Minismith

I’ll confess. I wasn’t ready to be a mom back in December of 2004 when the test came back positive. And in all honesty, I dragged my feet for a good long while after the fact. I tend to do this in the face of transitions, particularly ones that are handed to me before I’m “ready”…whatever that really means.

While we’re all learning to do this journey through life the best we can, I am sad about posts I wrote, complaints I muttered, and the selfishness that drove me to simply survive those first few years of motherhood.

Yet thankfully, in God’s great mercy, He carried me, Matthew and our two precious boys through those precarious years. And has graciously offered me many opportunities to verbally repent to my boys for the ways I didn’t cherish them and delight in them immediately. Whether they get it or not, I pray those words sink in to their little hearts. And that as Jesus lavishes them with His love, He’ll keep teaching me to lavish them with my own faulty, stumbling love I have to offer.

Over the past year, I’ve learned to enjoy the simple moments with these guys. I used to sit at home in those early days, longing to be in a foreign country somewhere, off on some wild adventure, when right in front of me sat the most mysterious, exciting adventure of all…navigating the intricacies of the human soul.

It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. It won’t always be my adventure and calling, but it is right now. These are precious years. Where my boys adore me without hesitation. Where they soak up my reactions, thoughts and love like little sponges. I’m okay with letting my picture-taking/blog-writing fall to the wayside for a season so I can just be. Here. Because I’m pretty sure these are the days I’ll look back on and cherish the most.

Some of our simple moments over the past month…

All right people, if you are within driving distance of our stomping grounds, drop everything and mark your calendars for the night of October 22nd.

The Smith’s are going to be throwing the most fabulous fall party of the year in the gorgeous downtown Greenville, complete with amazing Soby’s food, music from the lovely Hannah Miller, and a silent auction, featuring goods & services from local artisans & business folk.

We would love to have you come out and partner with us in bringing our baby home. Whether you’re a close friend, a friend of a friend, or just someone who has a big heart for adoption, you are more than welcome to join us for this night of celebrating!

Details can be found on the Night for Adoption website, designed by my handsome Mr. Smith and coded by the talented Michael Meyer.

…since, um, MAY!? Really?? Okay, that’s embarrassing.

It’s been pretty clear that along with our transition to Greenville – three years ago this month – there was a definitive phasing out for me from the minismith blog world.

Some times I’m sad about this, other times I don’t miss it a bit. I do love writing, but I also love relating…which seems to happen more authentically for me when done face-to-face vs. computer screen-to-computer screen. Not that there aren’t amazing benefits to the technological era. I’ve been able to keep up with friends across the globe, through the various seasons in my life, and make new ones that I may never officially “meet”. This is both a beauty…and a curse, as other young moms will testify.

It’s much easier to stay busy with our kids & duties than to stay authentic and real. Being the introvert I am, I’d much rather have a lot of superficial, “easy” friendships, which technology caters to, than have to push myself into the deeper, rockier, more conflict-prone friendships of actually doing life together.

Maybe soon I’ll be able to juggle both again – the internet world and the real world. But being honest with where I’m at right in this very moment of life, the real world takes up about every ounce of energy I have to spare.

That being said, with our adoption story being as wild and wooly as it’s been the past year, I’d love to be able to document it a little bit more here on minismith, so we’ll see if the opportunity arises to do so in the coming weeks.

We’ll be launching our website some time this week for our upcoming Night for Adoption, on October 22nd that we’ll be hosting, so stay tuned!

But a brief catch-up of the past 4 months…

Summer flew by. The boys have grown up more than I can bear.

We LIVED in our pool and Brighton officially learned to swim by himself.

Brighton turned 5. Wait, I have a FIVE YEAR OLD?!? What, really???

The boys started preschool :*( Sniff.

We have loved every minute of having my parents home from London on furlough. The boys are not going to know what to do when their two greatest new fans leave next spring.

And, last, but not least…Matthew and I spent a glorious week in Oslo, Norway for a web conference he was speaking at. Pictures to drool over here.

So that’s it. Maybe I’ll just stick with these tri-annual blog posts, they’re much easier to stomach for all involved :)

…a happy, happy anniversary to you!

I won’t write a sappy honorarium to how perfect our family is or how seamless your marriage may have been. But I will write about what it means to be a daughter in the family Jesus has helped you both create.

