{Goodness}

Not that I expected it to turn out this way, but having a week of knowing for a fact that the Chinese government was closed ended up being a breath of fresh air.  I knew that I had nothing that I could do and gently was reminded to just enjoy the moment...doing what I could in the wait and trusting the rest will work out exactly as He has planned.

So, we got Wyatt and my visa photos done {twice} and ready to go.  Sweet boy is so excited but also in the busiest season of his year with baseball.  We are praying that our travel turns out with perfect timing so he misses minimal games...as he's earned that spot as starting pitcher & we so want him to get as much time on the mound as possible.  We held our Letter Sending Party for our Both Hands project...and Scott met with the guys to get the detailed worked out.  We are beginning to see donations come in & trusting that He will make a way.  I got the Power of Attorney completed, notarized and off to DC for authentication since my hubby won't be with me & I need lots of approval to sign his Hancock.  ;)  It's so different this time and hurts to even think our entire family won't be together to welcome Ailee James into it...but I know that airport homecoming will be one for the books!  

And then there's the trips to grab a few things here and there that I know I'll need to pack but prefer to spread out those pricey shopping outings...and starting to work on the essentials necessary to have a newly 2 year old who you know very little about...will she like the bottle I got...does she prefer soothing toys or loud rattles...and exactly what size shoe will she need?!?!  Oh gracious, I hope size 3 diapers fit?!?  God bless the sweet lady in Target who literally comforted me as I wept in the bottle aisle after quite a conversation with myself over how wrong it even is that I'm looking for a bottle for a 2 year old when they are all designed for little newborns.  And how unfair life has been for her already. 

Oh the wait...so much to learn in this season...although I'm, self admittedly, still not very good at it.  Somehow, over the years, I've learned to do what I can and trust God with the rest.  His faithfulness is too good to think any other way.  

And, so, as I was listening to crickets last night on the back porch & thinking about the office on the other side of this world that has sounded a lot like crickets hypothetically over the last week now being filled with paperwork being shuffled and emails being sent and databases being updated...I thought that it sure would be nice to see a little movement in our dossier by sometime next week.  Maybe that would give them time to settle back in & get back in the groove & just maybe next week we'd see a glimmer of movement. 

Oh how my best attempts to figure out God's plans are still so often wrong...

A mid-day email from our agency...and a phone call that was missed due to my being outside without a phone just enjoying the sunshine & shooting arrows into the front field with the kids...and news that China had indeed returned to work last night... and that they immediately got to work on our papers.  The database had been updated and our dossier is moving.  On the first day back to work...

I am once again overwhelmed by His goodness.  

Ya know, this morning I listened to a few new songs on the treadmill and one was about that very thing...God's goodness.  I struggled for years over that...just saying the words were more than I could do some days...but God is so gracious to bring me back to Himself.  In my morning walk, I realized at how I now freely can say those words although they never leave my lips without an awareness of what it took for me to truly appreciate and grasp His goodness.  I can reflect on that deep grief in my life after Annabelle's passing and remember how badly I wanted to see and believe and know that His goodness is in this land of the living, too.  But, it was too much for me then...I was in over my head focusing so much on what had been taken from me rather than what I had gained.  The heart of the matter is that I was trying to base God's goodness off of my situation when, in reality, His goodness isn't dependent on anything other than Who He is and what He has done.  

And here I sit tonight just overwhelmed with His goodness...not because our paperwork is flying again or because He is moving mountains for the plight of one darling little orphan child on the other side of this world but simply because He is good.  It is His character and wanting to just get a taste of that changes mine.  

May my desires align with His and my heart chase His daily in this gloriously broken journey...