We sit here tonight in a quiet house that feels strangely calm, quiet, and in a confusing way, back to normal. We returned our third child, who was never really ours, to his mom tonight. That, in itself is a pretty strange feeling. After we dropped him off, we went out to dinner and were reviewing the events of the last 3-4 months. Since about the end of May, we realized that we’ve either been traveling, apart from each other, having guests visit, and/or having an extra child staying at our house. All of these things have been good things. But, we’ve been functioning a little out of our “normal” life of a family of 4.
In our brief time as a family of 5, we learned a lot. We learned how to care and welcome someone who is not our own into our family. I was so impressed with how well Bradford and Chaz welcomed him. We learned to rely on each other, to pray more fervently, and to trust God that he had a plan in the short time period that we were able to intervene in the life of him and his mom. The days felt more exhausting, and there were some real challenges, but overall, God taught us a lot and that little boy will always have a place in our hearts. Our home feels a little empty tonight without him.
This past month, we’ve also celebrated Chaz’s first birthday, dealt with hand, foot, mouth, disease, and had a week long visit with Riri and Pop. Shortly after, we were excited to have our GA friends, Amanda and Ryan come visit, only to be hit with Tropical Storm Isaac while they were here. They were such good sports to weather the store with us, and we had so much fun with them. We look forward to more time with family in the near future and potentially more safe families kids at our home at some point. I’ll be posting some pictures from the past month or so when I can catch up on the uploading, editing photo process. But for now, we may just relax and rest for a minute and enjoy the quiet of the night!
Opal Dean's World 