Bella

Everyone is so different. It's one thing I've learned in my 28 years. The way you see things are drastically altered by the lens you wear, which is created by your upbringing, the things you have gone through, your beliefs, your mood, and more. 

It is so difficult to predict how someone will feel or what they will think about any given event that happens. We are all so complicated and beautiful. A beautiful mess. 

I feel things very deeply. It is a curse and a blessing. 

I want to live life in a place of overflowing compassion and love, but I think most of it spills out on my children during the 14 hours every day that I am with them. I love them so deeply. It hurts.

Having a child, getting married. These things change you forever. It's not just a cliche that people say. It is so very true. I am not the same person I was preJoe, preEli, preMax. These people have interwoven themselves so closely into my heart and in my life. I cannot act or speak or do anything without thinking about how it will affect them. 

And it seems crazy, but in a different way, but still to a very powerful degree, Bella does the same thing. She hasn't even been born yet, but I think about her all the time. I pray for her. I yearn for her. I grieve for her. I will miss out on so much, and there is no way to get those years back. 

I just heard a song on Pandora about loss, and tears rolled down my cheeks. She will lose so much, but so will we. She will most likely be abandoned because her special need is too much for her parents to handle either monetarily or emotionally. 

I cannot imagine this. Either one. Choosing to walk away from a child that you could care for but can't imagine doing so because of a need they have or feeling like you have to walk away from them to save their life. Whew!

Being a mother has made these tragedies so much more real to me. I don't think I could ever walk away. But I am not there. I am not them, and people are complicated and beautiful and different. So very different. Please give me the grace and the strength to teach her as she grows about these mysterious forces in her life called her birth parents. Who played such a big role in who she is but will not be able to lift a finger to guide her through the heartache of what happened to her.
Give me deep compassion, understanding, and wisdom. 

I can't imagine living a year without her. I cannot imagine a week without my boys. A year. 

Sigh... 

Please give me strength. It may be a very long year.

Ephesians 1:4-54 Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own through what Christ would do for us; he decided then to make us holy in his eyes, without a single fault—we who stand before him covered with his love. 5 His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because he wanted to!