Bringing Home Baby

The last three weeks have done a number on my heart.

Processing and preparing for a new addition with only a few weeks notice, while most get several months, is an interesting experience. I am a lover by nature, so finding love for Baby Brother isn't what keeps me up at night. It's the freakish everything-must-have-a-plan-and-purpose-and be color coordinated when possible part of my nature that can't rest until everything is in order. Some think such coordination goes to the wind when you are raising your own basketball team. I beg to differ. It's worse.

From new crib to new vehicle, there were so many things to do. Within a week of making the decision, however, support flooded our doorstep and filled our nursery with every necessary item that I had sold two weeks prior. I am always stunned by the generosity of others and have learned to honestly answer messages like, "Tell me what you need and I will order it, now."

Of the five (babies), I had the most advanced notice with Tyrus. Rebekah asked us to adopt him when she was four months pregnant and if you were reading in those early days you'll remember, my nursery was ready six months prior. The rocker my sister bought had miles of praying before he ever arrived.

Today, when I think back on those intimate memories, I am overwhelmed by God's goodness.

Back then, the ache for children was so great it nearly crushed my spirit. But the perseverance sharpened character that followed that season of drought was a reward that I will treasure forever - because I can trust God in all things.

The same rocker that held my secret thoughts for months, listened to me read countless stories to Ty and helped me find rhythm when LJ needed to be swaddled like a baby so that trust could melt his trauma.

Cisco and Missy did their best to bypass my chair, as Cisco struggled with intimacy and Little Miss screamed for three months straight, preferring to work it out on her own. Over the last 18 months, however, I've watched these siblings push through the curses of the enemy, and just this summer I often found them reading books together in the same chair they avoided early on.

Moving this memory soaked rocker into Baby Brother's nursery was deeply meaningful and I praised God for his rescue, once again. My body won't make babies, yet, miraculously, baby number five is on his way.

I know it's part of the journey, but I wish I could go back.

I wish I could encourage my former self to push on and stop giving up. I wish I didn't need a picture of my own unfaithfulness to prove God's.

I would sleep more.

Date Ben more.

And hunker in hope during the season of wait.

I hate when people say everything happens for a reason. It's not biblical. Plenty of unreasonable things happen that God's not part of.

Yet, I praise God, that he redeems all things - people, events, situations. He redeemed my life and Ben's life, and all the lives of our five little people.

We're kind of a raggedy group, over here, with mismatched stories, each one filled with its own kind of heartache. Yet, none of us were so gnarly that God chose to overlook us or breath life elsewhere.

Each day closer to welcoming Baby Brother home, I am overwhelmed by this reality. Our Father loves Ty so much that he esteemed him to be firstborn and set him in a place of leadership over his tribe of siblings.

God loves LJ and Cisco and Missy and Baby so much that he, literally, ripped them from the enemy's grasp and declared a new name over each of them.

And every time he asks, "How about now...will you say yes to this one?" he redeems my barrenness and pours love into deep, hidden cracks of my heart that I didn't know needed attention.

His love is easy and available and it's paving the unknown path before me.

I am ready to bring home my baby.