On taking the new street

About two months, John and I ventured across the ocean by ourselves; it's the first time since we met 12 year ago on a study abroad trip to Egypt that we've gone abroad alone.

A year ago at this time, I'd expected that our next trip would be centered on the two of us because a year ago at this time, we had finally completed the adoption of our two daughters and been home together as a family of six for an entire year; feeling quite settled and done with adding children to our family, I was anticipating that our next trip alone would be our always-pushed-to-the-future honeymoon.

But the honeymoon remains in the always-pushed-to-the-future status. At the beginning of May, we ventured off alone together to live in the Baltics for three weeks, with the intention of bringing back home to the States with us the newest member of the family, our 16-year-old daughter.

Our newest addition is the oldest biological sister of our two other daughters, both of whom were adopted two years ago.

She's our surprise baby, to put a complex situation simply; she's a gift we hadn't anticipated or planned.

There was a beautifully serene slowness to the trip once we arrived for our three-week stay; we planned the entire trip within three days and we left within five our receiving our referral.

While we were in country on the adoption trip, the three of us lived together. During that time, I sipped actual hot cups of tea, soaked in God's Word, experienced life abroad in a way I haven't since before we had our biological sons and remembered what it's like to just have one baby on which to focus much of my attention, energy and love.

It was restorative in so many ways, and it was life-giving in so many ways, too. Our time spent with our newest daughter was a gift, truly, and it was such a lovely foundation to build upon as we re-entered life as we know it at home with four, now five children.

One evening, while our oldest daughter spent time with her friends, John and I spent time walking down new-to-us streets, exploring the city we've called home for a month at a time the past three summers now.

As we walked, I didn't realize there were so many parts of the city we had yet to discover. It was mind-blowing for me -- this realization that there was still so much to understand, explore and know about this city we've called home for about one month every year during the past two, now three, years.

During that walk, we happened upon my new favorite street on a quest to get to city center after dinner; we took a path that we didn't yet know, one that was very different than the main road we have normally taken.

We didn't exactly know where we were going when we decided to follow the uneven cobblestone street toward where the sun was setting, but we knew the direction we were heading would take us where we wanted to go.

Can I just pause here and say that I never anticipated this?

Any of this.

This life of following hard after Love; my life feels so surreal sometimes that I don't even know how to explain it.

Since I surrendered my life to following Jesus 12 and a half years ago, Jesus has become so much more to me than a far-off historical figure.

After many years of simply accepting Jesus' existence and believing,  now following hard after Him and getting to know Him and His ways step by step certainly reframed my entire understanding of existence as I know it and has blown apart what I thought Christianity looked like.

This adventure of following after His heart of love has brought me down the most unexpected, challenging, beautiful roads ... ones I didn't even know existed.

Ones I'm really glad I didn't miss.

On Not Buying the Biggest Lie

Early last month, we shared the news that our family is #nowpendingseven, as we are pursing the international adoption of our girls' older sister.

Shortly thereafter we began the arduous process of compiling all of our paperwork and getting all of our clearances ... again. 

Starting the process all over again after just having finished our first adoption last year at this time, feels overwhelming in so many ways; the process is long and complex and heart-wrenching because 

the waiting. 

the uncertainty.

the emotions. 

It's just a lot. A lot that is all worthwhile, don't get me wrong, but a lot, nonetheless.

A few afternoons ago, as I was pondering in particular finances, I was feeling like 😳 and {crying face} and {freaking out face}.

But I knew I was needing to stop thinking like that and embrace 😇 and 😎 and 😊.

So I began having an honest conversation with God about how that feels more than a little challenging because lots of lies have started popping up ... like, specifically in that area of finances,

how could we really ask for help again?

And where’s this all going to come from?

And we are so unprepared.

Lies, God said.

But lies I was being tempted to linger in, believe and allow to dictate my actions and thoughts and behaviors.

Lies ...

Because we can always ask for help.

Because can always humble our hearts and admit when we need the body to be the body and come together to make something happen.

Because God designed us to do life together.

Because God could drop a million dollars in our laps however he wanted but He invites us in to be part of the beautiful things He's doing.

And then a message from a friend popped up as I pondered buying the lies or digging my heels into the truth:

“I have something I want to talk to you about. Can you call me?”

I called my friend quickly, and she proposed a fundraiser where she could offer a class because God has been bringing this back to her heart repeatedly.

And that’s when tears sprang to my eyes.

But it wasn’t about the class. Or even the funds. Or even just her genuine and sweet offer.

