It’s been a busy couple of months since I last wrote about our adventures with Baby Lamb! Last week she was 7 months old! (I missed the six month post all together-oops) Nancy Kate is still the joy of our … Continue reading
5 Months with our Little Lamb! Continue reading
I don’t know how this happened, but 1/3 of a year with our girl is already gone! I cannot believe it. The past month has been full. We went on our first long road trip with Kate to my Dad’s … Continue reading
It’s wild, but it’s already been 3 months with our little princess! We are hopelessly in love, and think everything she does is amazing-well almost everything!
In the last month she has started smiling and cooing a lot more, and she’s getting close to being able roll over. She’s had a few tummy issues adjusting to formula, but she’s doing better with that now. We still have a really well behaved baby. She doesn’t fuss much unless she’s hungry or has an upset tummy, and she sleeps through the night most of the time. She still seems to like daycare, and they love her which I’m so grateful for! We went to Meme’s last weekend for the day, and Kate did pretty well in the car. We’re going to my dad’s family reunion this weekend which is about 4 hours away, so I’m praying she’s a good road tripper!
I’ve thought a lot recently about all the people that Kate is so blessed to have in her life. It’s no secret that my relationships with family and friends have shaped and molded my life, and made it so much more full. The more people I meet, the more I realize that not everyone has such a great village of people around them. Of course I have happy childhood memories of my immediate family of 4, but so many of my best times include grandparents, great grandparents, cousins that are more like siblings and aunts and uncles that are more like parents. As an adult, I have the best friends in the whole world. I’m so grateful to have a group of Godly women who love on and encourage me and my family. It’s a bonus blessing that we all happen to have littles around the same time so we’re all muddling through becoming parents together.
I’m praying now that Kate gets to have a group like this. KJ and I will do everything we can possibly do and then some to make sure our little girl grows up into the woman God created her to be, but we won’t do it by ourselves. We will succeed only by the grace of God and with a whole team of people around us. I pray that she has the closeness with extended family that I have had since birth. Sometimes we were close in geography, but we have always been close in heart. I also pray my heart out that she will have and be a good friend. I want her to have girls that will love on, encourage, laugh, cry, laugh until they cry and do life with. I want her to be the kind of girl who can always be counted on, and who is strong and soft too. She’s growing up in a crazy mixed up world, and she’s going to need a wonderful support system to get through it.
I don’t know if she’ll like ballet or basketball or maybe both or even neither, but the past three months of getting to know her and be her mommy has forever changed us. We can’t wait to see all the great things she will do, but if time could slow down that would be good for me! We love our Baby Lamb more than we ever knew we were capable of!
*Disclaimer: I wrote this the day before Kate turned 2 months old, and meant to go back and add pictures and post. I’m just now getting around to it, and it’s already almost time for 3 months! oops!
It has now been two months since I first laid eyes on you, and I still can’t believe it! Your daddy and I fall more in love with you every single day. In ways the two months have flown by, and in other ways it seems like you have always been with us. I guess it’s just confirmation that you were always meant to be our little girl.
First Day of School!
I still think about your birth mother every single day. I get updates through others sometimes, and from what we know she is doing well and proceeding with doing the things she planned to get her life back on the track she wanted. It’s a little hard not to see or talk to her since we grew to love her so much in such a short time. It feels a little strange to not be in her life anymore, but that is not what is best for the situation right now so we love her from afar and thank the Lord every day for her loving sacrifice to place you with us. We want so badly for her to be able to accomplish the great things the Lord has planned for her, and so it’s good to know she seems to be on a good track.
Ready for your first outing at Nina and Diego’s pool
You, Little Bit, have done a lot of things since last month! You are growing and changing every day. You started smiling at us which makes your mommy completely melt. Your daddy tries all sorts of foolishness to coax a smile out of you, and it’s always so worth it! You started daycare, and I started back to work full time. I miss our daytime together, but I think your teachers at school are as smitten with you as we are, and mostly hold and cuddle you all day! I’m so grateful you are at a place we trust and feel good about, and it’s really close to the office so I can scoop you up as soon as 5:00 rolls around. You’re starting to like bathtime, but you still do not care to have your clothes or diaper changed. You really are the best baby. You sleep and eat well, and hardly fuss. We are so grateful for that!
