A Year

It was a year today that our foster care agency came to pick up the little girl we were supposed to adopt and had named "Olivia" to give her back to CPS. To this day this has been the most traumatic thing we have ever experienced. It took a long, long time to recover from the stress of it all, stomach aches, nightmares, waking up crying, panic attacks in the grocery store, antidepressant medications. And the intense fear that I would do something else "wrong" to have Isaac taken away. It has occured to me that only in the past couple months have I no longer lived in fear and intense grief. As I hold my baby girl Vivianna and think of the miracle that next week she will be ours, I stand in awe of how full-circle God has brought our family in just a year. But we will never forget our Olivia (who is 17 months old now). A verse I have pinned up by my computer is one I have reflected upon often in this year. "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded...There is hope for your future, declares the Lord. Is anything too difficult for me?" Jeremiah 31