Love Is In Bloom

The new year is always a really reflective time for me. I am a written processor, I love to write and see lessons I have learned become tangible on a page. I start looking back on a year and am reminded that life is ever changing and a lot can happen in a year's time. Sometimes what happens is noticeable to everyone around with announcements and major life changes, but a lot that happens is unseen and inside the heart. 2016 was a year of a lot of family dynamic change for us that was noticeable to everyone. There was a job change, foster daughter home to relatives, an adoptee son for two months, and then the adoption falling through. Unlike the public changes of 2016, 2017 was an inner journey of the heart that brought me to a place of healing after loss, joy after sadness, and peace after wondering and wishing. I am so thankful for the miracles God did in my heart this year. He truly healed me from my grief of missing our foster daughter and son we were so close to adopting,

              Everyone has dreams. I had plans, big plans, to be a nurse, but then realized Science and math aren't my forte and I pass out at the simple sight of a removed mole. Then, I had hopes to be in ministry, particularly Women's ministry someday and to always in every season be around children somehow.  My most lofty dream was to be a writer and speaker someday, to create Bible studies and build relationships as a full time job. But, the dream that trumped them all was to be a mom. I wanted with all of my heart to stay at home with my kids until Kindergarten, whatever that took. Before getting married, I told Logan if we have to live in a one room cabin, that's ok, I just want to be with my kids when they are little. Maybe I couldn't give them everything money could buy, but I could give them all my time. Everyone has dreams and convictions. This was mine. He had a calling to work in ministry and I fully supported that and felt called to it myself. To make all d

         I sit here tonight staring at a new season in our family's life just on the horizon. I see it with the floaties for the pool put up in storage this week, as my kids learned to swim. I see it in ordering school supplies for both kids, I see it in not being needed as much, I see it in actually having time to read a book, I see it in the way every day my kids look less and less like babies and more and more like KIDS. I see it in their hilarious sentences that show the depth of their personality and creative minds at work, I see it in their craving of figuring out life and relationships, I see it in their spiritual curiosity as well. We are entering the true childhood stage, babyhood is getting farther away in my mind's rear view mirror and looking at old photos, things have changed so much in just a few years. Seeing baby announcements and maternity photos feels like a dream that it happened to me before. Those times are feeling farther and farther away.      The BABY

       The last time I posted on my blog about our life personally was last Summer. It was the one called "I have a bandaid now". It was a raw and bitter sweet time. We were in a place where our hearts were needing to be healed as we missed our foster daughter. Another baby came into our life, but its been too hard to write about, until now.         In the months following sunshine baby's absence, every night as I would fall asleep, I felt like my soul was searching for someone, like someone was missing. It was a really hard feeling, because I knew that it didn't have to do with sunshine baby, but with another one. My heart started really being drawn to adoption, the goodbye of sunshine baby showed me all the more that our family was in a place that adoption seemed like the best thing to do. One afternoon, I got a call about a baby boy who was needing a long term placement. He had been put up for adoption by a loving mother who felt her life wasn't in a good plac