Memorial Box Monday--the girls

Click here to view these pictures larger

**Picture courtesy of A Page in Time Photography/Christy Zettel

I was thinking about how to write my Memorial Box Monday post. I have a billion ways that God has blessed our family, but I couldn't think of a symbol to represent the story for today. Then, I stumbled across this picture. Perfect. (There are other amazing pictures Christy took, but they will be used on our blog later!)

Last week, I talked about Kairos. God's quality of time. Today, in my (pretend) Memorial Box, I'm putting a picture of my daughters. Two. Twins.

Yesterday, on Mother's Day, I went through a whole gamut of emotions. I felt SO thankful and grateful for my daughters. I felt pain for those who long for kiddos and cannot have them (or just can't yet!). I wanted birthmoms to feel joy that they chose a life for their child (and their adoptive parents) if they created an adoption plan. I was just all over the place. And I also reflected on how God bumped up my life resume by giving me the title, "Mama".

Years ago, when Tony and I were first married, we didn't want kids. (Gasp, did I say that aloud?) Then, about five years into our marriage, we noticed the hole in our hearts that were kid-shaped. Then, minus one ovary later, we started our adoption journey. And this is where I want to pick up.

You see, we went from not wanting kids, to being blessed with two incredibly amazing little people that God formed in His image, and meshed into our souls. But the amazing part is, we should have NEVER received twins to begin with!

I tread here carefully. Only once in our journey were we ever attacked over our adoption and I do not want it to happen again. But, I want Abby and Laney to know that our family was not created by some fluke, or government agency...but by the divine hand of God.

Here's how it goes...

• We didn't request twins. When we first started our journey, it was a big enough leap of faith to say, "Ok God. Our daughter is in China, you say? Ok, then here I am, Lord. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:8) Especially when we didn't even want one child when we first got married! So when our homestudy agency asked if we wanted to be approved for twins, we were like, "Um, no thank you. One will keep us busy enough!" We didn't know we wanted twins, but thankfully, God did! After "The call" from our agency, we scrambled to get an addendum done. We had grown so much and KNEW these girls were meant to be ours!
  
• Ch*na has some strict financial guidelines regarding twins. The parents should be pretty financially set in order to care for two children, according to them. *cough, cough* Thank goodness we have some antiques and antique cars that helped us in this department!
• Ch*na also has a pretty strict policy that one parent should be a stay-at-home parent if twins are brought home. Well, we were not in the financial standing for one of us to stay at home full-time (and still aren't due to my shopping habit!) But somehow, that got overlooked!
• We were going the special needs route, with our agency. This was after much prayer and consideration. We felt strongly that our child would be on a list that our agency would get from Ch*na. However, our agency had NEVER received twins on their special needs list. (and they're a big agency!)

There are even more reasons we know that we serve a God who can look at a mountain and say, "MOVE!" and it does! The reasons I listed were all pretty big mountains. But our mountains, are God's speed bumps.

In June 2006, when we logged into the waiting line for our child from Ch*na, twin girls were NO WHERE on our radar. However, on August 24, 2007, when we got the call about LuLa and LuMei...nothing ever felt so right.

My heart flutters every time I think about how things could have ended up so differently had one little thing or another been any different. (Like, going to our first adoption meeting the month the girls were born, or switching to the special needs program at the precise time we did, when both girls were healthy and ready for a mommy and daddy to come get them!---KAIROS!) I am humbled to know that our God chose us to parent two of His very own. They were created to be our daughters.

So I'm tucking in this picture of our two girls. Our babies. Who share so many characterisitcs, mannerisims, and personality traits that we are dumfounded they're not biologically ours. They will forever know that we serve a God whose love picks up where our dreams leave off. That's our God. We dreamed a wonderful dream of parenthood. Thank GOD His plans are bigger than our dreams.

So, like Linny's story...although Ch*na said NO! God said YES!