Author: monstauffer

The Click of the Track

It’s like sitting at the top of the roller-coaster hill: the excitement, the unknown, the holding your breath before the rush… just waiting for the back of the train to push you over and the wildly wonderful ride to really begin.

Tomorrow when our county worker comes we will be notifying her that we’re ready to take a placement. Then we’ll be waiting (maybe for only a few days, only God knows) to see who God invites into our home through a foster placement phone-call. It could be before Christmas, or maybe afterward. But regardless, our hearts are and have been opened to sharing our lives because of the Greatest Gift of All coming down to visit us… in the depths of our very beings. Who knows what baggage they will carry, what hurt or what loss. But Jesus has and will continue to compel us to love deeper and walk this road with the American orphan.

We love you, precious child (or children) from a depth we did not create, but Christ created in us.  And we have so prayed over your coming.

Please… feel welcome, even if only for a short stay on your journey… come in and rest. You are safe here. You are so loved.

– God, please help us lean on You throughout this journey of loving the American orphan. And if it would be Your will, please bring a child home to stay, should they need a family. Lord, please give us the strength to bless and release and exercise forgiveness, should we get the opportunity to come alongside a broken family as they learn how to parent, love and protect. And please, Lord, I pray for our girls… God that You would open all of our hearts to Jesus along this path. Thank You for Your Hope and the opportunity to come alongside the American orphan, learning what it is to daily love a child (or children)…. from right where they are. Please help us to feel Your direction when the phone-call or phone-calls come in. May we say yes when You desire it and not only when we feel it’s the safest or most comfortable move. Please, Lord, I pray… speak and help us to obey with joy. I love You. In Jesus’ Name.

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Fa Zhou’s Blossum

I enjoyed watching Mulan with the girls last week.

This is by far one of my favorite scenes of a parent’s relationship with their child.

I think I like the scene so much because it’s so easy to see my Matthew saying something like this to one of our little girls.

=)

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Without Holding Her

Little Hannah turns 3 months old tomorrow. Funny how the time flies and yet feels so slow in other moments. I continue to delight in her little fingers and toes… that “You’re my Mommy” smile… the running in place with excitement.

Miss Big’s been sleeping consistently through the night for 8-9.5hrs. It’s been six days now so I’m hoping this trend is here to stay. But with the trend of sleeping through the night, she still has yet to break her sleeping through the morning and the early afternoon phase. So with a few less moments of eyes at night, I actually find myself missing her more during the day. I’ve been encouraging her to sleep in her bouncer or a swing or her bed instead of in my arms since she was about a month old (I had to get my snuggling in before then. 😉

And while little Miss Sleepy is sure racking in the shut-eye, I’m hoping this “all day” sleeping is a closely fading phase… because I miss her. She slept down the hall in her bed two nights ago, cutting her bedtime about an hour earlier than usual, and leaving me awake without her nearby. Then she slept in her bouncer in the girls’ room while we did homeschooling the following morning. She looked so peaceful and I didn’t want to move her, risking waking her up. But I missed not glancing over at her every handful of minutes.  Hearing her breathing so close.

Maybe it’s because I see Abi’s independence, creating the bittersweet reality of no longer having a hip-riding snuggler. Maybe it’s because I hear Rachael’s “don’t tickle me” moments, when she’d rather just be quiet and “alone”. That bittersweet reality that holding your babies changes with time and growth. And while Rachael enjoys for me to hold her with my words instead of my arms sometimes, I still love how she just wants snuggled while watching a movie or reading a book.

It’s in those thoughts that I find myself wondering back over to the bassinet just to look at her…

just to watch her breathing…

her precious face…

 

And I’m grateful that she’s still a hard sleeper…

who doesn’t wake when I just can’t stand being so close…

without holding her.

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– Thankful, grateful and blessed.

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