Daddy was teaching you cartoon theme songs; you’re very impressed 🙂
We are excited for you to show us more and more of your personality as you learn to do new things. I pray that even now your heart is being prepared to love Jesus more than anything else. I’m praying that you will have good girlfriends and that you will be a great friend in return. I pray your story continues to be one of God’s provision and blessing, and that you and we never fail to give Him the glory for your precious life. We absolutely couldn’t love you any more if we tried. You’re our sweet girl, and we are so proud of you!
One month ago your daddy and I got up on a Friday morning and drove to the hospital to meet you! We knew in the car that would probably be the last time for a long time that we would … Continue reading
Today is Kate’s due date. We’ve been able to hold our daughter for two weeks now, but today is her due date. So many feelings accompany this day. I’m completely overwhelmed by all of the blessings that God has given us that can all be wrapped up in a soft pink blanket around 7 pounds of perfection. I also can’t help but think about the woman a few miles north of here who is healing from delivering our precious baby. For months, today was on her calendar. Whenever people would ask “When are you due?”, she would answer with today’s date. I do text the lady who started the ministry occasionally to ask how she is doing, but I haven’t seen or spoken to her since a few hours after Kate was born. I look at our baby, and I know what a high cost was paid for her to be with us. I pray that the rest of my life, and every moment of hers is a thank you note to God for that blessing.
It’s hard for me to imagine that I could ever forget a single detail of the past few weeks since they have forever changed me. I know though that the passage of time, and more months of less than enough sleep could dull my memory. I want to record them here so that I can always remember and tell our little girl about the miracles that brought her to us.
It was almost exactly two months ago today that I got the initial call from Wendi that there was a birth mother who wanted to meet with us. It was a little more than two weeks after that initial meeting that we found out that she would be ours. Almost exactly one month after that meeting Kate was born. Those might well be the most intense 6 weeks of our lives. On the day we found out that Kate’s birth mother wanted us to adopt her, which would have been overwhelming enough, God began to confirm in huge and tiny ways that He was working all things together for good.
One of the biggest concerns for us with adopting was always cost. Everything we knew had told us that domestic adoption would cost anywhere from $18,000-$30,000+. We are very blessed to have good jobs that more than provide for our needs, but coming up with tens of thousands of dollars just to bring a child home was a daunting thought. A year ago some sweet friends organized a garage sale to get our adoption fund started. The Lord took their efforts and doubled them and doubled them again, and gave us more than we ever thought possible. We were also blessed with some donations from extremely generous family and friends that got us to about half of what we thought we would need. After we had left the meeting with our birth mother when we learned we would get to adopt I texted the leader of the ministry and asked what this would cost. Since they are a new ministry and we are the first family to adopt through them we hadn’t discussed cost before that meeting. I was a little scared to read her text back to me, but to my amazement the total cost of our adoption would be just a little less than the total collected at the garage sale. We had always just trusted that the Lord would work out the financing when the time was right, but we never in a million years expected Him to work it out like that.
On that same day my aunt’s business partner told us that her good friend had a preemie and was unable to use all of her breast milk. She had pumped and frozen milk that she would be happy to give us if we wanted it. I assumed we were talking about a few bags that might last us a few days or even a week. When they delivered the milk it filled up my aunt’s freezer, refrigerator and an additional ice chest! She provided our girl with an amazing start that we couldn’t give her. I’m overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our friends and family, but this is someone I don’t even know!
Aside from the cost of the adoption itself, one of my biggest concerns was childcare. I knew that I would be going back to work after the baby was here, and in our area childcare is in high demand. We have friends who have gotten on a waiting list at a daycare when they found out they were pregnant, and still not had a spot for their little one when they needed it more than nine months later. So, I was super nervous that we wouldn’t get into one of the ones that we felt good about. I went to get on the waiting list at the daycare at our church pretty much thinking there was no chance we would get in. I mean we were only a few weeks from her birth! I asked the director if there was any chance they would have a spot for us. She let me know that she was in the process of calling people on the waiting list for the summer session, and she just didn’t know. She promised to call me within two weeks and let me know. She called me that very afternoon to let me know that she could definitely offer us a spot in the fall, and she was still unsure about the summer. I headed in the next day to pay the registration fee for fall so we at least had a spot then, but was still apprehensive about what we would do for the summer. When I got there with my checkbook the director came out to let me know that several of the people on the waiting list had made other arrangements, and we had a spot in June! This NEVER happens, so the only explanation is that our Jesus worked it out! It is our first choice because we already go to church there, we know several friends who have children there that are very pleased with the care and it is very convenient to my office. I was prepared to settle for our second or third choice, and the Lord exceeded every expectation and gave us our very first choice.