You have taught us siblings how to love, to forgive, and how to stand by each other through thick and thin…

You have taught us to laugh at ourselves and to find rest in knowing we are loved…not just by you all, but by the Perfect Father/Mother in Christ…

You have taught us it’s okay to fail…and fail miserably…because it’s just not about how “well” we do life, it’s about how much we are delighted in, IN OUR FAILURES, that define us and shape us. You’ve helped us learn what it means to really be free and tethered lightly to this life.

You have taught us to be a little wild and crazy at times…

And have not just talked about living a kingdom life, out of your comfort zone, leaving behind the things you love to live for the One you love…you all have done it….

You gave up a lot to make a move from high-class Virginia, to punk-goth Camden, London. You left behind empty words of what it means to live boldly and you all began to live it. In all the pain, heartache, and struggles that living presents. 

You have loved Brighton & Levi with that same passion and hunger for life. And they’ve yet to realize just why they love their Mimi & Hee-ya so much…

We all know marriage has it’s ups and downs, but you have taught us kids what it means to walk through the storms, enjoy the rain, and wait for the rainbow that’s around the bend.

You have given us a home where we feel loved & safe. Where we haven’t been loved perfectly or loved perfectly ourselves, but rather through the falleness we’ve learned the model of forgiveness and humility…from our parents. A rare, rare gift. Because that is what has shaped us. Not going into life feeling like we have to do it right, but knowing we have freedom to mess up, move out in repentance and be forgiven and learn to forgive.

That is the family I want. One that hurts and struggles and fails, but knows they are loved and safe and free to not get it right. By their parents, by their siblings, and by the One who will never fail us, never be disappointed in us, never leave us.

Thank you all for loving us kids, for loving each other, but mostly for leaning hard into Jesus as you tried and failed and rejoiced in the beauty and pain life has offered our family.

It’s been a pretty wild ride for our family this year. Some public loss – such as losing our baby at 9 weeks – and some more private. But through it all, it has been the year of learning to not just keep wading through hit after hit, but fighting to get to that waterfall of Christ’s love for us over and over and over. We’ll never get filled up this side of heaven. And we’ll become fairly dry, cracked and bleeding if we don’t keep standing under those roaring waters.

The past few months have involved mourning, praying, asking, laughing and just enjoying the ever sweetening depth Jesus is taking our little family to.

My own heart has been all over the map. Wondering what being a family looks like. What the call Jesus has given me to mother looks like. What I do with the pain in my heart over losing a child. How I reconcile that with our ever-growing desire to adopt. The wrestling has not been easy. My heart, for a good long while, has felt torn. But we asked, and He answered. He reignited the call on Matthew’s heart and then fiercely set the fire on my own, to once again begin the process of adoption.

I can’t begin to say I understand why God brought a baby into our lives in December only to take them away early February. Right in the middle of our adoption process. The confusion and stirring that brought into my heart was dizzying. And so we’ve waited. Wanting time to heal and time to be led by Christ instead of jumping into the next thing.

Yet one invaluable thing stands out through that experience, the mark we now wear as a family. Finding ourselves face to face with the cruel terrifying monster of loss, battling that beast and surviving, but not coming out unscathed. We are a family that now joins thousands of other families that bear the mark of loss.

That very viscerally includes the hundreds of thousands of birth mothers all over the world. Who, whether circumstantially or by choice, will forever bear the mark of losing a child. Whether their hearts are alive to feel that tearing or whether life has left them too deadened to experience that level of pain, they are losing a child. They did carry that child for 9 months to say goodbye. And no matter what the argument is in that specific situation, the mark of loss is inflicted on that woman’s heart for their lifetime, another tragic result of the fall.

No, Jesus did not bring a baby into our lives for 2 short months to “teach us a lesson”. But through the pain, this is a golden thread that I praise him for. That He is now taking our family into this process of adoption as a different family. That we do not entered it to blindly gain another child. That there is mourning to be faced. For the birth mother. For the child some day. For yet another example that this is not how life was intended to be. But there is simultaneously great, great beauty…more stunning than I had previously seen.

That I myself was birthed into a fallen world. That in my terrified, beastly state, I had an adoring Father who scooped me up and declared me beautiful and captivating to his heart. Who gave up the life of his very own son to claim me as His eternally.