It was about this:

"Worry is belief gone wrong." {Ann Voskamp}

Worry was washing over me because I felt alone, like I had to do this all by myself. 

But God. God always, always, always sees us, and He is always, always, always with us.

Do we see Him?

When I take a step back from my worry, He so often finds a way to show me that He's there. Many times it’s through His word or a song or other people saying “God laid it on my heart to …" reach out/call/come over/pray/give/help.

And so the biggest lie I was buying wasn’t that people are sick of helping or that we couldn’t ask for help or that we are so annoying or that we weren’t going to have the funds …

the biggest lie I was buying was that God didn’t see me, that He wasn’t and isn’t near, that He won’t or can’t be or isn't in the midst of this part of challenges that come along with all the different parts of our lives.

We don't have to see over the mountain we're still climbing or around the curve in the bend on the road we're heading  because we have a very good Guide by our side. 

"I will never fail you; I will never abandon you." {God, Hebrews 13:5}

Yes, the mountains are steep. And the curves are dark and deep, but we don't walk them alone.

And that's what makes the difference: when we know God, who is good, is with us no matter the steepness of the mountain or the curves of the road ahead, we can replace worry with worship and we can face the journey ahead with hope and with joy and with courage instead of despair, fear and anxiety.

And, more than the height of the mountain or the starkness of the curves in the road, that's really what makes all the difference in the journey. 

On Coming Undone and Doing it Again

When God gives us gifts, He often wraps them up as people.

I had a keen sense of this after arriving home from Eastern Europe with our daughters newly added to our family through adoption in June 2015. 

Though there were challenges in the very beginning, quite honestly I was just so relieved to have all four kids under one roof that I felt God had blessed us beyond measure. 

As I looked at our beautiful children, each a gift from God, I thought our family was finished growing and we could move to the next stage. 

As the months pressed on and the trials became more challenging and our entire family of six grieved the losses and pains that brought us to this point within the safety of our four walls, as we fought hard to come together in love and with grace and in truth, I thought certainly our family was complete: simply put, I was spent and could not shoulder any more responsibility. And parenting at that point was plain and simple laced with difficulty so great I thought I might completely come undone.

And I did. I came undone.

We all did.

It hurt, a lot. 

We all grieved and wept and processed in our various ways the ways our lives had changed, the ways our world had changed and the losses we felt keenly in our hearts as we we made our way down a new path of life together as a family of six. 

The beautiful thing about coming undone in the presence of God is that He doesn't leave us undone; He gently and lovingly and faithfully begins to grow new from the old ... and when the little seed of our hearts cracks wide open and we're pretty sure we might be at the point where we are dying, something new and beautiful begins to grow. And instead of death there is life. 

Dr. Karyn Purvis said that in order for a person to heal, he or she first has to walk through the pain; the hurt that happens in the context of relationship also has to heal within the context of relationship.

Our first year and some home was all about going deep, the seed being buried underground, cracking wide up and struggling its way up toward the light again, sprouting as something new, healthier, more beautiful but yet still also itself.

When we first invited our girls' sister to spend time with our family this past summer, a year after we came home as a family of six, we were still brushing off some of the dirt from that first painful year we spent growing individual and as a family. We had no plans to enter into a season of growth like that again with our family. Our girls' sister also had no desire for her life to change or to be part of our family. She simply came to spend time with her sisters. 

Oh, we of little faith.

Something happened this summer, and God began to change all of our hearts and call us closer to his heart. And as we each drew closer to his heart and truth, we grew closer to each other.

Along the way, we realized that we didn't even know that we were missing something and that something was each other.

John and I both had reservations and so did our girl about coming together in a permanent way simply because each of us was trying to understand the how -- how do we make this work when there's so much ... unknown. Uncertainty. So much still left ... undone inside of our hearts and our minds?

Sometimes fear does that. Sometimes fear tries to keep us from the very things we didn't know we actually need most to grow in love and truth. Sometimes fear whispers sneaky lies into our ears and our hearts believe it. Sometimes fear tells us it's not worth it, the risk of being hurt, so bury our hearts away and stay hidden.

As we each have prayed and considered permanency, we continue to realize that adoption is the way love wants to go in this specific circumstance in our specific life in this specific time and place. 

We have learned that love walks the hard road and is better because of it.

Love walks together, even when it's hard.

Love lays down ones life, even if it "just" means laying our will to be right always.

Love persists even when we don't feel loving at all.

Love recognizes people as gifts, and love says people are worth it.

We're all at various stages of understanding love, and we're all walking toward the Father's heart as best as we can, trying our best to understand the magnitude of the gifts wrapped in skin that have come before each of us.