Due to the short time frame between when we learned we would get a baby and when she would be in our home, I thought we might have to buy many of the things we needed ourselves or do without until our baby shower after she arrives. You might have figured out by now that I am a slow learner, and still haven’t figured out that the Lord hasn’t asked us to settle for scraps but invited us to the head table at the banquet. My family had an impromptu shower at our girl’s weekend, both of our offices had showers for us, my Sunday School ladies OUTDID themselves and people from all over came through with stuff that we would need and want with a new little one. We have had to buy VERY LITTLE, and we still have a shower at the end of this month! The sweetness of our people to share the joy of welcoming our little girl has made this whole thing even more wonderful.
I think the biggest and most surprising blessing of the whole experience is Kate’s birth mother. I had always assumed, and we had been told by adoption agencies, that the birth mother would likely be very young, drugs and/or alcohol would probably have been involved for some of the pregnancy and regular prenatal care would have been highly unlikely. We were prepared for many unanswered questions, and the complications that could come from these poor choices on the part of a birth mother. I expected to be grateful that another woman was allowing me to parent her child. I did not expect to truly fall in love with her. Of course we only know what she wanted to tell us, but we don’t think drugs or alcohol were involved during her pregnancy, she had very regular prenatal care from early in the pregnancy and she is only a few years younger than we are. Due to some blood pressure issues and staffing at the maternity home, we ended up spending a pretty good amount of time with her over the last 3 weeks of her pregnancy. She is a sweet girl with big dreams for her future. She loves our daughter very much, and made a hard and very selfless decision to allow her to be ours. She allowed us to be a part of her doctor’s appointments and I was in the OR when Kate was delivered. She put her wishes and comfort aside to do what was best for Kate, and to allow us to bond with her from the very moment she entered the world. We haven’t seen or talked to her since a few hours after Kate was born because I want to give her the time and space she needs to heal, but not one day goes by that I don’t feel totally overwhelmed with gratitude for her. We pray that this good decision is a turning point in her life, and that the Lord opens the floodgates of Heaven with blessings upon her life. I hope that she will be able to testify like we are now about how God has far exceeded even her best dreams. Our lives are forever changed not just by her baby, but by her.
Then of course there is Nancy Kate. She is more perfect than we could have dreamed, and we are completely in love with her. It still hasn’t completely registered that she is really ours. We are in awe of her, and humbled at the blessing and responsibility of being her parents. We know that God has very big things in store for her, and that her story has and will be a testimony to many of His faithfulness to answer prayers.
In a few days I will celebrate Mother’s Day for the first time as a mother. It will be a whole new experience since for the past few years it has been a stinging reminder of an unrealized dream in my life. This year I will stare at that dream in my arms. I will do that with a heart overwhelmed with the sheer volume of blessings that have been poured out on our little family, and total amazement at the way God can weave a story out of our lives. I’ll also be especially tender toward a woman who gave us the greatest gift we could never get ourselves, and at a tremendous cost to her. I hope that I never forget the sweetness of how God has answered our prayers, and that I have learned to trust Him and ask bigger of Him because He really is just so faithful and generous.
I got a call from the adoption agency/maternity home a week after our initial meeting. The birth mother liked us, but had more questions. Great! Bring them on! The problem was that the woman in charge of the ministry was going out of town, so we couldn’t meet for another week-basically two weeks after our initial meeting. I tried to make the meeting happen sooner, but it wasn’t possible so we had to wait another week, and then who knows how much after that before she would make a choice. We had absolutely no idea what type of questions she would ask or whether the other family she was considering was meeting with her more or not. It was a difficult week of waiting for sure.
