Icing on the Cake

See that new "Our Adoption Timeline" over in the sidebar? And the new "Time in China" clock? I just have to tell you that I copied those ideas from my friend Julie's blog. She said I could.

Brandon and Julie Barnard have been friends of ours since they moved to Little Rock in the fall of 2007 to join the staff at Fellowship. We quickly learned that they, too, were waiting for a daughter from China. How fun! Even MORE fun is that their LID (Log-in Date: the day China registers a dossier and marks your "place in line," so to speak) is 08/17/07--EXACTLY the same date as ours! So, for a couple of years now when we see each other we compare notes, express sadness and frustration over the long wait, and try to say something encouraging. We had often dreamed of how exciting it would be to travel at the same time and fly back into Little Rock together with our new little ones.

When we received our wonderful unexpected referral phone call we wanted to share our news with everyone, but knew that it would be bittersweet for Brandon and Julie. I called Julie and she expressed such great excitement for us in her beautiful gracious way. But she was also honest. It IS hard to wait for something that God has placed such a desire in your heart for. It was good for us both to acknowledge all of that.

About 6 weeks later the kids and I were sitting at the kitchen table doing school in the middle of the afternoon, and we heard a knock on the door. It was Julie. She stopped by to tell us in person that they had received a phone call that day with the referral for their little girl!!! We stood on the front porch and hugged and cried and jumped up and down. The phrase that kept running through my head was, "my joy is made more complete."

A dear friend told me this week that God LOVES to put the icing on the cake. Perhaps that is why Paul describes Him as the One Who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine in Ephesians 3:20. Getting to continue this journey with the Barnards is icing on the cake! We don't know yet if we'll actually travel at the same time, but we check in with each other nearly every day to get an update. I'm so thankful for a Father that loves to give good gifts to His children!

Another little bit of "icing" came as we were preparing a care package to send to Hayden. We made pictures of our family and then each one of us holding her picture. When I put them in the little photo album there were too many empty pages at the end of the book so Darrell suggested that each of us write a little note to Hayden to include next to our picture. Reading the notes written to her by our children was such a gift to us! They have given us permission to share them with you. We'll post them one at a time over the next few days.

I'm also working on the next "chapter" of our story.