On My Knees

The band, Seryn, has a song called On My Knees. These are the full lyrics:

On my knees I can see,
Where my heart needs to be.
When this life gets to me,
I'll be found on my knees.

A song with simple lyrics, but filled with so much truth. On our knees is where you will find us today. Our hearts are hurting, but we know our God is bigger than all of this. So often I forget to go to God in prayer when life gets to me. Yet things are often so much clearer when I simply change my viewpoint.

I hope this song can awaken something within you as well. (As a note, the last half of the track is instrumental.)

Holiday Greetings

Well, it's a little late, but we want to say Happy Holidays to everyone. Thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes after our last post. We have enjoyed spending our holiday with family, but there is definitely a sense of uncertainty hanging over our lives right now. Our Little Man is so loved and even received some Christmas gifts of his own. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Please Pray

I don't know what else to do right now, but to ask you to please pray.

Pray for political leaders in all nations.
Pray for wisdom for those leaders and for the government officials.
Pray that our son will not be a victim of political backlash.
Pray that whatever God's plan, he will protect our sweet Little Man.
Pray that we have the courage to press on no matter what.
Pray that our hearts will not be hardened by this turmoil.
Pray for my hurting and angry mama's heart.
Pray that we will continue to trust God's control.
Pray for our precious boy to be surrounded by love.
Pray for all of the other families who are just as confused and panicked right now as we are.
Pray for all of the children, worldwide, who are hurt by the decisions and actions of the adults around them.
Please pray.

There's not much to say, but that some laws are being considered that would directly affect our adoption. There is a possibility that we might not be allowed to bring home our son. I am struggling with hope today.

"Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying." Romans 12:12

Regular Programming

Well, we're home and definitely back to regular programming. Today I thought that it had been over two weeks since we got back, and Drew corrected me to say that it has only been 10 days.

It feels like so much longer!!

Everything is the same. We work during the week. Hang out with Sherlock in the evenings. Make dinner. Watch TV. Life group on Wednesdays. Church on Sundays.

But everything is also different...We love a precious little boy that doesn't live with us. We pray for him by name at night. We show pictures on our phones to everyone we meet. Days are calculated by how much closer we may be to going back to see him. We talk about and plan the future considering what our son will like and enjoy. We can picture his laughter filling up the house. We imagine the sound of his footsteps running down the hallway.

Only two stockings this year

This journey has already been such a blessing. Our lives are so much fuller now that we have met our Little Man. God has already used this experience to teach us in so many ways, and we can't wait to see how Little Man will help us grow and learn as time goes on.

 

Here's what I pray for you: Father, may their love grow more and more in wisdom and insight -- so they will be able to examine and determine the best from everything else. And on the day of the Liberating King, the day of His judgement, let them stand pure and blameless, filled with the fruit of authentic righteousness that ripens through Jesus, the Liberator. All this I pray, with a view to God's ultimate praise and glory. - Philippians 1:9-11 (The Voice translation)

Bittersweet

Today was our last visit before our return home, so we wanted it to be great. Little Man must have felt the same way. He was in a great mood today for another afternoon, post-nap visit! We started out by giving him a little blanket that Alyssa had made for him. He was very excited to find out that this was his to keep. You would have never guessed how fun a blanket could be!

After the blanket, we played with bubbles for a short bit - sorry no pictures of the bubbles. After bubbles came a little coloring.

Then we did a wardrobe change -- new pants!

Then a new shirt.

We had a bow tie like dad's, but it made a better lasso than a tie.

After the wardrobe change, we had a couple of cookies and did some more playing.

First, we played with a plastic toy that bobbed around.

Then we rode around the room on a great looking scooter. 

    

We were pretty tired by then, so we settled down with a little bit of Old McDonald on the iPad.

Before we knew it, our time was up! So we got one more family pic, and it was sadly time for us to leave.

Please pray that everything will go smoothly as we work to get back here for our court hearing! We have some more parent training ahead of us, and then there are some variables that we aren't quite sure about. We hope to be back here in late January or early February. It can't be soon enough! We can't express how amazing this experience has been. God has clearly been with us this entire journey. Our hearts are overcome with joy right now. We have met our Little Man, and he is healthy and happy. We could not ask for a greater blessing.

Ps. Alyssa wants to know how many of you are now subconsciously craving chocolate or chocolate chip cookies due to the post title? Oh, you weren't? How about now?

A new play room

Sorry for any grammatical errors you will have to endure with today's post. It is already bed time here and Alyssa is fast asleep, but I knew that many of you would not be happy to wake without new pictures, so here it goes.

Today we went for an afternoon visit. We arrived right after nap time and the afternoon snack. We got to play in a different play room today which was a welcome change. This room was bigger and had lots of fun slides and other toys. It has colorful murals on the wall and you can tell this is a happy place.

 

We introduced a few new toys and let Little Man spend a little time with the iPad today. His favorite is still carrying around Alyssa's iPhone while it plays music (he will have to have his own iPod Touch when we get him home I'm sure). You will see him with the iPhone in almost every picture. Today we listened to a variety of pop hits and folk songs. He also continues to enjoy a Fisher Price toy that Grand Mary sent along. It plays different songs that he likes to dance to.

He also enjoyed a squishy green air ball today for a while. Nothing is exciting for that long when you are three though.

We also brought along a play tool belt with fun tools. The hammer makes some great sound as you move it back and forth and hit it on a surface. You'll also notice that while not holding tools the belt became an acceptable place to carry the iPhone so that Little Man always had his tunes with him. 

  

  

There are a variety of slides in the room that we got to enjoy today. Little Man seems to enjoy taking the head first route down the slide most often.

There are also slides into a small ball area that Little Man enjoyed for a few minutes. It was a big room though so we had to keep moving so we wouldn't miss anything.

We also had a good time behind the exercise bars. There proved to be just enough room for Little Man to slide back and fourth between the wall and the bars.

We also spent a little more time with our picture book today, he really likes to be in charge of the book and turning the pages.

Tomorrow will be our last visit for this trip. Please ask God to prepare our and Little Man's hearts for this. I know that saying goodbye tomorrow will probably be tearful for us, but most importantly we want Little Man to remember that we will be back for him very soon!