The day FINALLY came when we could meet, and I was a hot mess! I was trying so hard to hold it together, but I truly had no idea what we were walking into. At some points I had convinced myself that she was meeting with us to let us know that she hadn’t picked us, and at others I thought she would still need weeks to make a decision. The agency had asked me if they could take some video before our meeting for their website because they are a new ministry and just getting started. I am not one to jump in front of any camera ever, but at that point I would have walked across hot coals and swallowed glass shards if I thought it would get us closer to an answer. So I slapped on some lipgloss and tried to compose myself when we got to the meeting. We sat down and nervously joked about I don’t even know what while they got the camera set up. Then she let us know that she wanted to ask us some more personal questions. Sister, at this point there is nothing I wouldn’t answer so COME ON! She asked about whether we had been considered by a birth mother before, and if we had discussed any names yet. No, and not really (KJ thought picking out a name would make it harder if we didn’t get picked). Then she said that she would be honored if we would adopt her baby and give her a good home. It seems so simple, but that sentence changed everything about our whole world for the rest of ever. All three of us cried, and I held her hand and tried to process what was happening right that very minute. I tried to place myself in her position, and wondered how in heaven’s name I would make that kind of a decision. I thought about the fact that in a few short weeks she will give birth to a daughter that she will grieve. That at the very moment we are staring at the face of the fulfillment of God’s promise in our lives, she will be recovering from giving birth to a baby she won’t hold. That no matter how many days or miles separate us in the future, my life is forever knit together with hers because we will mother this little girl. She LOVES her daughter, and is making an incredibly brave choice to place her into our arms. She knows and feels peace that this is the decision that the Lord has for her and her child, but of all the things the Lord could ask of us this has to be one of the hardest. We pray that she will continue to have supernatural peace that her decision is the right one, and that she would be comforted as she goes through all that is next.
So now we start the whirlwind! We begin to plan to welcome our daughter into our home in about a month. There’s bottles to wash, onesies to buy, calls to make and oh the anticipation. It’s all wonderful and, I imagine, much like what a couple who is pregnant experiences only compacted in time and multiplied in intensity. We feel good about the birth mother and her certainty in the decision, but she could still change her mind. We are praying with all we can that doesn’t happen. I’m not sure we’ve even allowed it to sink in what is happening. I guess that happens at some point…
Dear Sweet Baby Girl,
I found out this week that your mom has chosen us to be your parents. There aren’t words for that moment. I held her hand, and stared at her crying for a few minutes before I could even say one word. I thought about how at that very second the two women who would love you most in all the world were inches from each other with you between us. How her story was now forever a part of mine. She loves you, sweet one, so very much. She is making a brave and selfless choice to place you in our care. Your daddy and I don’t take that trust lightly at all. We know that long before God began to knit you in her womb, he placed you in our hearts. We have prayed for her and for you for years. We have sought you out. The Lord gave us signs along the way that we should keep going, but there were long stretches where we wondered if we’d ever get to know you. Now we are weeks away from when you will be born. We’re making all the preparations to bring you home and begin our life with you. So many people have prayed for you and wanted you for so long. I cannot imagine another baby that has been rejoiced over more by more people. Your story is already set up to be amazing and awe inspiring. I felt you move, and saw a sonogram picture of you, and I wondered if you somehow know you’re ours. I hope to one day be able to somehow explain to you all about God’s hand in bringing you to us. How we have waited, longed, prayed for and hoped for you. How every single second of the difficult wait is so worth it to get to be your mommy. Your daddy and I are not perfect people, and won’t be perfect parents, but my goodness will we try. There’s not anything we won’t do for you, and we haven’t even laid eyes on you yet. We want so badly to be able to keep you happy, healthy and secure. We want you to fall in love with Jesus-HARD, and early. We pray He captures your heart before you know what hit you, and that you’re never satisfied without Him and you never get enough of Him. The way you’re coming to us is nothing short of incredible, and I will NEVER get over it. You will have the unique privilege of being loved by two mommies and a daddy. Your birth mother took care to get you into the world, and is making a choice for your good that is very hard for her. Your daddy and I have waited for years for you, and wanted you more than anything else. We will feed you, rock you to sleep, check your closet for monsters, take you to school, watch you play sports or twirl in your tutu (or both), hold you when somebody’s been mean to you, put a princess band-aid on your skinned knees, teach you to drive and reluctantly release you to the roads-maybe, zip your prom dress, help you with your graduation cap, cry when you leave for college, watch you walk an aisle to the man God has for you and so many other little and huge moments. In every one of those moments, we will be so grateful that God chose you just for us. We love you so very, very much little one. You are our Baby Lamb.
Love, Mommy and Daddy
I would guess that most people in my age group and younger at some point at least dabbled in online dating. I’ve heard stories of people who found love just like the commercial said so I know it is possible. I didn’t ever get into it whole-heartedly, but I did test the waters a little-enough to determine that there may be a lot of fish in the sea, but most of them were more scaly and slimy than I cared to mess with. Since we finished our home study and profile book we’ve been waiting to be “matched” with a birth mother. Unlike online dating, we have no control over this process. We put our information out there, and hoped and prayed it would find a match-and in a short amount of time.