It's fitting, too, in this mental space during advent as we ponder the gift of Jesus.

When God sent us Jesus he gave us a gift unlike any other -- a gift we didn't have to accept, but one that would make our lives complete, one that would bridge the gap between us and our Father's heart, a gift of love. 

And here we are again, with a gift of love before each of us. And I think this is us, each of us in this family, saying yes we accept this gift. Yes, we want to unwrap this gift. Yes, people are gifts, and may we live as though we believe it by the way we love one another. 

When We Try to Bubble Wrap Our Lives

Living is really messy.

Maybe you don't need to have four kids to tell you that, but this is part of what having four kids has taught me.

And its not just the kind of messy where little fingers leave peanut butter and jelly prints all the way down the fridge and across the wall and through the woods all the way through the house they go kind of messy or the the kind of messy that produces piles of dirty laundry or dirty dishes or dirty floors or dirty cars.

Living is also the kind of messy that means hurt feelings, disagreements, failure and heartache.

This year, I've tried, like, really tried to organize the physical messiness out of life with chore charts, organization and schedules.

Somewhere in this attempt at organization, I had also implemented tight regulations and protective boundaries to minimize further chaos.

Let me honestly tell you that this whole organizing the mess started as a survival thing because of the need for high structure in bringing home our two adopted daughters and the shear crazed schedule that went along with that; four kids at three different school environments with various therapy and educational needs and no bussing help and me being the tether holding it all together meant we did honestly needed more structure and organization in our life in order for life to work.

But somewhere in all of that organization and keeping the structure standing, I got a little lost and I stopped just short of bubble wrapping and securing with duct tape all of the kids.

Sometimes the line between organization and controlling the chaos is so thin we find it impossible to walk without tripping face first into control freak.

As my efforts at organization morphed into attempts at controlling the chaos, I found that my joy flat out fizzled beneath the weight of it all. As did the joy of the other people in our house. It was a miserable month.

I was fortunate enough to have a friend speak hard but truthful words into my life, reminding me that we cannot take the potential for messy out of life without also taking out a lot of the potential for joy. Really living includes experiencing a full gamut of emotions and learning to navigate all of them, even the unpleasant ones.

More simply, really living is the kind of messy I am finding I cannot organize the mess out of ... At least not without great cost. There is great cost in trying to control the chaos that is life, and try as I may, I've been finding that I just cannot bubble wrap feelings, emotions or experiences without ending up just completely deflated.

Feelings are going to be hurt, and this can't be avoided without avoiding relationships or staying shallow in them because the risk of being hurt is a function of being in relationships comprised of different people sharing different thoughts, ideas and feelings.

Being known and loved because you're awesome is awesome.

Being known and loved because you are you in all of your awesome imperfectness is called unconditional love.

Mistakes are going to be made, and this is part of learning, growing and just being plain and simple human.

Ideas are going to fail, and this is part of the process of succeeding because in order to create we must innovate and try new things, of which many won't quite work.

While I haven't given up my chore charts and I'm stopping just short of implementing spreadsheets because oh, dear God, is nothing sacred to me anymore, I'm finding myself learning to recognize more and more what kinds of boundaries and organization are good and life giving and life sustaining and joy bringing

and which ones are just flat out life sucking.

Having four children has taught me a great deal about the difference of living in the fullness of joy and just barely surviving.

It's taught me organization has its place.

And it's taught me that, yes, living is really messy.

But more than all of that it's taught me that really living is worth the mess.

Piling my Rocks of Remembrance

There's a quiet hush of calm spread throughout our home tonight and the world just outside these four walls as snow falls swiftly and coats the ground.

Everyone is now finally home, resting quietly or sleeping in his or her own bed.

Everyone except me.

It is finished now.

This journey of international adoption that began almost two years ago to this date, was completed with the touch down of the airplane at O'Hare International Airport, establishing our newly adopted daughters' American citizenships.

It's finished.

Just like that and not just like that all at once.

I'm awake still because I feel like there is much to be remembered. Much to be marked. Much for which to give thanks. 

I feel like I should take off my shoes and stand in awe, much the way of Moses did when the Lord said to him, ""Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

Like I should be making a marking of this holy ground with rocks of remembrance because there's just too much to not remember.

So I'm sitting in the glow of the still-fully-decked Christmas tree that I promised I wouldn't undress until John and the girls arrived home from our third and final adoption trip, and I'm remembering, I'm marking the ground with rocks of remembrance in the way that I know best -- through the weight of words and story.

