a beautiful journey home: 2009 Revisited, Crazy Cash Part 1

So I have a story that I want to tell you about a big wad of cash. But in order to really tell it, I have to give you the background (plus the background is equally badass). And those of you who know me know that being concise is just not how I roll...it's just not. What can I say? So, here we go again on a multi-part series of blogs. :) Perhaps there will come a day when I will just post a blog post that stands on its own, but today is not that day.

The first part of the story begins with an overview. This is a copy (with just a few changes) of our 2009 Christmas letter that I wrote. Many of you have read it before. It sets the stage, if you will.

From December, 2009:

2009 has been an incredible year for us, filled with the full range of human emotions. Last November, God gave us several clear signs that adoption was the way He wanted to start our family. On Christmas night we decided how we would move forward on that path. Just under nine months later, our precious son, Douglas Thomas, was born!!

It amazes me how little we know - how in our darkest hour, when it seems that all hope is lost and we will never see the end of our pain, the Father is always, always at work…and everything can change in an instant. There is a deeper Reality going on around us, full of mystery and so very much larger than us and our little lives. It is easy to get stuck in the mire of our own microcosmic life and completely forget that we are but a tiny piece in an unfathomably large and breathtakingly beautiful puzzle that God created. This puzzle, this plan, spans all of time, from beginning to end. When I grasp this truth, how can I help but feel small? And yet I am comforted in my smallness because the only One who is not small loves me and will never leave me. And He has a good and perfect plan, even when from where I’m standing it seems as if He doesn’t.

Last Christmas, Micah and I both were at the end of ourselves – discouraged and completely worn out from the years of emotional strain that comes with fertility struggles. Little did we know that at that time, our son had already been conceived and would be born right before our very eyes nine months later. Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined what God had in store.

Our adoption journey has been one of joy and pain existing together in the same space. It has served to challenge our ever-present humanness; our pride, our sense of entitlement and justice, our illusion of control. In the midst of our smallness and struggles, God has been incredibly present and real to us.

Micah and I were extremely blessed to be in the delivery room when Douglas was born! It was the most incredible experience of my life.

We love being parents, and we completely adore our little boy with his wide-mouthed grin and his sweet spirit. He is such a gift to us – a living example of the extravagance of the Father’s love and blessings.

People say all of the time, “he is so lucky to have you guys as parents.” No. It is we who are the lucky ones.

May we all be confronted this year with our own smallness in the midst of God’s beautiful plan and the resulting comfort that comes from knowing that everything is not all up to us - that we need only walk in the way that He has already prepared for us.