I'm battling a rush of emotions today...First of all, the Lord kind of knocked me on my behind today with another excerpt from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.  I've been "waiting" for the call for our travel date.  Kind of feeling like once we get THAT, we can get things in place and move on from there.  Today's devotion reminded me that TODAY is a day of it's own and that I need to embrace ALL that IT has for me to do -- and do it!!!  Here's a little bit of it: "You are on the path of My choosing.  There is no randomness about your life.  Here and Now comprise the coordinates of your daily life.  Most people let their moments slip through their fingers, half-lived.  They avoid the present by worrying about the future or longing for a better time and place..." Oh, how much time have I wasted by waiting...???  What have I missed out on because I was longing for _______ ?  When our oldest child was a baby, I spent so much time saying "I can't wait until she can ________" I realized that I was wishing her little life away and knew that that needed to stop so I could enjoy the moments that I had with her RIGHT NOW!!!

Obviously, until we get the travel date and are on the plane, the Lord has things for us to be about RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.  I am making a commitment to Him and to myself that, though I long for the day when we get to meet Sam/Yuri for the first time, I will be present in THIS moment of THIS day and not try to rush/wish/dream/yearn my life away.  God has something each day for me to do/be/accomplish/learn.  I have to be present  to do/be/accomplish/learn whatever it is for that day.

So, then a new fb friend sends me a link to a blog of a family who has just brought their 16 yr. old daughter home from the same area/orphanage where we will be going.  They are just past where we will soon be.  They have written of the wonders of gaining this new daughter which make my heart soar!  But they have also written of the emotions wrapped around her (the daughter) tender heart as she had to choose to leave EVERYTHING that she is comfortable with -- EVERYTHING she's ever known -- EVERYONE she's ever known and come with them to join their family.  She speaks very little English.  She is sad to leave her friends.  She is grateful to have a family -- for sure -- but is also dealing with VERY REAL 16 year old emotions!!!

In my "dream world", when we meet Sam/Yuri, he gets a huge grin on his (adorable) face and comes running to us to give us the biggest Mama & Papa hugs that have ever been given (which would have to be substantial because we have the BEST hugger in the world in our family already -- little Adley wraps himself around me every day to give me amazing hug after hugs after hugs!!!)  Then the orphanage director asks him "Do you want these people to be your parents?" and he unhesitatingly and emphatically answers "YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" with a fist-pump in the air and we walk arm in arm out of the orphanage and live happily ever after!  The reality that I'm coming to, as we're seeing more and more pictures of him and finding out that he actually DOES have a life & friends & activities & talents & dreams is that he's going to be sad.  Possibly REALLY sad when we say the final goodbye to the only life he's known.  He has friends that he's been with since he was just a toddler.  He will be leaving them -- possibly to never see them again.  He has security there.  He has "safety" there provided by people who are fiercely protective of him.  He has NO IDEA if we will be that for him or not -- he's going to be giving the most precious gift he has -- himself -- to complete strangers, trusting that we have his best interest at heart.

So, my prayer, though it has been for the Lord "to prepare him for us and us for him" is changing to be more specific as I ponder the vast emotions he will be feeling as he realizes what gaining a family is going to cost him.  Though a family is what he wants more than anything...it's going to cost him everything.  This is an awful lot for a 15+ year old to process.

Please pray with us that the Lord will even now be preparing Sam's/Yuri's heart to make the hard choices/decisions that are ahead of him and that the Lord will put a healing salve on the breaks of his heart -- maybe even before they occur and that He will equip us to be everything that we need to be for him as his world is turned upside down and inside out!!