I'm building an alter for the Lord here and now so that the generations that come after me can go back and say, remember when God ... I'm marking the holy ground.

I'm remembering how two years ago, almost to this day we said a terrifyingly difficult and exciting yes despite all of our fears to embark on the journey of adopting internationally our first host daughter after we fell in love with her during a period of four weeks of orphan hosting.

I'm remembering the twists and turns of orphan hosting and how endlessly and crazy we loved {still love} that girl, and how that love fueled us to navigate all of the requirements and paperwork and the costs, how it thrust us forward into choosing faith over fear.

I'm remembering how when we first heard news that our first host daughter said no to adoption God gave me a song right away and it said, "this is just the beginning of the beginning" and how that certainly was so very true.

I'm remembering the way my heart just about pounded through my chest when my now-good-friend-but-then-stranger Renee told me and my husband about the girl she just had hosted and how she was advocating to find her a forever family, and when she told us about her and her little sister, we just knew they were our daughters, and loved them fiercely before we ever laid eyes on them let alone held them in our arms.

I'm remembering how we hosted our now 14-year-old daughter for the first time and just four days after she arrived she told us what she wanted most for Christmas ... and how God certainly delivered on something we just couldn't do on our own. Something only God could do.

I'm remembering how our first host daughter came back into our lives after months of silence, and how I sobbed the kind of tears that come from the kind of answered prayer that's most like breathing life into something you were sure would never breathe again.

I'm remembering our "failed" adoption that actually wasn't quite a failure because it resulted in a beautiful, solid relationship with our first host daughter, and how our relationship has led to the interweaving of more stories and more hearts.

I'm remembering the day we put our now 14-year-old daughter back on a plane to Latvia, feeling like my heart might just fall out of my very chest and how could I let her go when I knew in every piece of my heart that she was meant to be with us.

I'm remembering waking every morning for four months begging God to bring us our referral so we could go to our girls ... and how when it finally came, he prepared my heart with a song -- "there's no such thing as impossible."

I'm remembering how our oldest daughter cried tears of joy when we told her we were coming ... and how I cried tears of joy when I saw them walking toward us, our oldest decked out in her American flag scarf and our youngest sporting pigtails and the chubbiest of cheeks, for the first time amid the crowds in a Latvian shopping plaza.

I'm remembering the way our boys fell in love with the girls so quickly, and how even when it was hard, they kept working, kept moving forward, kept loving because, as my oldest son would say, "all kids deserve a family."

I'm remembering the first time our oldest daughter prayed at dinner time and completely unprompted thanked God for giving her "an awesome family who loves me so much."

I'm remembering how our community showed up big and loved bigger; I'm remembering what they could have done but what they did instead.

I'm remembering how our two daughters are faith with skin on, and how my husband has been a reflection of the crazy-wild-forever love of our Father.

I'm remembering how two of our local friends were so moved by God's prompting after following our stories that they embarked on their own hosting journeys ... one family in the midst of bringing home two girls from our oldest daughters' home town and the other family hosting our first beloved host daughter, setting the stage for the most beautiful stories of mercy and grace and love to unfold.

And I'm remembering how when the Lord first invited us to this place He gave us a verse that we didn't quite yet understand ...

In the quiet of my home, when all has been said and all has been done for this adoption process, I tap out the words on this screen, I pile my rocks of remembrance

and I etch those words into the alter and I write them on the tablet of my heart

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20

What You Could Have Done: A Letter to our Community in the Wake of our Finalized Adoption

To our dear, dear friends and family,

This Saturday, as many of your know, our girls and my husband will deplane at O'Hare International Airport, and we'll welcome home not only our two new daughters but also two brand new American citizens. 

This Saturday will mark the end of our official adoption process with these two girls. 

No more trips over the ocean for their adoption purposes.

No more court dates. 

No more adoption fees. 

No more extensive paperwork. 

Of course, just because the adoption process is finished doesn't mean that the work of blending a family and helping hearts heal and creating safety and boundaries and working on family dynamics ends because it doesn't; that part of adoption work continues in full force. 

At this point in the road, though, as we come to the official end of the process, I wanted to say something to you and mark this moment with the only fitting thing: extreme gratitude. 

Simply, I want to thank you for showing up. 

Because you have. You have shown up big time these past two years. 

You have walked with us through embarking on the adventure orphan hosting, into the great unknown of adopting a teen internationally, a failed adoption, subsequent hosting periods and then the adoption of our two daughters now. 

And, I will be honest, God used you to make this all possible. 

We didn't have $40 thousand to complete this adoption. 

We needed a strong community of supporters to help us through the hardest of days. 

