Not enough time in the day...
I am loving the day after Valentine's Day. I am still caught up in all the love. I loved being able to hug everyone as I wished them Happy Valentine's Day today. I loved the big smiles. It was fantastic to see love in action as others were caught up in the day as well. It has faded for some, but not for me.
One of my most favored holidays is Valentine's Day! Today, I celebrate my loves-- my Roy, my Josiah, my Kallista, and my Jenna. Truly, I have so many loves that it would be difficult to list them all here so I decided to list the top four. I would also like to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Roy-- a truly amazing man. I have debated for awhile now how I was going to write today's blog. I have decided that for the next 14 days, the rest of February, I will be listing the top14 things I love about a love of my life: a someone or something in it. Today, I have chosen to honor my husband, my love, my valentine, Roy.
Tonight, I want to share that I LOVE to see how God works! When all hope was lost, when defeat was accepted-- God proved again that He can do ANYTHING! Congratulations Jim and Tiff! Proud parents of Jameson Yonas Byron Darling. I, the proud aunt of this beautiful child cannot stop singing the praises of God and all that He can do. Jim and Tiff passed court in Ethiopia. In spite of all the negative projections, their letter from MOWA, the single thing that was holding up making Jamesy legally theirs was submitted. Hoping and praying for an embassy date in the beginning of March. I know that God can get it done. My God is a God of love. Thanks for Your love today God. I know I am not the only one thankful today-- but I just want to say it one more time. Thank you!
I love my wife - she is the one that does almost all the writing here, and keeps it as up to date as possible. (Officially its still Monday 11.50pm while I am writing). This is my small contribution to a post a day in the month of February. Today is a day when a lot has been on my heart regarding our adoption as well as Jim and Tiff's. I got a lot of answers regarding our paperwork and other related things, and am grateful to those helping us. We had some prayer time at home for Jim and Tiff's court date tomorrow. At the end of that Jenna said "Can I pray for our adoption to..." I am blessed to be surrounded by the family I have and love, and love the children that we are going to be adding to it....
We had another visit from our social worker, Amy, as we continue working to complete our home study. It was a fun time of interviews watching the kids go through their part of the process and seeing the adoption through their eyes. Roy and I also participated in today's visit completing another one of our interviews. I had a "moment" when we were told that from Dossier submission it will be a minimum of 5 months with a true projection of 5-9 months before we would receive our first referral. This is definitely not the first time I have heard or read these projections, not new information- but each time I hear it or read it it hits me the same way. It was a devastating moment. I quickly regained my composure as I reminded myself [again] that this process is not in my control and this process is not happening according to my timing. It is going to be unique to any other process. It is our adoption from Ethiopia. I remind myself of this over and over. This is a new process for us and although there is resource to draw on-- each adoption experience is unique to itself.
I spent the entire day thinking of what I could post in my blog. What was going to be that one special take away thought? I have struggled the entire day to think of something brilliant and I had no inspiration... until I read, "Let everything you do be done in love (true love to God and man as inspired by God's love for us)." And, that about says it all for me. So with my heart brimming with love, good night.
Valentine's Day is one of my favorite [non-holiday] holidays. I have always enjoyed celebrating love and all that it brings into my life. I remember fondly the days in grade school getting my box of Valentine cards to pass out to my class at the Valentine's Day party. I remember reading each one to make sure my exact sentiments for the day were given to each classmate. I remember day dreaming of bouquets of beautiful long stemmed red roses and big red heart-shaped boxes full of my favorite chocolates during my times of romance in high school. I recall a special Valentine's Day celebration with my sister Joelle. The rare occasion occurred the neither of us had a love interest-- if you can believe that and I was honored to share Valentine's Day with her. We had a great time laughing over our cheesebugers and fries at McDonald's on that Valentine's Day. What a wonderful celebration loving my sister. I was so excited to have my wedding on Valentine's Day. Roy and I are blessed to celebrate our love each Valentine's Day in such a special way every year.
Check out this stunning neck piece selection for our February fundraising! It's called Double the Love and you can find it at www.fifthavenuecollection.com/jnarunsky . Please be sure and register under our name so that all proceeds of your purchase can be dedicated to the adoption of our babes.