Happy 7th Birthday...missin' you

Talk about an emotionally mixed up day!

Today is December 2, 2010 -
*  Hadassah Peiwu is seven years old today  :)
*  We have beautiful (but blurry) new pictures of our Peanut Girl at her birthday celebration  :)
*  A group from our agency is leaving today and tomorrow to meet their precious children in China  :)  :(
*  We still have no TA  :(
*  Elijah and Keziah have a piano recital tonight  :)
*  Elijah is complaining of a sore throat so I get to call the doctor just to check it out  :(
*  We are still waiting for our Littlest Princess to come home  :(
*  Probably going to need to eat out to celebrate Hadassah Peiwu's birthday tonight...Chinese!  :) 
*  She won't be with us to celebrate this year  :(
*  Most of my Christmas shopping is done and wrapped  :)
*  Most of our Christmas decorating is not done  :(
*  Painting, painting, painting still needs to be finished  :(
*  Time to start baking gingerbread houses for the little kids' school project next week...30+ houses  :)
*  I miss my Baby Girl  :(
*  God will still be gloried in everything  :)  :)  :)

Last night I took the two little ones to AWANAs and the big three went to youth group.  Christopher decided to stay home to work around the house.  Honestly, I was internally pouting because I had tons I could have done at home too, but I also had some work to do at church.

Our church just started their AWANAs program this year.  As it was kicking off, lots of people were shocked that Christopher and I didn't jump right in to help.  We do the kids's worship time every week on Sunday mornings, so why not help on Wednesday nights too?  Well, Christopher's schedule can be unpredictable.  Sometimes he has to work.  What about me?  Uhm...we've been working towards adopting our daughter since February.  I didn't want to commit to AWANAs knowing that I'd have to step away to parent our newest addition in the middle of the year.

Wednesday nights have become a time for me to do some of the preparation for Sunday morning.  I can make copies or sort through felt pieces to pull together items for our Bible story time.  I highlight scripts for the kids to use, listen to new music, or review video segments.  Sometimes I just chat with our children's minstry director about what's up.  Last night, I needed to find red and green paper from the supply closet and get friendly with the paper cutter as I chopped up one inch strips for an activity for the kids and parents who will be attending Parent Day.

Suddenly my quiet and casual evening took a detour!  My friend, our children's ministry director, grabbed me in a mild panic - the missionaries who were scheduled to share with the kids had not arrived yet!  We needed to stall and fill time NOW!  Sing, Lara, sing!  We needed a musical filler! 

Have I mentioned before that I am a planner?

I spend hours every week pondering our lesson and selecting just the right music to sing.  I have PowerPoint slides with the words and DVDs of music videos stacks of CDs, and a storehouse of "worship tools" (plastic plates, Slinkies, and tennis balls have many uses). 

Impromptu?  I got nothing!  I'm only a mildly decenet second soprano if I stand next to a really good second soprano, I can't keep a steady beat to save my life, and my piano teacher really did ask me to stop taking lessons.

Love my friend!  She did let me grab some DVDs from her office as my security blanket and then proposed singing one of the silly songs we had done last week...acapella.  "Making Melodies in my Heart"  here we go! 

Uhm...if you are not familiar with this song...you probably really don't want to know just how crazy it is.  Most of the time, I have the kids sing it just to drive Christopher crazy.  I did have a semi-good reason for singing it with the kids Sunday because our lesson was about Jehoshaphat and the victory God gave to him in battle.  King Jehoshaphat had ordered members of his army to sing praises to God as they marched off to a battle they never even had to fight.  So singing praises to God with a song that ends up with your body contoured and your tongue sticking out made sense to me...on Sunday. 

Wednesday night?  With real grown ups in the room?  Oh, yeah...I sang it.

The missionaries showed up.  I gathered my papers and found the paper cutter in the peace and quiet of the mostly empty office.

Chop.  Slice.  Stack. 

Reptetive tasks are such a great time for listening to God.

See...I really wanted to be on an airplane today.  I wanted to be flying to China on by daughter's birthday to bring her home to her forever family...who all miss her so much.  If I was leaving today, instead of typing this right now, I would NOT have been at church last night.  My kids would probably have been there, but I would have been at home frantically packing, unpacking, repacking and preparing the leave for the airport this morning.  I would NOT have been singing a silly song or cutting strips of paper. 

Maybe "Making Melodies" didn't change a child's life last night, but God must have needed me to be there to sing with the kiddos.

As I struggle each day right now through this long wait until we finally receive our Travel Approval, I continue to learn more and more about trusting His perfect timing, even when it doesn't make sense to me.

To all my praying buddies, please just keep lifting us up.  Today will still be very hard!  Every step of this journey has its own challenges.  Today we are waiting.  Soon we will be  traveling and beginning the long process of becoming our new family...bonding...attaching...and adjusting to the new normal.  Thanks!