We needed people to come alongside of us and pray us through the impossibilities. 

We needed families to come around us in offering tangible help and respite. 

You responded. You heard the need. You felt the tug in your heart. And you stepped out in faith. 

You gave to our adoption fund when you could have bought something awesome or something needed for yourself. 

You showed up when we felt like we couldn't withstand another moment when you very easily could have tuned out our hardship in favor of dealing with your own hardships (because I know you have them, too).

You prayed when you could have spent time doing otherwise with the very little time you have. 

You were the physical hands and feet of God when you could have walked the other way during our times of need. 

You didn't pull inward or away; instead, you gave. 

And now there are two little girls who have a family who can take care of them; now a family has been brought together and knit together with faith, prayers and love. Now the extended family of these two girls on the the other side of the world who couldn't take care of them {for reasons beyond financial resources} can rest in knowing that their loved ones are being cared for, loved.

Sure, you might think, God could have done this without your help; God is a big God and he could accomplish his purposes in many different ways. 

BUT, I just have to say, it takes someone to say yes. 

God gives us free reign and free choice to do with our very lives what we choose. We can either show up and bring to the table the little bit we have and watch Him move mountains .... or we can stand in the distance as He moves mountains on His own. 

He can do either. And both, BOTH, my friends are miracles. 

One might say God moving a mountain alone is the bigger miracle. 

At one point I would have agreed because I have long desired to see God display His glory and power miraculously before my very eyes so that I could know that I know that I know He is God. 

But now I think otherwise. 

Now I think that every bit of the last two years has been God showing us His power, showing us His greatness, showing us His goodness and love. 

Because the changing of a human heart from stone to flesh ... the changing of a life from chasing selfish desires to selfless ones ... well, I'm not sure that anything else is quite as miraculous as that. 

I know because my heart is among the hardest. Our decisions shape our lives. Our lives become either legacies of our own ambitions or the ambitions of real Love. Because you gave, part of your life has become a legacy of Love. Real love. 

One thing I've seen throughout the history of God and His people is that he often does His work through His people. 

Because he cares for us.

Because he loves us. 

Because he can do it on His own, but he cares deeply about our faith, our trust, our hope. 

I think He knows this is often true: whenever we are engaged personally the miracle becomes all the more miraculous. 

It is my deep hope, my deep prayer, my deep desire that because you chose to give to this purpose, this passion of God's heart, this caring for orphans and bringing the lonely into families, that you would know the intensity of the miracle in which you've been involved. 

You could have done so much else with your various resources of time, energy and finances; but instead you gave. 

And I pray that God, in all of his love and goodness, gives you glimpses of how your giving made way for miracles to unfold and blossom right before all of our very eyes. 

I hope you know that because you gave, you were part of a miracle. And being part of a miracle is a miracle in itself. 

With love and deep gratitude, 

Hyacynth

A Christmas Miracle: Nothing is Impossible with God

"Guess what I want for Christmas?"

I'd heard this question repeatedly for the past six or so years, or at least ever since my boys could talk, but this question this time was different.

Our host daughter posed this question to me just days after we'd met her for the first time in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the holiday travel season at O'hare International Airport.

We'd arrived early to greet her after her long travels from her home country, Latvia. She was one of many other other children, orphans, who were being hosted in America by families for four weeks during the holiday season. 

Though we never had met her we already loved her. Her gentle, compassionate eyes, her playful smile, her tilted-just-right chin in pictures had captivated our hearts along with all the words of praise her previous host mother had spoken as she shared with us about our girl's unique inner beauty and resolve. 

As our host daughter walked toward us in the airport, I knew in my heart she was our daughter, plain and simple, even though she didn't yet know it. Even though no one else, no courts, social workers, countries, knew it or approved it. Even though God himself only knew. 

We knew.

But still I was taken aback by the conversation that unfolded around this simple little question just four short days after we had met her.

"Mom, guess what I want for Christmas?"

"I don't know, Marina," I'd said as I tried to think of all the things a 13 year old might want. "An MP3 player?"

"Nooooo," she said. "Guess again."

"Clothes?"

"Nooooo."

"Boots? Necklaces?"

"Noooo," she said. "It's not stuff."

"To swim with dolphins?" I asked, remembering her love for animals. 

"Nope," she answered. 

"Well, honey," I said, "if you want me to actually be able give it to you you'll have to tell me what it is."

"I want for you to adopt me and Gabi into your family."

Her words, full of hope and anticipation and vulnerability, flooded my eyes with tears and my heart with the overwhelming kind of tidal-wave emotion that threatens to sweep you off of your feet.

