First off, I want to apologize for the lack of posts while we were in Africa. For two years I planned to be a blogging queen during our big trip, but it wasn't meant to be. Internet access was horrible where we stayed in Rwanda, and once we got to Ethiopia we couldn't even access Blogger. Ironically, Ethiopia would have been the best place to blog since we had lots of downtime. Rwanda, on the other hand, was IN-SANE. Even if we'd had reliable internet, I doubt I would have found the time or energy to write more than I did!
We've been home for a little over a week now, and almost every day I've been telling myself to get online and post something, anything! It always drove me crazy to follow (stalk) other traveling families' blogs only to have them fall off the face of the earth upon returning home. Well, now I understand.
It's different than I expected, being home. Beautiful, miraculous, exhausting, and difficult in ways I never anticipated. I love my daughter, but I don't know her. I'm scared of doing this badly, I'm thrilled to have the chance to do it at all. I look back on the waiting with relief that it's over and sadness that a unique chapter in my life has closed. I miss the familiarity of the past in spite of its pain, and struggle with guilt that such feelings could consume even a fraction of my heart when such an incredible blessing is sitting right in front of me after so many dark nights and days when I believed she would never come.
It's life, not a fairy tale, but life is far sweeter. There are tantrums, sleepless nights, and poop-up-the-back diapers, but there are also giggles, goodnight kisses, and an endless appreciation for anything I cook. Tiny hands exploring my face, arms reaching up to be held, a head lolling on my shoulder in sleep. These are the things that tell me it will be okay. The old adventure, the one I despised but learned to navigate, is over. This new one...the one that scares the bejeebers out of me...well, I'll get through it the same way I got through the last one: one step at a time, not on my own two feet, but in the arms of the One who knows where He's going. Embraced by grace.
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Dearest Alison, I so love you and your family and will continue to keep all of you in prayer as all of you have new waters to navigate. You have blessed us all so much by opening a window into your lives, and still I will not ever fully know your joy, pain, relief or struggles. But I will keep you in prayer, try to be an encouragement and continue to thank our Father In Heaven for the blessings He has given.
ReplyDeleteTears fill my eyes as I think again of your precious little girl, at home now with a mommy and daddy and family to call her own. She is loved! That God would go to such lengths to adopt us...breathtaking.
ReplyDeletePraying for you, Alison, and so confident that God will continue to give you grace and wisdom for each step.
It is such a tender time, but you are right, so difficult as well. It takes time to fall in love, but one day you wake up and as sure as the sun in shining, you realize that you fully, madly, passionately love her. I think everyone goes through a "caretaking" mode where you just hang in there, waiting for love to fill in the empty spaces, and it will.
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