Not one day passes that I don’t think about when or if we will get “the call”. Some days it’s a slow simmer on the back burner of my brain, and other days it has full on boiled over and invaded every part of my life. Five days ago we got a call-not exactly “the call”, but a call. A new local maternity home that we have some connections to had a birth mother move in very recently who is planning to place her baby girl for adoption, and she was interested in meeting us. The night I got the call from the lady who started the ministry was at the end of an exhausting day. There were a lot of things hanging over our heads that were scary. In the course of a few days we had learned of KJ’s mom having some complications that were jeopardizing her already delicate health, my dad had some tests come out questionable at a physical, KJ had some possible big changes at work that could be good or bad, but we didn’t know. Not to mention, the beginning of 2015 has already left us bruised with some heartache. We both lost grandfathers, some friends buried their 4 month old-REALLY LORD?, KJ’s mom was entering a third year of a battle with cancer that is impossibly difficult, we both have some significant changes at work that cause their own share of stress and anxiety and then there’s the normal stress of being an “adult” in this world in this time which can cause even the strongest to hang their head and wonder if any hope is left to be found. If I’m being totally honest, I was starting to truly wonder if we had gotten it all wrong and weren’t going to have the opportunity to be parents at all. I know there are people who wait years and years to be matched for a child, and to them our impatience is probably at best laughable and at worst insulting. However, for us to turn another page on another calendar with seemingly no movement in the adoption process is so discouraging. So, we get the call that the mother wants to meet with us while KJ is working on his resume, and I’m in the bed with a mask on trying to numb my mind with quality reality television. Don’t judge!
Thirty-six hours later we walked into a restaurant to meet this girl. I had about 2 very restful hours of sleep, and I was praying to the Lord that he would help me not to throw up-at least until after the meeting. I have nothing to base my evaluation of the meeting on since we’ve never done this before, and I don’t know how other agencies structure this process. She asked us a few questions, and told us a few things about herself and her pregnancy. We tried to have “normal” conversation which was as easy as you might imagine. At the end of the meeting she told us that she was still considering another family for her baby, so she would let us know when she was able to come to a decision. I assured her that we wanted the best for her baby, and that we were praying for clarity and peace for her in whatever decision she made. What I didn’t say that I wanted to scream is “PLEASE DECIDE SOON! And Also PICK US!!!!!”.
We left the meeting, and KJ and I went back to work as if our lives weren’t forever different. It’s been 5 days since that meeting, and we still don’t know what she will decide. One minute I am sure that the Lord is confirming this baby is ours, and moments later I feel like He’s preparing me for the disappointment. I’m such an emotional wreck that I don’t trust my discernment to tell me which of those if either is truly a word from the Lord. One morning on the way to work as I was praying my guts out, but unable to form words or a coherent sentence, I remembered how the Israelites waited 400 years to hear from God. Generations endured a deafening silence from Him that was broken with the cries of baby Jesus. At the moment I felt like the Lord was giving me a sign that we too would be able to testify after what felt like a long silence being broken by a baby’s cry. Just a few hours later, I thought the Lord was telling me that our wait may not be over. I’ve created a million scenarios in my head that are all 100% based on speculation and 0% based on fact. I have no idea what this girl is thinking about us, if she’s already made a decision, if she liked us, if she feels good about us, if she even still wants to place her baby, when she’ll let us know about her decision and about a bazillion other things that run through my head all day and when I’m trying-unsuccessfully- to sleep at night.
So here’s what I KNOW: God is good and still very much in control. I have a million question marks right now; He has zero-NOT ONE. He will take care of us no matter how this thing plays out. There is a refining purpose to us having to endure this excruciating wait. Lord, please help us to wait well and allow this difficult time to build our faith and trust in you. God has given me the best people in all the world. We haven’t told a ton of people about this yet since there are still so many things unknown, but the ones who know have been the only reason I have any sanity at all. Just looking at text messages from my precious friends and family make me weep and wonder how on earth I am so blessed. When I told my Daddy and he cried and said, “Oh honey, I can barely catch my breath…” will forever be one of my favorites. My husband is amazing. This is huge for both of us, and we process it in different ways, but his tenderness towards me has held me together even when I am falling apart. No matter how this turns out, we WILL be ok. I will hold on to these things when my mind is whirling with all the questions. I will raise my hands and heart to the Lord in worship while I wait, and I will hope with everything in me that this is our Baby Lamb.
