Calm

Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place.
Exodus 13:3

I was getting ready for work the other morning and thinking about life. It's time to send our 1 year home with E, report to the agency so I was thinking about what to write.

It occurred to me as I was contemplating... that life is good.

Boy what a year it has been.

The life of adoption...children...change....it can either make you or break you. I can tell you with honesty that I worried that we may be broken on some of those days

First we had the hospital stays, the IV meds, the G-Tube surgery, more hospital stays and wound care. We were stretched, pulled, pushed and prodded out of our comfort zone. God used those days to prune us and help us to grow in so many ways. Some we would have been happy to have missed and others that were priceless gifts.

N was especially affected by E's arrival. Again his world was rocked and somewhere in his little psyche he was not sure what to make of this new world any more. Poor little man was just lost with no real way to express his pain.... and we were at a loss as to how to help him.

What I realized as I was contemplating is that life has settled. E is healthy. He is strong and growing stronger. He is trying new things and growing more confident. He worships his brother and is over all a really happy kid. He's so stubborn when he wants to be, but pretty easy going other wise. Those moments of utter fear a year ago as we contemplated our new life have been replaced with moments of sheer joy in the son we now have to call our own. Just in the last couple of months he has started initiating saying "I love you" randomly. That is a joy that cannot be described.

N has really settled in as well. I believe with the passing of time he has realized that he isn't being replaced, nor is he going anywhere. One of the things in the cognitive test I spoke about before that was completely inaccurate, was his results in long term memory. They told us he has virtually no long term memory. This is simply not true. He remembers so much of what we say, things that have happened and things we have all forgotten until he brings them up. He remembers the conversation we had about not being able to send him back to Ethiopia. He brings it up to E and 'reassures' him that he can get married and move away some day, but that he can always come home. He is still a fireball of energy, but so much more easily re directed.

It just feels like the house is so much more calm...it's a home again. It used to be this place that had so much strife... in ways that I had no idea how to fix.

D and I have truly recommitted our efforts to focus on God and His place in our home. I feel like this is the thing that has changed. There is more peace, more calm, more patience, and more laughter. We are more relaxed about ...gosh everything. It feels good to us all.

We still have our days and our moments... of course... but we have been delivered and are moving into the place where God promised us that He would be. He led us to adoption, the adoption of both of our boys. He led us to follow through with E's adoption although we were so unsure about what the future may hold. He showed us that He would take care of things. And He has.

D is still out of a job, and the boys have not gone back to school yet, so I could come back next week crying on blogville's collective shoulder...lol But right now I feel like God's got us pretty firmly in His hand and in His will. I will just rest in that.