On the eighth day of Christmas...

...from December 21st...

I don't remember what was on the eighth day of Christmas in the song.  I sat here forever trying to remember.  I suppose I could have googled it, but oh well.  Maids a milking? 


Today is the eighth day of Christmas according to the calendar.  The Advent season is nearing an end and, if you remember my blog from last year, Advent has been an interesting time for me for the past few years.  I had always wanted to be pregnant during Advent.  I thought it would be a magical thing to get to feel what it might have been like for Mary as she watched, worried, wondered, and waited.

...December 30th...

Today is my last day as a probation officer with the State of Tennessee.  Justin and I have made the decision for me to stay home and fill my time continuing to prepare our home for a baby and getting more practice as I care for others' children (changing diapers is a learned skill!).  We have been blessed this year in that Justin got a promotion at HCA and it seems like a good time for us for me to make this transition.  

We have had a rough few weeks of waiting.  Another Christmas, another season without a baby.  We haven't had much contact from our agency...only an e-mail sent out to their mailing list wishing us happy holidays.  Strange.  We can't believe that this was our sixth Christmas together since we met.  The time has flown by, and although the road has taken many twists and turns that we did not plan, I'm finding out that there is no "one way" to get where we're going.  In other words, our path to growing our family is completely different from everyone else's.  Many families are built through divorce, re-marriage, miscarriage, birth, surrogacy, and even adoption.  If all families looked the same, the world would be very boring.  The twists and turns are where the stories are born.  As Justin remarked on our way back from our Christmas gathering with his dad, "we don't choose our family."  



At Christmas, we were able to spend time with Justin's dad, Vince, and step-mom, Cathy, Cathy's daughter, Dawn, son-in-law, Marty, and their six children.  It was fun to get to know them better and to see Christmas morning through 12 little eyes!  We were hit with the fact that Dawn, Marty, and the kids are family too, and we barely know them.  We talked about it on the way home and plan to make more of an effort to get together with them in the future.  The circumstances of how we all became family are not important; the fact that we are family is. 

I am looking forward to having more time to get back to writing, reflecting, and blogging.  I seem to have had a bit of a dry season lately as I consider what is coming next in my life.  Right now, it looks to be frankly, a little fruitless as I try to fill up my time.  But I know that it is all about perspective.  My prayer is that I won't just fill the time with errands, lists, cleaning, organizing, cooking (don't laugh), and meaningless activities, but that I will see this time in my life as a gift that not many people get.  I want to fill it with people,  relationships, letters, prayer, silence...the things that make me feel alive.  It's my chance to finally live as though today is my last day on earth, but prepare as if it's not. 

Last night, as I put away some new baby clothes in the nursery, I opened a little book that my grandmother sent me last spring.  I confess that I hadn't opened it until now.  It is called "Prayers for a Mother's Day."  Ironic, huh?  Though the author, Ruth Bell Graham, meant it to be prayers for a day in the life of a mother, I see it as prayers HOPING for a day when I become a mother.  The page I opened to was a short, simple prayer.  In it, she talked about guilt and the gift of being able to stay at home.  I have wrestled with the guilt of not bringing in a steady paycheck as we move to the next chapter of our lives, but this prayer made me think about that differently.  She prays for those women who do not have the choice to stay home and asks that God will help them to not feel guilty.  Wow!  I never thought that women who do not have the choice to stay home might feel guilty about it, but I suppose it happens often.  And here I was, feeling guilty about becoming a stay-at-home mom because I can. 

We continue to ask for your prayers as we watch and wait for baby Miller to make his or her appearance.  We are hoping it is before June 2011 since at that point, our home study would have to be updated and Bethany's placement fees will increase. 

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our t-shirts at www.adoptionbug.com/millerplusone

May God bless you and your family in 2011.

   

Comments

  1. I pray you get to hold that little baby soon that God has picked for you two.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aunt Stephanie's Favorite Weather

46 years, 364 days

325 Gigabytes