As a family, we long to view ourselves less and less in this life as Jesus’ “legally adopted kids” and begin to see ourselves through the true gospel lens of just being his kids, all legalities aside. We don’t really get that yet. We want to, but we’re so tempted in this life to still feel orphaned. Like we’re sort of wanted, sort of annoying at times. Not that we’re worthy of having anyone actually DIE for us. But He did. And so we want to…for all our children. However they are “birthed” into our life. We want a kingdom perspective. About family. About children. About our “full rights as sons” Gal.4:5.

So if you do anything, PRAY FOR US! For God to keep working on our hearts so resistant to his love, for the woman who is carrying our child and the decisions she is facing, for minismith #3, for the finances necessary in this very fallen system, and for joy as we walk through this exciting and labor-intensive process.

Many of you have asked, so on a logistical note: we are pursuing domestic adoption of a trans-racial child. This is a story I will write about soon and how He brought us to this decision. Briefly, the statistics are staggering. The costs to adopt a Caucasian baby are double, DOUBLE, the cost of adopting an African American child. Not looking at the money, but what lies behind that fact, there is something terribly sad and consumeristic about that reality. 

A book that has been hugely influential for us, that we’re going to “demand” (ha, ha…only mildly so) that our family and close friends, who’ll be in this child’s life, read is “Adopted for Life” by Russell D. Moore.

It was so easy as a kid, right? You’d just grab some random girl’s hand, start running around the park, then next thing you know you were trading BFF necklaces and swearing you’d name your own children after each other.

And then you turn six years old…entering the school playground and thus the tenuous world of female friendships ensues.

It is a battle that can easily make one feel defeated and like tossing in the towel, but is so worth it when persevered through in humility and genuine love, which is pretty dang impossible without some major Holy Spirit work in our hearts. But one that Christ calls us into to witness the beauty of redemption – of ourselves mainly and maybe even the honor of seeing it unfold in the lives of a few of our female friends.

I would love to write and write all afternoon on this topic as it’s near and dear to my heart, but alas, my cunning, bartering husband has scored us a free two-nights stay at our favorite B&B in Asheville for my impending 30th birthday next week. We’re shipping out in a couple hours and there are bags to pack, meals to prep for the boys, and one grungy bathroom to wipe down.

So I’ll leave you with these two brief posts – one by Sarah, a friend of ours, now living in Nashville and the other by Kristin, a friend of hers, who together began blog-dialoguing about this rarely discussed topic among women – the often hidden struggle to really connect. And just how HARD it is to get past the fake “real” – that’s become so popular now thanks to the bitching-blogging world, as I’ll not so gently put it, that’s exploded among women – and really, really get to know other women. Their strengths, their insecurities, their failures, their hidden beauty. I loved Sarah & Kristin’s toe-dip into this and would love to keep up the conversation around here over the next few weeks.

I’m posting them here so you don’t have to jump around to different blogs, although I highly recommend you do check out these girls & amazing writer’s thoughts!

From Sarah

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

What I Was Thinking She Was Thinking

I just finished reading my gal pal Kristen’s latest post about how hard it is making girl friends. Even in our thirties, the same insecurities from the junior high locker room still haunt us, they just age. She has bigger boobs than me turns into Her boobs dont sag as much as mine.

Kristin and I just met for lunch last week, in the middle of my Atticus crisis. We just started hanging out recently to talk about writing. She is a writer, mother and uber-cool hair stylist and I wanted to get her input on where she thought I should get my MFA. I was down to two schools (Seattle Pacific U and Vermont College), and was hoping someone would help me figure out where to go since most of my brain power was otherwise depleted. I had to decide by last Friday.

As we were discussing the benefits of each school, I realized there was actually another conversation happening that Kristin had no idea about that exhibits nicely the reason why females struggle so hard to be friends. The two conversations kinda went like this:

ME: What do you know about Seattle Pacific’s program? Oh God. I didn’t shower this morning and my hair looks so greasy. Kristin is gonna think I am a total loser. Do you think I am a total loser, Kristin?

KRISTIN: Yes! It’s a great school. I don’t know much about the program, but their journal IMAGE is really top-notch. You could definitely benefit from the connections you’d make there.

ME: But, don’t you think I have opportunities in Nashville for those same connections? Do you think I should break out of the box and be in a place where my framework is challenged?
You think I need my bangs cut, don’t you? You are totally mocking my hair right now, arent you? You and your edgy 80’s punk rock hair-do are judging my greasy, no hair-do hair-do, arent you?

