Last Christmas was our first Christmas in our new home. I finally had a fireplace with a mantle to decorate....which was my favorite part. It had been a slow, frustrating, and emotionally hard year and I was glad to see it come to an end. But since this was our first Christmas in the home we would eventually bring our son home to, I wanted him to be represented somehow in our family at Christmas. So this is what our mantle looked like with all of our stockings hanging above the fireplace.
I hung this cross made out of a map of Colombia in my son's place. It had been given to me by my amazing friends about a year earlier. It was a perfect representation of him...
Stockings are always the final piece we hang up and when we were done, I sat in the rocking chair and started crying a few quiet tears. My oldest, AB, crawled into my lap and asked me what was wrong. I told her I was sad because Silas wasn't home and that it would be a long time before he came home. We'd just received some news from our agency that it would be at least another year before we got a referral. My sweet girl, who loves her some Jesus, said "No, mommy...he'll be home for Christmas next year. I just know it." I smiled and asked her how she "just knew"...she said, "Because God told me in my heart." And she didn't doubt it one bit.
At that moment I decided to believe beyond all the odds and most current information that she was right. And every time this past year when I began to doubt if we would really be matched with Silas, after months and months of waiting for a response to our letter of intent, the Lord would be so sweet to remind me of that moment. And I would believe again - against the odds of the "timeline" - that he would be home before Christmas.
This year...there's a green and red stocking representing the sweet little boy that our family loves dearly. The one who is still becoming a brother and a son. I cried again after all the kids hung their stockings, but this time I explained they were happy tears, because our family was whole.
Four kids decorated the tree...
Four kids gather around their daddy each night to unwrap a little more of the greatest gift...
Praise Jesus for his goodness, His love, His birth...His perfect plan to make our family whole.