Hope Springs Eternal

Leaving work early today to go to the Dentist for a follow-up following "The Extraction" gave me an opportunity to go for my walk earlier in the day and truly enjoy this teaser Spring day. I took my camera with me to record some of the early signs of spring around our neighborhood. This picture below is one of my tulips pushing through the earth and reaching for some sun. I wonder what color it will prove to be?

I also understand from the weather reports that these cloudy skies I see in this picture are bringing behind them a cold front and that tomorrow will be totally unlike today was, of course. The poor tree suffered a lot of damage from the ice storm but I had a friend with a chain saw who came and took care of the worst of it not long after the storm and the rest will just wait.

After my walk and starting to prepare dinner tonight, I decided to catch up on my blogging friends and thus begins tonight's story.

Long before I ever started to write a blog, I used to read a lot of them. If you are a reader you know how one leads to another and then another. Through that venue, I started following the story of a couple from Nashville with four children who were going through the process of adopting a gorgeous little girl from Ethiopia. http://weloveourlucy.blogspot.com/

Kristi is a faithful blogger and I soon became wrapped up in the comings and goings of the Johnson home and her daily walk with Christ, her family and their efforts to "Bring Lucy Home". After MANY months of red tape and the almost unbearable wait, she got a call today saying their baby's biological mother had returned and changed her mind. She has taken her baby back home with her. I feel so many conflicting emotions on this night. Great aching sadness for Kristi and her family. They had come to love a child they had never held. They have her pictures everywhere, though. Most assuredly stamped on their hearts. I have cried for them tonight.

But there is surely great joy in this mother's home tonight as she is reunited with a daughter she could not bear to part with in the end. It is always right for a parent and child to be together bound by an unspeakable love.

I know there will be another baby for Kristi, but I also know she was in love with THIS baby. This baby who was already a part of her family.

I have not yet met Kristi in person, even though there is an event to which I have been invited that I eagerly anticipate. You see, I already care about her and I haven't even met her yet. I wish I could ease her pain somehow on this night and give her the grace and great parenting skills to help explain this new turn of events to her children in a way that might help them grow and learn.

Kristi is a young woman of strong faith with an abiding sense of family. Her circle of friends is never-ending. She has unfailing energy and a husband she must have created just for her. I am selfish in that reading her blog strengthens me in my faith, at times makes me laugh out loud, but tonight made me cry.

I am praying for the Johnson family tonight.....and for Lucy Lane.