So excited for you...

"How exciting! Are you excited?"

This is typically what we hear from sweet friends...

most of whom truly are excited for us.

We know there are some who proclaim excitement about another adoption, while thinking...

"Are you crazy!"

And while I would much rather the first response than the latter...

I struggle with my reply.

Funny, it is easier to answer the "are you crazy" response because...

ahem...

yep we are just a little crazy!

just a little

*grin*

What's harder is responding to the proclamations of genuine excitement, when my heart, my flesh says, "NO, I am really not all that excited"

*shutter*

Now, stay with me here.

Yes, we are excited about welcoming another precious child into our family...

and 

No, we are not excited about welcoming another precious child into our family...

It's hard y'all.

There is honestly nothing "easy" about adoption.

It is messy.

It is time consuming.

It is uncomfortable.

It is expensive.

It is painfully revealing.

It is brokenness.

It is heart wrenching.

It is life changing.

It is loss.

It is pain.

and it is what we are called to do.

The Lord has called us to once again, step back into messy and broken and uncomfortable and loss and we know the cost....

less time, less sleep, less money, less freedom, less retirement...

less "normal"

Are we excited yet?

Yes, it is hard but while we prepare to venture back into the trenches...

there is an excitement...

not the typical kind of joyful excitement when a baby is welcomed into the world... well loved... because... 

let's be real...

adoption begins with a tragic kind of loss, a hurt that settles in deep, a brokenness that is not repaired this side of heaven.

No, this kind of spiritual excitement flows from obedience because as hard and messy and uncomfortable as adoption is...

It is also grace-filled.

It is refining.

It is inspiring.

It is faith-filled.

It is heart changing.

It is healing.

It is heavenly focused.

It is redemption.

It is God's will...

and being smack dap in the middle of God's will is always exciting...

not always easy...

but always exciting.

Over the years, we have come to understand that it is not as much about adding a child to our family as it is about giving a family to a child.

We don't set our eyes on achieving the comfortable "American Dream" anymore, but rather on Jesus and His dream for our family.  

After all, Jesus left his "comfortable", stepped right into my mess and died for me, so that I could be adopted and live with Him forever...

 yeah, I think I can surrender back into messy and die a little more to self.

How could I not?  

He has revealed things to me that have forever changed me...

images that are eternally etched into my heart...

stories from my own daughters that have shattered the bubble under which I spent most of my life.

My eyes have been opened and can no longer be closed in peace.

So, with our eyes wide open, we step back out of comfortable (7 kids, 4 dogs and 2 crazy cats kind of comfortable - but still...) and with a holy excitement, say "YES" to that precious child who is right now, only known to the Lord.

Stay tuned for a sweet fundraiser...

Exciting!

*grin*