I stumbled to find the right words; we, indeed, planned to adopt her even before we met her, but law required us to submit our paperwork to her country and court before we could speak freely about our intentions. And the first rule of hosting and international adoption is to not speak about adoption with a host child. Too many promises and too many broken hopes and dreams and hearts. 

"We love you so much, Marina, and we are trying very hard to be together again."

It was all I could say, and as I looked into her hopeful, gentle eyes, I prayed she knew that I meant every single word I had spoken. I meant it with all of my heart. 

She smiled at me, and she said, "Ok, mom. I just want to be in your family forever. That's all I really want."

I smiled. 

"Yes, me, too, Marina. Me, too. We will pray about this and ask God for help."

We agreed on this, and we agreed that an MP3 player this year would be good for under the tree. Something I could deliver. 

That night as my husband I climb in bed, I sob.

"There are kids who want nothing more than a family ... I have a child sleeping in my house who only wants a family for Christmas. And we can't promise we can deliver that even though we want to."

My husband held me close, as I cried into his sweatshirt. Paperwork. Approvals. Courts. Documents. Governments. All of this stood like hulking giants before us. 

"That's true," John has said. "But God can."

But God can. 

As we prepared to celebrate Christmas, I heard part of the Christmas story differently for the first time; my heart began to really ponder the words of Mary. 

"Nothing is impossible with God."

This young girl, quite likely the age of our host daughter, quietly surrendered in her heart and will to a will beyond her own when the angel told her she would give birth to a son, God's son, and He would save his people. 

Immanuel. God with us. 

Not the kind of God who sits on his mighty far-away throne and bids us to figure life out on our own. But Immanuel -- the God who came to a hurting world quiet, soft and slow, in the skin of a small baby turned man. 

Immanuel means God with us, and if God is with us and God comes to us, we must then see that, really, nothing is impossible with God.

My heart held to these truths, and we prayed. All of us, Marina included, that God would place the lonely in families and bring ours together for good.

A few short weeks later we put our host daughter back on an airplane to Latvia. Back to life as an orphan, a foster child, a ward of the state despite the fact that she was a beloved daughter in our hearts.

The day after she boarded the plane we submitted the mounds of paperwork to officially request permission to adopt her and her younger sister. Days turned into weeks of waiting. Weeks turned into months of waiting.

The quiet was the loudest noise I'd ever heard. 

And I began to wonder ... Only to be reminded that these girls weren't just our beloved daughters; they were also beloved daughters of our Heavenly Father. The kind of Father who does big things and gives good gifts and who is for us, not against us, and who places the lonely in families. The kind of God who makes the impossible possible.

Daily God reminded me. 

Often God reminded me.

Momently God reminded me. 

Because Immanuel, God with us, He walks alongside us, bringing to mind and heart that we need not fear because He is with us. 

And He was with them, too. 

One early morning in May, I woke with a sudden urgency to pray; so I did and then --peace.

Peace filled my heart, and even though it was May, for some reason I had Mary's words running through my head: "Nothing is impossible with God."

So peace.

And the very first song that I heard on the radio that morning as the boys and I drove to school was one I'd never before heard:

"You know, that there's no such thing as impossible."

Though months had passed, and word was slow, God reminded me that with Him because He is with us, nothing is impossible.

And that very day, we got word that our referral was coming. And we would travel before the end of the month to bring home our girls.

We spanned oceans, and as we sped fast over deep waters into the uncharted waters of international adoption, God reminded me I have nothing to fear. 

Because Love came down and spanned heaven and Earth to be with us, God with us, Immanuel. 

We wrapped those girls in our arms, and we held on tight and told them that this was it; no matter what would come from now on we would be family. We went to court once and again and court decided to give us a chance.  And we read the court documents, and we read in the lines that this adoption was kind of an impossible case. This kind of adoption from their kind of circumstances doesn't typically happen. 

But God. 

Because with God, with God with us, nothing is impossible. 

So we retuned home together, and the courts finally ruled with finality that we would be a family, and we fought hard for joy and healing. And six months in, we still do. All of us. Every one of us. Because life is different. And beautiful. And hard. And good. And chaotic. And crazy. And brilliant. 

Life, especially a life on the road of adoption, is beauty born of broken. So we fight for joy and to live in the gentle flow of grace. 

And today when my husband, my girl and I stood in the front foyer of my in-laws home, anticipating the giving of presents, and my oldest girl --His daughter, our daughter --she said, "I finally got my Christmas present. I'm finally adopted."

