Home for Christmas

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...

Four kids are making Christmas memories together each day during this holly, jolly, and Holy time of year.

Praise Jesus for his goodness, His love, His birth...His perfect plan to make our family whole.