthy and resilient body. It has rolls, stretch marks and is a little misshapen....but I am so proud of it. I will never win any beauty contest or turn heads.....but it is my hero. I will be kind to it and not plague myself with desires to desert this soldier of a body only to chop away at it in order to please temporarily.
Nope.
The most beautiful women I have ever met are all pretty much physically imperfect, some more than others. But they all have an attitude and a heart that is gorgeous......so much so that it is blinding. One of these women once told me "Girl, perfection is overrated. It's all about attitude and earrings".
I would be lying to say that I do not struggle with body image...especially in the postpartum period after having a baby. There is something about having leaking sandbags as breasts that is a little unsettling to me. Sure, I would love to have a knock out body. I don't. I have a body that can knock somebody out which is WAY more handy.
If there is any altering that truly needs to be done in me, it is that of the heart. Lord, I want you to cut away at my heart and my attitude to reflect what you see as true beauty.
1 Samuel 16:7 ESV
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Fast forward several years to the months after my seventh child's birth. Our whole family was stuck in a hotel room due to repairs being done to our house because of water damage. Why we had water damage to our house is post worthy indeed, but it will suffice to say that we had a particular child that thought it necessary to use a rain forest's worth of toilet paper in one sitting. The toilet rebelled secretly with an hour long water ladened tantrum and now we were all holed up in a hotel room. We watched a lot of TV. One of the shows I happened to catch was "John and Kate Plus Eight" where Kate herself was getting a tummy tuck. I was secretly and horribly intrigued but would instantly appear uninterested when my husband would enter the room. There were before and after pictures of Kate, and before I even realized it, I was sold on the idea. Kate looked amazing! I would agree to stop having children if I could get a tummy that looked like Britney Spears....a tummy where my belly button would re-surface from the dead and come back to life....in the right spot.
Now the tide had changed.
Several days later I approached my husband regarding my idea of getting a tummy tuck. Although his initial approach on this topic did not end in an injury from a book, I had (in my special way) let him know that he was way out of line for mentioning it. I am sure if you asked him today, he would have preferred the book being thrown at him. My mentioning the word "tummy tuck" made him flinch out of self protection. You could tell, as he furtively looked from side to side, that he didn't know if this topic was truly safe to talk about or if I was playing a dirty trick on him. Poor guy. After some discussion, I learned that his offer was still on the table.
Now I had some thinking to do.
I stood in front of the mirror naked. It is definitely not the body I started out with by a long stretch...no pun intended. I dreamed. I studied. I wept as I ran my fingers over every fold, sag and stretch mark. My body's imperfections tell an amazing story and I was considering erasing the proof that it ever happened.
Memories flooded back to every pregnancy I'd had, every child my body nourished, every race I had won and all the abuse I had doled out against my body in my younger years out of stupidity and through addictions. And, yet, my body remained faithful to me throughout all of it. And here I was, contemplating taking a knife to it. What was I doing? It hit me hard. This body of mine. This gift from God. What has it ever done to harm me? Why did I feel the need to slash away at it? My body bore and sustained every child I could hear outside playing and laughing. Why was I now forsaking what has been so faithful to me just so I could subdue society's desire of what I should look like? Why was I buying into this bill of goods? By choosing to cut away and change my appearance, I was treating my body as the enemy and showing shame. Oh how wrong I was to believe these lies.
What would it say to my daughters and sons to know that I had gone under the knife for cosmetic reasons? Would it teach my daughters that their bodies were not fearfully and wonderfully made? Would it teach my sons to encourage their wives to surgically alter themselves if they didn't look "just right"? Would it teach either gender not to be content with what God has gifted them? Would my actions perpetuate the lie I had fallen victim to?
If you can not tell by now, I chose not to have the tummy tuck and ended up bearing three more children. Sorry Kate. I have chosen to see my body as a warrior that God used to protect me and allow me to have the family we have. One of the best gifts the Lord has given me besides salvation is a healthy and resilient body. It has rolls, stretch marks and is a little misshapen....but I am so proud of it. I will never win any beauty contest or turn heads.....but it is my hero. I will be kind to it and not plague myself with desires to desert this soldier of a body only to chop away at it in order to please temporarily.
Nope.
The most beautiful women I have ever met are all pretty much physically imperfect, some more than others. But they all have an attitude and a heart that is gorgeous......so much so that it is blinding. One of these women once told me "Girl, perfection is overrated. It's all about attitude and earrings".
I would be lying to say that I do not struggle with body image...especially in the postpartum period after having a baby. There is something about having leaking sandbags as breasts that is a little unsettling to me. Sure, I would love to have a knock out body. I don't. I have a body that can knock somebody out which is WAY more handy.
If there is any altering that truly needs to be done in me, it is that of the heart. Lord, I want you to cut away at my heart and my attitude to reflect what you see as true beauty.
1 Samuel 16:7 ESV
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
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