getting our girl home

Today I cradled my youngest in my arms as she slept, and I took a minute to breath.  I watched the sun pouring in my huge front window, and, as I took it all in, I caught a glimpse of our family gallery wall to my left.  In that moment, I looked at the beautiful pictures of my Chinese daughters hanging there on the wall, and it was completely ordinary, as many families hang their children's pictures, and completely miraculous at the same time. These daughters with Ch*nese eyes hanging on the wall next to us.  It is such a juxtaposition with which we live.  Our sweet, precious babes going about life in an absolutely ordinary way yet each with a path to us that is beyond miraculous.  Living simultaneously between the ordinary and the miraculous is such a place to be.  I can be so overcome with emotion so quickly as I watch my girls living out this life.  I am struck by how God has orchestrated it all, and what an incredible miracle it is that my eight year just hopped in her Daddy's truck to head to a Special Olympics sports day with him by her side.  An eight year old, that at two was literally dying while waiting for a family, walking so strong, and so full of life as she touches so many.  I can watch my six and four year old (sisters and the best friends) playing soccer together in the backyard..completely ordinary..and be moved to tears.  Girls, with very different stories, from very different parts of China..sisters in this life..miraculous.  I hold and comfort my smallest babe singing "This is the Day the Lord Has Made" while she endures another medical procedure..Ordinary and So Unbelievably Miraculous all at once.  These miracles are something I could have so easily missed if I had gotten too caught up in the ordinary that was my life before my girls came home.  I could have listed a million reasons why I could never do this that God has me now living.  I would have looked at others doing this and thought they must be special or super spiritual or possess some great powers that I never could.  For years, I pushed away the longing in my heart to welcome more into our family as we were too ordinary to do anything this miraculous. One thing that I now know is that  God can make my ordinary miraculous if I just let Him.  Now, because my girls are in them, each and every ordinary moment contains a good dose of miraculous, and I can't imagine living any other way.  Beyond grateful that each and every ordinary moment I have includes these incredible, amazing babies because sharing life with them is the greatest blessing I have ever received.  That God would entrust me with such a precious gift is, often times, so beyond my reasoning, but I am grateful to Him for it.  This Christmas is it my deepest desire that other babies get to experience the same ordinary life that mine are as I pray earnestly that each and every orphan will be welcomed home.