KJ and I talk and think a lot about what kind of parents we hope to be, and what kind of legacy we want to leave to our child(ren). This week definitely put those thoughts into overdrive. We lost Papacito this week. He was my grandmother’s husband of just over 10 years, but I don’t recall a time in my life that I didn’t know him. He and his wife were best friends with Meme and Daddygene. They traveled together, had a business together, and did all the things you would expect that lifelong friends would do. When Daddygene died, Gail and Toopie were family to us and to my grandmother especially. They helped her so much with all that she needed after suddenly losing her husband. After Gail’s wife died, Meme was there to help and support him as he had her. That friendship turned into love, they married, and we officially adopted Gail into our family. The only blood we shared was that of Jesus, but he was ours and saying goodbye for now has been tough.
Over the course of the week, so many stories were told about Gail and the impact he had on so many people. He and my Meme live in a tiny East Texas town. Gail was very involved both in business and civic organizations. He only retired last year from his post on the board of directors at the bank. So many people came to my Meme to tell about how they were able to go to college because of some scholarship money Gail gave them (often out of his own pocket without any recognition), people who were grateful for Gail giving them their very first job and countless others who were blessed and changed by the way he chose to live his life. He valued hard work so very much, and wanted to help people be successful. I hope that I can be generous with my time, knowledge and resources like he was. I want Baby Lamb to work hard and give generously just like he did. The very first check that came into the garage sale was from Papacito, and when we bring home our baby it will be possible partly because of his support.
The other impact this week had on me was a renewed and more deep desire to be like the women in my family. My mom was wonderful, and I could write a whole book about the things about her I want to be. My mom passed away when I was 18, and the Lord knew before the foundation of the world that I would need some women to mother me long after my mother was gone. So He gave me my Meme and my Auntie. Since they have been there since before I was, they have a unique perspective. You can tell people all about your experiences, but there’s nothing like people who lived those experiences right along with you. You would be hard pressed to find women who love each other more than we do or any who are more protective of each other. These two women are wise, hard workers, successful and the kind you really want in your corner. They single-handedly planned the most fun wedding there ever was-on foreign soil no less. (It also just happened to be my wedding) They can just as easily make a Tuesday night family dinner feel like an extravaganza even when you’re eating off of a paper plate-a cute one-and drinking out of a plastic glass-personalized with a sharpie of course! But this week, I watched my grandmother say goodbye to a third spouse. It hit me in a unique way this time since I have a spouse now. She was gracious and kind to hundreds of people as they filed in and out of a funeral home, and welcomed many of them into her own home. She is far too well acquainted with being in the front of a funeral procession. In the words of the great Dolly Parton, “When it comes to suffering, she’s right up there with Elizabeth Taylor!” She’s strong because she has to be, and she is the very first to tell you, because she has a very strong God. Before we walked into the chapel for the funeral, “Because He Lives” was playing softly. She said right then and there in that terribly hard moment the words of that song would be her focus-Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. The next few days, weeks and months will be the picture of her living that out. I know this, because I have seen her do just that in the face of unimaginable grief so many times before. My Auntie was the daughter every mother would dream of. She was like a duck-scrambling beneath the surface and calm and graceful up front. She kept all of us informed of what was going on, and how we needed to help. She organized meals, ordered flowers, gathered clothes, made sure everyone had a bed to sleep in all the while making sure Meme didn’t have to be alone or without her lipgloss. She honored her Mother just like God told us to, and she did it well. She will be the one to help and comfort her in all the hard days and months ahead. Sure, the rest of us will help in our way, but Auntie will be the coordinator. Meme is the CEO of our family, and Auntie is the Chief Operating Officer. Lord, please make me like these women. I want to be that kind of strong in the face of the worst life can throw at us. I want to be the kind of person that people just know will get it all taken care of and taken care of well in any situation-especially a hard one. I want my love for Jesus to be that evident, and I want to be that gracious and hospitable in even the worst of circumstances. THIS is my legacy, and I pray I will step into it and pass it along to those behind me.
Papacito, you are loved, you are so missed and the impact you have had on us will live for many generations to come.
bringing home baby lamb 