Adventures

So Brian has gone back to Haiti again and it seems like the kids have been re-energized by having their Daddy at home, even if just for a few days.  I am thankful because the less drama this week the better!

We are close to being finished with construction on the addition to our house.  We started the addition before Christmas to make room for a new addition to our family.  When we moved into this house we knew that someday we would be adopting a child from Haiti because God had already revealed that to us.  What we didn't know was when it would happen and we just didn't think about trying to fit 4 growing children, 2 adults, and a 80 pound hairy dog into a 1500 sq. ft. house.  No, our thoughts were focused on getting into a position, financially, for Brian to walk away from his career to follow where God was leading.  (I still kind of freak at this a little.)  Just like many parents all over the world, God gave us a little surprise.  Only this surprise isn't in the form of a 7 pound baby girl.  Nope.  It's in the form of a 12 year old, prepubescent girl with a wicked sense of humor and some mad dance moves!  Oh my goodness...  I can honestly tell you between Merline's dance moves, Riley's indoor basketball, Molly's constant game of chase with the dog, and Emmie's strong desire to have a quiet place to disappear to,  this house was too small.  : )

So, as we reach the end of this most recent adventure of adding onto our house, I am getting excited about the start of the next adventure...  Bringing our baby girl home!  I can't wait to bring her home and watch her experience all kinds of firsts that the other three kids have already experienced.  I can't wait to see the world through her eyes and recognize the blessings we have in our life.  We take so much for granted.  My little girl cannot even fathom a refrigerator with food inside right now.  I wish we could save her from the depravity of having much.  Where is the balance?  Where she is now, she has so little and those around her have even less.  I don't want her to think that how we do it here in America is the right way.  It's not.  I don't want her to think that living with nothing, eating only enough to keep your body from shutting down is the right thing.  It's not.  Somewhere in the middle is where I pray we land.

I so desire for all my children to know that we are only blessed with "things" because God chose to give them to us.  The "stuff" we fill our lives with can often be distractions from the life we need to live.  Distraction from what we should spend our life doing, loving people.  We only have a short time here on this earth and it's easy to spend that time thinking about how things aren't going our way and how we need more.  Brian and I want more than that for our kids.  I read a blog post a while back that just nailed it for me.  It was titled "I don't want my children to be happy."  It spoke to what I want from my own life as much as what I want for my children's lives.  For the time we have here on this Earth, I just want to be in the fat middle of God's will.  Wherever and whatever that looks like...
 

And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, "Today, at the latest, tomorrow—we're off to such and such a city for the year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money."  You don't know the first thing about tomorrow.  You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.  Instead, make it a habit to say, "If the Master wills it and we're still alive, we'll do this or that."   ~James 4:13-15,  The Message