So we stood there first giving thanks before the giving of gifts and after the giving of gifts and the receiving of the greatest gift, squeezing the living love out of each other, smiling through tears, crying gratitude and joy. 

Because that girl -- she didn't just get her gift. 

We all got it.

All of us. 

And it reminds me a little bit of that first Christmas when another young girl had the audacity to whisper, "nothing is impossible with God."

And because Immanuel, God with us, we know that nothing, indeed, ever is.

There Goes the Honeymoon {So Much for Hawaii}

Dear John,

It wasn't much, but it was something beautiful. More beautiful than I had ever dreamed.

Two college kids just having graduated from university who fell mad into love, we didn't have a lot of money for a super-fancy wedding, but we had enough to make a day and evening we would remember even ten years later, today, on our tenth wedding anniversary.

It's a memory that almost didn't form, though, because we thought to ourselves maybe we should jump a plane, invite our closest people and get married on a beach in Hawaii.

But we couldn't do it; more than we wanted the sunset vows of forever and the sand between our toes, we wanted our people, all of our people to share our day. I know you really wanted to go, but you knew what mattered more to me ...

And when the whole thing was said and done, when we had vowed our love and loyalty before God and family and friends and we had danced until our feet couldn't dance another step, we were glad we didn't go to Hawaii; we were glad we stayed with our people. And we reasoned, we could always go to Hawaii for our honeymoon ... well, a very belated one after we'd worked for awhile and saved some money.

We were going to make it there for our anniversary; remember how your dad even bought us books? I laugh now thinking about those guides. We'd scoped out which island we wanted to visit. We looked at flights. We talked about what we'd do and see. We saved money.

And then two little pink lines on a pregnancy test told us that we'd be celebrating our second wedding anniversary with a newborn who wanted to party all night in our apartment instead of on the beaches of that far-away island we'd dreamed about for the past two years.

Life happens while you're living, and ours was no different, was it? I remember that we thought -- why pause now with one child?  Why wait to add another to the mix? Because we were mad in love with each other and mad in love with that baby boy and knew we'd fall mad into more love with another little person ... And where are we going to put these people anyway, we asked.  So we bought a house and made it a home instead of buying plane tickets to take us away from home ...

Years passed, as they do, and you began dreaming aloud, saying you wanted to whisk me off to celebrate our ten-year anniversary on those very beaches we'd thought of when we first said we wanted to do forever together.

But instead of planning our ten-year anniversary, the honeymoon we always dreamed we have, we began planning a trip that would take us around the world to bring home two very special little girls who have become our daughters. Because, you know, we went and fell in love again. Not just with each other or the children we'd brought into the world through our love, but with a crazy-amazing God who had a plan much grander than we dreamed. We fell in love with Him, and His heart for caring for the least of these and with two little ladies who we just cannot any longer imagine life without.

Instead of booking airfare to Hawaii, and you were just so close to making it a reality this year, we are instead booking plane tickets that will soon take you back around the globe to make this family theirs forever.

And I have to tell you, here we are again. With our people. And it's so much better than Hawaii.

So this isn't actually a story about Hawaii. But rather it's a story about what's happened instead of Hawaii.

And it's so much more than what I could have dreamed for us. It's so much more beautiful than all the beauty I'd hoped we'd have glimpsed on that long-awaited honeymoon we've still yet to take.

Tonight, on our tenth anniversary, we laughed uproariously around the table as we played mom-and-dad-wedding trivia, we roasted marshmallows around the fire and watched the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of sugar, snuggled with each of the littles before bed, stole a longer kiss in front of the sink and curled up in bed next to our oldest daughter to pray before she drifted to sleep.

As we watched the star-reflections on her ceiling flicker from the lamplight on her dresser, I said I thought this view was better than the one we would have caught in Hawaii.

And I meant every word I said.

There's no place I'd rather be in the world, than in the thick of this adventure, right here, right now, than being with you, with our people.

I love you. Happy tenth anniversary. May God give us many many more, as He's done with everything else in our life.

Learning to Breathe

If a few months ago we were standing on the edge of yikes, getting ready to jump headfirst into becoming a family of six through the adoption of our two daughters, I think it's safe to say we have now jumped, survived the initial shock of being in water way over our heads and are now learning to breathe.

I didn't say swim because we sorta already know how to do that; we're just modifying it for these waters.

That whole breathing while swimming thing, especially, takes practice as we navigate these waters of adoption and parenting, attaching and connecting.

Because did you know pretty much you can hyperventilate while trying to swim? Or even forget to breathe?

It's true. In real-life swimming and in metaphorical-life swimming.

