It's so quiet

That doesn't happen very often here, especially on a Friday night. Usually one of my BFFs is here and we're scrapping or making cards till all hours. Kati is generally in the middle of it all, and Olivia too until bedtime. Joey comes and goes. John's 24 hr shift is Fri/Sat so he's spared all the craziness. I know that doesn't sound bad, and believe me, it's not. I look forward to our scrapbooking times. The girls are getting better, and of course, Olivia is great at comic relief. :)

Tonight though, it's not even 10 pm and it's just me. John's gone to work, Joey and Olivia are in bed, and Kati is at a friend's house sleeping over. I have the tv remote all to myself. I can leave the door open and listen to the rain. I can just sit here in the dark and no one would even know.

I like the craziness of our life, but the quiet is nice.

There's an app on Facebook where you can click and there's a message that "God wants you to know" for the day. I don't look at it everyday, but I did tonight. The message that God had for me tonight is " ... that all is well. All is going according to plan. Trust that there is a bigger picture. Trust that life is unfolding as it should." WOW!! How's that for a message?? I know it's just a silly app on Facebook, but it's very timely.

I keep thinking that maybe next Easter we'll have our little guy home with us, and I'll have another Easter basket to fill.

I've also been thinking about my Dad today. He wasn't a holiday person. All of us are grown up now, but we still celebrated the holidays together as best we could. Until ten years ago, John and I lived too far to be "home" with the family. For Easter since we've been home though, we've gone to Mom and Dad's and done an egg hunt for the kids, and had dinner there with everyone. The kids would spread all of the eggs out on the floor and count them to see who had the most. They'd open them up to find out what we'd filled them with. Dad would sit in his chair just watching. I don't think anyone really knew that was watching the kids, he did though, and every once in a while, he'd smile at something one of them said or did, or maybe just at the scene in front of him. He didn't say much, but he was watching. This is our first Easter without him. We aren't doing the egg hunt this year, we aren't having dinner at their house on Sunday. We will go to one of the big hunts with the little ones (Olivia and my nephew Colton), and then to Mom's for dinner on Saturday. It's been hard so far with the holidays without Dad. He's been gone six months now.

That makes me think about all of the children that we're praying for. The ones in the orphanages, and institutions that might never know what Easter is. They won't know the fun of egg hunts, or family dinners, but even more upsetting is that they won't know what happened this holiday. They might never know the love that God has for them, and what He did for us on that Sunday so long ago.

My prayer tonight, in this quiet, is that all of those precious children will know that there are people praying for them, and loving them, and hoping against hope that they can bring them home. I think about that little boy, in his crib all alone in an orphanage all the way around the world. I pray for him, and the others, that next Easter they will be home.