Hypothetical Kids and Another Old Picture

Here's another fun old pic I should have posted way back when but those were pre-blog days! This pic was taken at 6am on the morning I drove our completed dossier to Los Angeles to get our final state level authentication. Little did I know that I would end up driving ELEVEN hours that day and to three different counties in order to get all of our docs authenticated at the county level BEFORE the state could authenticate them. (Note: Make sure you double check your state's policies on document authentication! oops.) This day kicked my butt. It certainly felt like "labor" - perhaps of the adoptive kind. I was not nearly this perky when I got home at 5pm!

It's hard to believe that this was taken almost 6 months ago. We know those kids are on the way. It's just so hard when they have been nothing more than "hypothetical kids" for such a long time. We are really just waiting on a dream right now. It's very intangible. That part of this whole process is pretty strange. I am thankful for the many people God has put in our lives that have helped to make these kids more "real" to us during this season - my mom who calls me all the time to tell me about the latest preschool age books she nabbed from her school library's free table (including ones in Spanish!), my friend Jenna who called me to tell me how often she thinks of us with our kids and how she has a picture in her mind of us surrounded by kids passing out hard candy at the orphanage (she even wanted to buy the candy for us to take on the trip!), my friend Kim who leaves me messages on my phone telling me how she is so excited about the kids that she thinks about them all the time, my mother-in-law who wanted to start making the kids' bedding three months ago, my friend Marla who wanted to spend the first day of her vacation with us shopping for kids' clothes, and the list goes on. Perhaps God sends others to help carry our hopes when we feel like we no longer can. Perhaps it is through others' willingness to involve themselves in our dreams that we are able to keep our hopes alive. As we continue to wait (and read blogs about other families from our agency who have already received their referrals), we are blessed to have dreamers along with us on the journey that help keep our "hypothetical kids" present in our hearts. Here is a special poem that I was touched by this week. This too came from the Streams in the Desert book:

If we could push ajar the gates of life,
And stand within, and all God's working see,
We might interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.

But not today. Then be content, dear heart;
God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold.
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart-
Time will someday reveal the blooms of gold.

And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet , with sandals loosed, may rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,
I think that we will say, "God knew best."