I think I've gone back and forth about a dozen or so times (per day) between rapid, panicked breathing and forgetting to take a breathe. Some of my friends who have larger families say this happens a lot, adoption-specific issues and trauma-related issues aside. I've come to think if parenting many children is a lot like swimming through a choppy ocean then it would be safe to say that parenting children who have endured trauma is a lot like swimming through that same choppy ocean with occasional (and sometimes often) bursts of intense storms. And sharks. Yeah, don't forget the sharks.

At first I was taken aback at the complexity of parenting four children and also the extreme range of emotions that occur when the family dynamic changes suddenly and rapidly and in a not-so-usual way. Add trauma in ... and that's where the breathing correctly comes in real handy.

We've been home for about seven and some weeks now, and we spent a month in the girls' home country getting know each other and bonding, so I often have to remind myself that we haven't been at this for all that long when I start struggling to stay above water.

Of course, like every journey in life, there is joy along with the hardship. Mounds of it, in fact. This journey is no different. We've seen God do amazing things to bring us together, and we've also seen Him work in insanely intricate ways in each of our lives during the last several months.

In fact, while we were in the girls' country and reading court documents we began to realize just how many mountains God had to move to bring us all together ... most would say that it was a nearly impossible situation to have them legally freed for international adoption.

But in order to see all of that, any of that we had to stop swimming for a little bit, take a breather and rest long enough to reflect and see above the waves.

Perspective and all.

It's like that, you know. In real-life swimming and in metaphorical-life swimming.

So we're enjoying the beauty of the journey more and more, and, by the grace of God, we are learning to breathe.

God-sized Dreams: On Letting Go of My Timing

I would do it all over again.

If it meant we would be where we are now, sitting in the glow of the miracles of the past week, I wouldn't want it any other way.

The stressful and strained parts of hosting our first host daughter.

The heartbreak of losing our first host daughter I in a "failed" adoption.

The overwhelming feeling of choosing to adopt two girls from another country so shortly after our "failed" adoption.

The constant challenge of growth and dealing with our own past hurts and hang-ups as we have step-by-step walked this journey.

The waiting, the tears, the 16 weeks of wondering and waiting if a referral for our girls adoption would come, the mornings it was hard to even get out of bed, the nights I spent more time praying than sleeping.

I would do it all over again to be standing where we are now.

This morning, we received word that the ministry of the welfare would have the information for our adoption for us soon.

We received it just in time to make the decision not host again this summer.

In perfect fashion, though, too, we received this information, an answer to our long-standing prayers, as a pre-curser to other joyful news.

I have sobbed happy, thankful tears three separate times during the past eight hours.

As I've processed through everything, I've realized that if we wouldn't have waited this long that I wouldn't have had a breakthrough, beautiful conversation with our soon-to-be daughter this morning.

And we wouldn't have had that conversation were it not for her attending a camp this past weekend where God really spoke to her heart.

I realized this morning, too, that if this timing hadn't played out exactly I wouldn't have had the chance to spend time writing some advocacy blog posts for New Horizons for Children's Orphan Hosting Program ...

and that two families shared with me, one just this morning, that they decided to host because God used those words to speak to their hearts ...

and that one of those families, our neighbors and friends, is hosting our soon-to-be-daughter's friend this summer ... just down the street from our home.

I am awed and overwhelmed and GRATEFUL to have even played a small role in this, and I am overwhelmed with the beauty, the wonder and the fruit that has been born of the struggle, that has been born of the waiting.

And you, my friends. I am overwhelmed by God's goodness in bringing you alongside of us.

You have been part of this story.

You have encouraged us when I thought I couldn't do this one more day.

You have supported us when what stood before us to do alone would have been nearly impossible.

You have prayed for us when it was hard to pray ourselves.

You have lavished love on us when it was difficult for us to feel anything at all.

You have been part of more stories than just the one I have the honor of sharing.

I cannot thank you enough for being part of this story God is writing in our family and in the lives of others.

What a story that is unfolding, and how this unfolding in this way and time and space is teaching me that God's plans are so much more vast and unimaginable and better than my own!

There is, indeed, deep purpose in the pain and deep purpose in the wait, and beauty really can and really is often born from the broken.

All in His time.

Why does hosting make a different? Former host children share their stories. 
The Joy of Uncomfortable Love

If you'd like to continue to be a part of these stories, please pray for our family as we await our referral and travel dates. If you would like to support families in the midst of orphan care financially, you can do so at our site A Just Love or the Crothers' family's site Piecing Together Our Hosting Journey.