Thanksgiving list.

This might not be the most interesting blog post to read, but I thought for my own encouragement, I wanted to write out some things that are on my heart that I'm thankful for.  We are celebrating Thanksgiving a week early with our SIM team tomorrow (at our house!), and I am gearing up mentally.  Also, I've made parts of a sweet potato casserole (savory, with bacon!) and a sweet potato pie tonight...with plans to whip up some dinner rolls and cider tomorrow.  So, in no certain order, I am thankful for:

• a clean bill of health for our little guy we're hoping will be assigned to us soon
• a chance to get to know our new, interim country director today
• daughters who love to play and laugh and be silly together
• Natty's patience with Jubilee when she throws fits
• Jubilee's ability to adapt to Natty's suggestions
• an amazing husband who loves to tour people around, even when he's feeling sick
• a God who continues to work on us even when we struggle with the same issues FOREVER
• coffee
• fresh fruit
• the hope of starting to build our first house in March
• our loving parents who will come to visit next year
• such sweet friends that we can share life with
• a deep and trusting relationship with our pastor and his family
• intense blue skies with no clouds
• farm animals that live in our neighborhood
• good books that challenge and/or entertain me
• our house helper, Fely
• the fact that I'm sitting on the couch in short sleeves right now, after dark, and I'm not cold (this only happens a few weeks out of the year)
• my best friend coming to visit in ONE MONTH (Ally!!!!!!)

Oh, there is so much more.  It's good to stop and make a point of thinking about everything we have to be thankful for.  Without wanting to sound like a Sunday school teacher, I am most grateful that Christ has covered me in His righteousness and nothing I can do or don't do will change the way God sees me- as His beloved.  That's good.  That's comforting.  So, although we won't be eating turkey this year, I am full of thanks.

Tentatively hopeful.

I wrote the following several weeks ago when I got the call from our lawyer that there was an infant pre-assigned to us. Scotty was out of town on a hike with the school he'll work at next year, and I was watching a movie with the girls.  It was an incredibly exciting moment and one that I'll never forget...but I wasn't sure for a while if I wanted to even put the news out there on the WORLDWIDE WEB if things ended up falling through.  After a couple weeks, we decided that we'd rather have people know and be praying for this little boy, than not.  It's still not at all a sure thing and since receiving the news, our lawyer has had nothing new to tell us.  I just keep praying things are moving along as they should so that this particular child can come home and be our little boy Miser.  So, here's what I was thinking that night I got the call:

We've been assigned a baby.  Even as I type it I wonder if it's real.  Will it come to completion?  It feels strangely like several experiences with babies I've already had.  The hopefulness when someone tells you a baby is coming...but, what if?  The pain of the past reminds you that it doesn't always happen like you dream.  Sometimes the dream gets interrupted.  I remember feeling tentatively hopeful when we were pregnant with Jubilee.  I want to think I'd hold a baby in my arms in 9 months, but the last time something went wrong.  Although these feelings are there, the overwhelming response in my heart is thankfulness.  So many people have been praying.  We have waited and trusted and I feel like God has strengthened us to continue to trust in His faithfulness.  I want this process to show others what a good and kind and loving and powerful God we serve.  I'm not sure I can do Him justice.  I do know that just as we finished up our paperwork, a baby boy came into an orphanage.  Our lawyer discovered him and somehow convinced the judge to let him be pre-assigned to us with the plan that once his paperwork is complete, he will become part of our family.  It just doesn't happen this way normally.  I prayed that our lawyer would really be for us and that the judge would be for us.  It is so apparent that the hand of God is in this.  So, we don't know when we can meet him.  It's all a bit of a blur to me and I don't think our lawyer has done it this way before.  We'll have to wait until things get to a certain point where the judge is comfortable giving us permission to go to the orphanage.  She said the paperwork would take 3 months.  I'm hoping that's accurate.  About this time 4 years ago, I was sitting by my son's NICU crib praying that he'd be home by Christmas.  I asked the Lord to be near him at night while he slept, like a mother wants to be but couldn't be this time.  I think I might be doing that again and my prayers are already the same.  Let him be home by Christmas and comfort him while he's far from us.  It feels like such a sweet redemption and completion of the joy of gladness the Lord has given us instead of mourning.