Oh my stars. The end of the year completely got away from me. I have so many things I want to share just swirling around in my head, and I always have the very best intentions to sit down and write, but I am just so darn tired. No more! In 2016, my goal is to write at least once a week. You’ll notice we made it all the way to Thursday before I sat down to write this week, so perhaps my goal is a bit lofty, but I’m going for it.
I’m working on a post about Bradley’s first Christmas home (it was awesome, by the way), but I want to focus on the year ahead today.
So much has changed since January 2015. Last year, we were still riding the high form receiving our referral phone call and hearing that we were FINALLY parents. We were working through final paperwork and starting to dream about meeting our boy. It was a time full of joyous anticipation and aching longing to have him home.
January of this year comes with its own brand new set of circumstances and emotions. Being Bradley’s mom has rocked my world. I love him so deeply, and at least once a day I find myself staring at him in COMPLETE AND UTTER DISBELIEF. He is here. He lives in my house. Within all of that, I have been stretched to the very limits of my being. God is using this boy to refine me in ways I did not know existed. Parenting a child from a hard place has been more difficult, draining, rewarding (basically more everything) than I ever imagined possible.
And then we have little Miss Asher joining us in less than three months time. Ummm...what? That reality is dawning fast and hard. Her life has humbled me beyond words. God has gifted us beyond what we could have imagined, in a way that we were so certain would never happen for us. That I get to carry her into this world... Well, that is something for which I do not have words. We are so excited to meet and know this little girl. At the same time, as I watch Bradley grow and change and weave into our family, I find myself wondering what will happen when she is born. It scares me. I want to be a good mom to both of them, and I am painfully aware of how not equipped I am for that.
In those moments, God reminds me that my lack of ability is precisely why I find myself in this situation. Where I am weak, He is strong. It is my prayer and hope that God will be glorified through my weakness and inabilities. That His strength and goodness will be magnified. Adam and I always say that we want our life to point back to Christ, and I am excited to see how God helps us do this in the next chapter.
In a rather vulnerable conversation with some dear friends of mine this week, I shared some of my struggles with being a new mom, places I feel like I fall short time and again. And one of my VERY wise friends shared a thought that has been bouncing around in my brain since she said it. God knew I would fall short and fail in all of these different ways, and He gave me Bradley anyway. He made me Bradley’s mom anyway. What an incredible thought. I just love that. It helps me to know that I can rest and find my strength in Christ, my identity in Christ.
So that is my big prayer heading into 2016. That I would return to the Lord in a fresh way. That I would go to Him first in all things.
There is a LOT coming our way to test me in this. And that does make me nervous. But I am ready to see the Lord move yet again in my life and in my heart. I used to joke that if we ever completed our adoption from Ethiopia, I couldn’t imagine what would occupy my mind all day, every day. I guess now I know.
With love,
Baylor
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