KRISTIN: Yeah! Definitely. That would be a really great experience. You really can’t go wrong either place. I’m really excited for you. That’s gonna be awesome.

ME: Thanks, Kristin. I’m really excited. Thanks for getting together with me. I’d love to do this again. You can’t wait til I get my nasty-assed hair away from you cause I’m lowering your stock. I know you are embarrassed to be seen with me in Jackson’s. You are hoping people don’t notice your dorky, uncool friend with her stupid necklace. How do you know how to dress so freaking cute? Bohemian, yet still clean? Whenever I try that I just look dirty. Why do I always look so dirty? Dammit! I hate my hair.

KRISTIN: Me, too!

So, Kristin wonders why it’s so hard to make girl friends. Exhibit A should help explain. We are shallow, caddy, critical, competitive comparers who can’t just enjoy a simple conversation. I wish I were a boy who just wanted to show off how he could get a wad of paper into that hole other there. Life would just be so much easier…

And Kristin’s response

reply to: what i was thinking she was thinking

My new friend Sarah put up a post on her blog last night in regards to the conversation about female friendships. Read it first ( posted above ), and then see what I was thinking during our conversation:

Sarah: What do you know about Seattle Pacific’s MFA program?

Me: I’ve heard it’s a great school, and know that their journal IMAGE is really cool. You could form some great connections.
why does she think I know anything about MFA programs? I only have my undergrad. I should have gotten my masters. Maybe I could still do it. . .God, I’m so jealous. . .she’s going to be so much smarter than me.

Sarah: But, don’t you think I could make those same connections here? Do you think I should go somewhere that challenges my mindset?

Me: Yes, that would be good too. . .you really can’t go wrong either way. They’re both great schools.
Okay, now she can totally see through me and knows I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I can’t even complete a full sentence sometimes. I sound like an idiot. I want her to still think I’m smart and funny, but she’s so much quicker than me.

Sarah: Thanks. Kristin. I’m really excited. We should do this again.

Me: Yes! Let’s definitely hang out again!
she doesn’t really want to hang out with me again. She is going to tell everyone what a fraud I am, and not to ask me for advice on anything. I bet I have green stuff all up in my teeth.

So it seems the real challenge in making new friends, is in quieting our inner tormentor, and learning to really LISTEN to the other person. Thanks, Sarah, for doing this little exhibit with me!

The past two months, as one can imagine, have been a bit of a messy blur. Loss and sadness mixed with routine and changes – house selling, house purchasing, new exciting jobs for Matthew, a birthday for Levi, new school choices for the boys. I feel a bit dizzy here in the middle of March, hoping for some settledness internally amidst the upheaval circumstantially.

In 4 weeks, we’ll pack up our home and move to the third house we’ve “owned” within a 2 year stretch. And somehow I know there is an internal rest and joy to be had in the midst. That concept makes no sense to my puny, exhausted brain. But feels like a water and hope to my dry, dry soul. 

With all the swirling circumstances around us, our family has chosen to stay tucked away these past few weeks. Piling on the floor for family movies, enjoying the longer warm evenings with walks to the park, and trying to soak up this new wild stage our boys are rambling in to as a 3 and almost 5 year old. Realizing again that as much as our head knows it, our heart is so quick to forget that these moments are life. All the temporal things – new jobs, new houses, new things – is just accent salt on the real meal.

Found on Molly Piper’s blog the other day. By Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Resignation
from The Seaside and the Fireside

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers

May be heaven’s distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,–the child of our affection,–
But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister’s stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution,

She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father’s mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion

Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,

That cannot be at rest,–

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

We’re healing, slowly but surely. That’s what I have to believe, even when the swirl of selling our house, finding a new one, continuing to mother these two boys and keep my head above the water, threatens to sap every last emotional and physical bit of energy I have left.

Jesus is here in the whirlwind with me, the greatest comfort and healing I have right now, when my brain just doesn’t work. There seems to be no time or energy to fit all the pieces together. So I cling to Psalm 13:5, which I had written and taped up near my bed the week before we found out about Mirabelle, “But (despite all the crap going down in Ps.13:1-4) I trust in your unfailing love.” It doesn’t fail. That’s written all through scripture. That I can claim day after day, when everything seems to scream otherwise.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. ~Psalm 139:13-16

56 days. After an all too short 56 days, our baby is now sitting with Jesus singing those very words to his tender, adoring face. He did not forget her, she was not hidden from Him. Her 56 days were ordained from the beginning, and now he calls her by the name only He knows. Some day we’ll get to hear it. Some day we’ll get to meet her.

