Walking in Marvelous Light.,...

Lilly and Lainie - NOW- May 2009
On Saturday the Bryant Family was coming through town and they stopped to visit with us for a few hours. If you remember, their family traveled to China at the same time we did to adopt their precious Lilly. Lilly and Lainie knew each other before they knew their own families. They heard each others first cries, witnessed each others first smiles and first steps. They were "family" for each other in their own small way. Today as our praise team at church sang these words, "Rescued from darkness, we are walking in marvelous light. For we are children of the king, sing!" I thought about these two girls. Both once living in darkness, now walking in marvelous light because of the grace of our loving God. We are all rescued from the

darkness of sin, but these girls were literally rescued from a life of darkness and

now walk in the marvelous light.

Lilly and Lainie - THEN - May 2007 - Airport in China on the way HOME!

May 14, 2009 Lainie has been home 2 years!

Changsha, China May 14 2007 Home 2 years... May 14, 2009

As I write this I am still in awe of how our lives have been transformed by this little girl. Yes, it is easy to see the transformation in her face, but I hope that those looking in from the outside can also see the transformation that she has brought to each of our lives. Many have said that we "rescued" her. Actually, it was our journey to her that rescued us. Rescued us from a life of mediocrity and complacency. Before Lainie we had grown much too comfortable in our lives. God's call in our lives to adoption took us to a place where we were totally out of our comfort zone and as a result built in us a stronger faith and a desire to know Him more.

Does she understand all this day means? Of course not, but she does already know that she was born in China and that Mommy and Daddy came to get her there. She loves to hear the bedtime story of how Mom and Dad came to get her on the big airplane. It will be years before she fully understands the beginning of her life story, but we have begun already explaining it to her in ways her three year old mind can process.

We recently had a family discussion about the color of everyone's eyes. Bobby and Will have blue eyes, Lainie has brown eyes and the rest of us have green eyes. She kept saying, "I have green eyes like you Mommy." And I kept having to tell her, "No, your eyes are brown." She kept saying, " I want green eyes like Jillian and Mommy and Trey." I just kept reminding her that God gave her beautiful brown eyes." I took her to the mirror and said, " See, look at those beautiful brown eyes." That was the end of the conversation, but apparently it was not the end of the thought process in her little mind. About a month later, when I picked her up at the sitters whom she calls MawMaw and Pawpaw (although they are not really related to us) she exclaimed, "Look Mom, I got brown eyes from Pawpaw." While it was so sweet of her to make that connection with his brown eyes, it also made me sad when I began to wonder how long she had been looking into the eyes of those around her trying to find someone who had eyes like her. So, while her adjustment as been so, so, easy, I know that there will be tough questions and tough answers down the road. It is my prayer I will have the wisdom to answer them in a way that points her to the love of her Heavenly Father and his good and perfect plan for her life.

What's going on with us??

We love that summer is now here. The kids have had a great time being able to play outside! Here they are at my mom's house on Easter Sunday. We can't be there without playing at least a few innings of wiffle ball in her backyard.

And, as if we weren't busy enough, our lab, Rosie, added 11 puppies to our family 2 weeks ago. You know you want one!!

Trey turned 13 in April. He had his friends over to our house for a small party. They are such a great bunch of kids. Most of them have known each other since preschool. We are proud of them all. Trey is second from right.

We had a beautiful Easter Sunday. I managed to get all four kids looking at the camera in one picture out of about 30.... they were so patient.

Lainie LOVED the egg hunt!

Thanks for checking in on us. I haven't blogged for quite awhile - my computer and my camera had a disagreement and weren't speaking to each other for quite a while. I think we have things patched up now.