Bitter-sweet

Some of my favorite moments as a mother happen when no one is looking.  When I spy out my bedroom window and watch Grace bake cupcakes in the sand box, or listen in the hallway as Elijah saves the universe, or catch my tween flexing and puffing up his chest in the mirror.  It gives me butterflies in my tummy and a lump in my throat.  In the midst of all the chaos and day to day conflict there are so many sweet moments to be captured.  I have always been one to stop and smell the roses; to take note of detail...and to wonder.


The road of adoption has been a bitter-sweet one.  Every thing that we love and enjoy as a family now carries the sting of our little ones who are not with us.  It seems to make it's way into every detail.  Saturdays are always hard.  I imagine the girls sharing a picnic, or all three boys playing basketball as I look out my kitchen window. But this is where it gets me every time- that darn rear view mirror!  We load up in the van to head to church or make a quick trip to the grocery store. I give the rear view mirror a check,  call back, "Every body buckled up?" and look to see all their faces. What used to be a seemingly harmless routine now brings tears to my eyes, because I look back and NOT every one is buckled up.  Not everyone is there.  It's crazy how it hits me.  One of the kids may or may not notice and ask what's wrong.  I'm honest...and we pray.  The prayers rise like incense and the sweetness fills the air.

Yesterday evening we were all just kind of putsing around, happily doing our own thing. I hear my middle boy from the kitchen.  It was loud and clear, yet I could hear a tightness in his throat. "I love you so much mom and dad......It feels like I'm about to cry...." I brought him over to me and sat him on my lap. He turned his face in towards my neck and started to cry. He said, "I am just so glad I have a family..." I held him and we quietly cried together.  There is this sadness.  We all carry it now.  It is a sadness that cries out for redemption and has the aroma of hope.  It is a mixture of immense gratitude and a new awareness of the great need and loss around us.  It is a very potent mixture. 

We knew when we stepped foot on this path that it was an unknown one.  We knew it wouldn't be easy.  There is always an out, there is always the opportunity to fake it or distract myself from it,  or BECOME bitter.  But when we drink the cup that the Lord gives us no matter how bitter or sweet, it always causes our lives to BECOME sweeter.  It's not just a story or an experience it is the sacrificial love and life of Christ that has been poured out for us and in to us by his Spirit and his grace that causes us to become like Him and share in His joy!  All we do is drink...we just say yes...we trust Him. 

I am so grateful that Jesus drank the cup to seal my adoption!  It was for the joy set before him that he endured. I know my cross is different from His but I am called to take up MY cross and FOLLOW him.  I gladly follow that man!!  Even through tears, I will trust Him as I wait.  At my absolute weakest I will worship with all my heart.  And I will remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!