This past Monday, we found out via ultrasound that the little heartbeat we saw pumping away at 6 weeks – the ultrasound photo from above that Matthew had “fancied up” – was no longer there. Our baby had passed away at 9 weeks, a complete shock and horror to us, as those of you who have been through it know.

There are few things in life as overwhelming and painful as the loss of someone you love. For you mothers out there, you know how wild that love begins to grow from the moment you pick up that positive pregnancy test. Though we’d never met this little one, we all four loved him/her, and we are deeply feeling their absence in our lives.

We had all four gone to the prenatal appointment, telling the boys we were going to the “baby doctor” to take a picture of the baby. Needless to say, as things went a direction we weren’t expecting Matthew took care of the boys as I pulled myself together as much as possible for us to all head home. He gently told them the baby had gone home to be with Jesus. Once in the car, Brighton sat in his car seat with a long, somber look on his face. I asked him if he was okay. He replied, “But Mommy, I LOVED our baby. I wanted to SEE our baby. I’m so sad, Mom”.

The boys had called the baby “Mirabelle Fire” from the beginning. We’re not sure where it came from, but as it’s been the year of fire in the Smith family, the name seemed appropriate. We aren’t sure if it was a boy or girl, but to put a name to a soul that is very real and is now with Jesus, we’re calling her Mirabelle Fire Smith. She was our Minismith #3. And though grief is a process we’ll slowly lumber through, she’ll never be forgotten. She was one of our children, one of the minismith clan, in all her tiny glory.

Please keep all four of us in your thoughts and prayers as we walk through this unexpected and deeply painful season in our lives.

As I was settling down for a quick nap before a pre-house-showing cleaning frenzy, I began thinking back over the past 30 days. Amazed and thankful for the ways Jesus has held on to my heart and sanity through a pretty wild month of upheaval.

Did I ever tell you the story of our Dream Anniversary Getaway from Hell? No, I think that one slipped my mind amidst the flurry of Christmas, family visits and finding out a new baby was cookin’ itself up inside me.

About a month ago, we were at our favorite little inn atop a cozy residential mountain outside of Asheville celebrating Year #6. The best one yet. Only one other couple shared the premises with us for the inn’s closing weekend of the season. I remember lying by the fire with Matthew, with our bellies full of an insanely good meal, telling him this all just seemed too eerily good to be true.

12 hours later, morning of our departure, we woke up to this.

Okay, no big deal. Just a tiny bit of snow. Nothing a Colorado-born-n-bred man can’t manage. Matthew went out to load up our bags, having fun sliding around, enjoying his dearly missed snow. I finished my pile of waffles, warm cup of coffee and favorite book by the fire. All is good. We’ll be home in no time.

A few hours later. I started getting a liiiittle bit nervous. The other couple was finally awake, so we all went out to help salt (with bare hands, ouch) the 70 degree incline of a driveway. Since 2WD cars, both with bald tires, do not mix very well with ice and snow. The other girl and I were still laughing, taking pictures as we salted and generally unconcerned about any real chance of being stuck.

Ha, ha. Happy! Pretty snow! This is fun! Right? RIGHT???

Yet, after both of us trying and failing to get up the side of the mountain to at least arrive at the main road, the mood changed. At one point, Matthew was driving our car while the other couple and I were jumping on the back of our lame 2WD bumper trying to give it some traction. To one side was the straight up mountain, to the other was the straight down drop off. No guard rails, no foot worth of room. Inches. INCHES, people. The guy told me if the car spun out and started sliding down the mountain to jump off and tuck my head in case the car rolled on top of me. Um, excuse me while I puke over here to the side out of PURE HYSTERIA.

Do you SEE that drop off?? And that was after some rain created the sludge. Post-snow-covered-icy mess.

That’s when I knew it was time to panic. But one does not have that luxury in moments like these. Moments later we went into another ditch…

…then all five of us stood around looking at gravely at each other. Would we be stuck here for days before someone was able to come get us? Would our kids at home freak out with their parents MIA the week before Christmas? Was there enough food in the inn for all of us for that week?

