Shiny Happy People

About every other year, I make a consorted effort to have family pictures taken.  Now if you know me, you know that having pictures taken with me in them is on one of my top 10 lists.  Like top 10 Insects I'd rather eat than have my picture taken, or Top 10 things I would bungee jump off of to avoid having my picture taken.  Unfortunately my kids have acquired my same distaste for picture taking.  Now as much as I hate having my pic taken, I do love having pics of my babies.  They are pretty darn cute.  So here is how this goes.  See if you can relate.  A couple of months before family pics I take a gander on Pinterest looking for family pic outfit ideas.  A month before said pictures I comb several stores looking for the perfect outfits.  Think J Crew meets the quirkiness of a Taylor Swift video.  This year was no different.  I had the outfits and we were set to have our pictures taken at our house.  We have a creek out back, and I knew that it would make the perfect setting.  Well, the kids were NOT having any part of the outfits I had picked.  Que the sad faces.  So, in a moment of crazed genius, I came up with a plan.  I instructed the kids to take off the clothes that I had bought (bye bye J Crew catalog).  They were to both pick out whatever they wanted to wear.  The only criteria was that it was something that represented them and that they felt really good wearing it.  The same rules applied to the Hubster.  So, this year if you get a Christmas Card from us take a good look at our outfits.  You will not see a perfectly matched family.  We do NOT look like we belong on the cover of a J Crew magazine.  But you know what?  In real life we aren't always perfectly put together either.  This is us.....pretty much.  But what I do hope comes through in the pics is that we are a family that loves each other.  We know that laughter sometimes is the best medicine......and yeah we are kind of crazy when it comes to our pets. 

While I wait.....

Lots has happened in three years.  I have a teenager, I turned 40, we moved to the country, we have chickens, I am a more seasoned homeschooler, we saw the Hubster through a major medical crisis.  But through all of that, God was there.  I understand Paul a bit more when he talks about being thankful for his trials.  It really does make you different.  If you let it.  You either come out a stronger better person, or bitter and defeated.  Don't get me wrong, some days I wear my defeat like a t-shirt.  But I can without a doubt testify that there is no hole big enough, no distance great enough, no darkness black enough that God can't meet you there.  And in the end, He can turn that big ball of yuck into something amazing.  I am holding on to that right now.

The wait to adopt has been so much more than I ever imagined.  When we first signed on, Hubster and I really thought we would get picked quickly.  Domestic adoption is such a different process.  Now days most of them are "open."  This is a good thing.  It gives the birth Mom the choice to select a forever family for her child.  It is the ultimate sacrifice.  It gives the child a full story.  They will know where they came from and the tremendous lengths that their Mom went to to give them the very best chance at life.  I had the honor of meeting a couple of birth Moms at the orientation we went to several years back.  These women were heroes.  Their choice to place their child with a forever family is the ultimate in sacrificial love.  My prayer is that someday a birth Mom will select our family.  That God will lead her to us.  I think of her daily.  I pray for her often. 

Three long years have passed.  I have seen many friends complete their forever families.  I have seen a couple that we were on the agency website with us be matched (that child is now 2) and then have a biological child after that.  It is hard.  Some days it feels like everyone has boarded the train and left the station.  It's lonely.  But God has a plan.  He is working.  I was talking with our case worker not long ago and told her that I truly believe that God ordains families.  Whether your child is created in your womb, or comes to you through adoption, that is the child that God has selected for you.  One way or another that child will find its way to you. 

So, while we wait I want to remain thankful.  I know God is working.  Adoption is never an easy thing.  I am learning that.