This week...

It’s Christmas week.  Of course, if you ask Olivia, it’s dentist appointment week.  LOL 

Anyway, back to Christmas week… the cookies and other goodies are almost done.  The dinner ingredients are in the kitchen… the gifts are wrapped…

When I think of this season of “giving” I feel so out of sorts this year.  I am usually the one that finds just the right gift for each person I’m buying for.  I always think of things that they might not get for themselves, or might enjoy but couldn’t find.   This year, I can’t.  Being in Ukraine for 6 weeks, and all of the craziness that led up to our trip, I didn’t take the time to do any shopping, or make any of the hand made things that I usually do.   I was too focused on the task at hand.  Once we were home, time seems to have just slipped away, and here it is the week of Christmas.  I am the “giver”.  I love to give things to people, just to feel the happiness in my heart at helping.  Being the receiver is something that God has taught me this year.

This Christmas is a time for learning lessons, and teaching them to my children.  I have said before that my “religion” was lacking until that night in March when I saw Timothy’s face on Maria’s FB page.  This journey has taught me so much about God’s will, and His provision.  He has given me so much these last few months.  He provided money when we thought we would have none.  He provided paperwork blessings when I was pretty sure that we had hit a dead end.  He provided help when I was at my wits end.   He provided friends.

Over the course of the last few days my family has been blessed with many unexpected things.  Some of them contain a difficult lesson (the iPod trauma).   Some of the lessons are much easier (receiving something “just because”).  All of them are lessons of God’s love, and His provision.  We are thankful for the blessings that God has sent us in the form of friends, people He brought into our lives through our journey to bring home our son, people who we might have never met if not for this journey, people we may not actually “meet” in this world. 

Today I got a beautiful “purple heart” from one of my very very dear friends.  In the letter that she enclosed she says, “ for you, in honor of walking shoulder to shoulder through the trenches of adoption”.  I bet you can’t guess what I was doing as I read that letter?  Yep… I was crying!  Go figure.  hehe   Everytime I wear it I will think of the wonderful person who gave it to me, what she means to me, and what it means to both of us.    

In this week of “giving” we need to remember the One who gave the best gift… the gift of His love in the form of His Son.