God was gracious and stopped the snow for a brief 30 min, bringing rain that mysteriously turned the snow to slush. We quickly salted, shovelled and hauled our big 2WD SUV’s up the driveway. Hurray!

Only to find out the top of the mountain was worse. Boo. Phone calls were made, tire chains were brought up. Tire chains that did not fit. So we were forced to slip and slide down the guardrailess mountain. Spinning out and having too many close calls to mention. Thinking the whole way, “If we just get to they highway, things will be clear. Asheville isn’t supposed to start getting snow til noon.”

Wrong.

Asheville wasn’t supposed to start getting snow til noon, but by noon I-25 was a mess. We almost didn’t make it up the on-ramp. Hours in, we’d only made it a few miles. Tractor trailers had jack-knifed blocking the road. We stared at this bridge for hours (quite pretty, no?) before we decided to turn around and get a hotel.

Only to have our car stuck in the hotel entrance…along with a few others. Within the hour, all the rooms were full. Matthew hiked through the snow to a grocery store down the way and came back with an Ingles feast.

We were all wondering when and if the roads would be cleared. By morning, the news still reported no roads were cleared, everything was a mess…basically, that there was no way out. I felt my stomach drop. I just wanted to be back home with my boys :( The sunrise was at least a much welcomed sight after hours and hours of endless snowfall.

Matthew went to check on the condition of our car. To “by chance” (ha!) find we were stuck at a hotel right next to a fire station. Full of firemen with orders not to help citizens, but to stay on call for emergencies. But these firemen kindly offered to “discreetly” pull our car out of the ditch. After which we decided to take the risk to at least make it onto the highway. We prayed, then M plowed through a pile of snow to the on-ramp. And it was clear! One tiny trail had been blazed on I-25 around all the hundreds of stranded vehicles. We slowly crept along for 30 minutes until the altitude diminished and the snow completely disappeared. We were finally, finally on our way home.

Good thing I was with an Eagle Scout for that harrowing ordeal, who was prepared with a VITAL survival supply…

Pens. You know, for writing a letter of indignation to the SC governor for SDOT’s lack of preparedness. Or for eating…in cases of extreme hunger. Or for stabbing out the eyes of highway looters attempting to get in your stalled out car. Or building a snow shelter.

Being southern girl, I myself was prepared as well with good ol’ Southern Snow “Boots”.

Sock, trash bag, sock, trash bag. No sludgy, cold feet for me.

So that was the week before Christmas.

Week of Christmas, we have a wild, fun time with my family. We find out our home study is almost complete, just waiting on paperwork. We can’t believe within a few weeks, we’ll have our adoption applications and family profiles in the mail.

Week after Christmas, I begin to feel insanely tired and mildly queasy. Umm. Post-Christmas blues?? Then a certain female 28-day occurance doesn’t occur. On a whim, I pulled out a spare one of these shoved in the back of the medicine closet.

Surprise, surprise (as is always the case for us Smiths)!

As overjoyed as we were with our growing family, there was still a sense of sadness that the path we were on was being diverted for a season. Our hearts weren’t just bursting for a bigger family, but specifically for adoption. And as we let that go, knowing there will be a time and a season for that, we were able to embrace the delight and joy of this little life GOD had planned, before we were even a family, to offer to us. Little minismith #3. We had no idea how you would arrive, but we are more than thrilled to meet you come September.

A few weeks later, as the long winter days set in and the boys energy levels exploded, our 950 square foot home began to feel tinier and tinier. We began to wonder if we were crazy to attempt to run a 5 person family in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home. People do it all the time all over the world, right? So we did something wild and crazy that we’ve rarely done in making decisions like this. We stopped, waited and prayed. Sad, I know. This should be our M.O. And we’ve been praying these past few months that it would be.

He really does lead us. We decided to put our cute little house on the market. The house that has offered us so much healing and has been the resting place to find new joy in each other and in Christ. We love her. But we know it’s time to part ways. And get serious about this family He is putting on our hearts to grow.

So this has been our past month. A month that has been a little crazier than expected. But hasn’t failed to offer us a place to rest in the swirl of changes. Thank you Jesus for keeping us nestled up tightly with you. It’s pretty scary any other way.