Fill Our Beds...Fill Our Hearts

The last week has been quite a transition around this house. For last year's birthday gift, Kendyll asked for a new "big girl" room. She asked all of her family for different pieces of the room, and Mom and Dad's job was to get her a bed and paint the walls.

But, due to a few different factors (the main one being a hopeful mommy who thought she might be moving to Africa), the bed was never bought and the walls were never painted.

Fast forward to last week. I decided to totally rock Kendyll's world, and surprise her with a complete room makeover while she was gone to camp. It was like a happy birthday surprise 6 months later...

So, after a couple of days of sewing, and a day of painting (just kidding...I paid someone else to do it), we were ready for the big reveal. And, boy was she SURPRISED!!!I was hiding out in her new room, while Mark told her I needed her upstairs in Chase's room. (Yes, we still call it Chase's room and Chase's bathroom.) Little did she know we had transformed his sweet room into a NEW sweet room for our biggest girl.

As you can tell by the faces, she was blown away and so so so excited.

As I suspected, Carlie was a bit disappointed to come home to her same old room and same old bed. But, it was good practice in patience and in being happy for someone else who had waited a long time for her birthday gift. :)

And, as Kendyll always does, she was quick to find a way to include her sisters, which was so sweet. She wrote them invitations to a sleepover in her room that night, to which they both wrote a response: YES!

Although it didn't end up being an all-nighter (Carlie decided that her bed actually sounded pretty good, after a week at camp!) it still made the sisters much more excited about the new room. :)

Now, as you can tell, this week also held some transition for this mommy and daddy's heart as well. We took apart our baby boy's room that has been sitting for almost two years.

Two years?! That even sounds strange to ME! I don't know how it took this long. It wasn't really because we couldn't part with it...It was simply because I didn't know what else to do with it. And, it was familiar to all of us.

Moving Chase's things was okay for me, I guess because I knew it was coming and because it is not painful for me to be among his things. Being in his room does not make me sad, as much as it makes me just wistful for him. Does that even make sense? I long for the day when I see him again, and that's kind of where I am resting now.

So, we packed up the bedding, the toys, and the clothes. I bought a cedar chest for all of his special things, so I still have a special place for the keepsakes. And, we just moved the baby bed into the room down the hall, to continue waiting for the little one who will join our family someday.

I've finally decided to take some of his tiny clothes to a sweet little boy named Gabe in Rwanda, who my friend Jana is raising right now. (Read his story here. It's amazing.) It feels good to send these little things to tiny Gabe, knowing that these clothes will go from one little world-changer to another. :)

As Mark was moving toys that Chase would have been playing with right now, we did get a little sad. And, we talked often over the last few days about saying goodbye to his room.

This is hard to explain...but even though we were sad about that, I think what made me cry was just having extra space in our house.

I know that sounds weird, but I have prayed all week for God to FILL UP the rooms of this house. We now have two empty beds...a baby bed and a twin bed. Kendyll is in a new double bed, so there just seems to be more room than ever.

And, I don't like that.

I can't even bear it, actually.

I want my rooms to be full. I want our beds to be full. I want God to "expand our family and enlarge our love", as I say on my adoption blog.

So, my heart is truly aching right now. It has been a hard few days.

I picture the orphans I have visited and the tiny beds they share with other children. I see them with no pillow. Nothing to call their own. Then, I look around this now empty bedroom, and just BEG God to fill it with sweet children who deserve and need a bed---and a pillow--and a family---of their own.

As I moved each toy, and each blanket, and each picture frame, I prayed over the one who will play with, sleep under, and be pictured in each. I prayed that he or she will know deep within that we are here and we love them.

The real "kicker" this week has been my friend Tara arriving at Noel. I have been talking with her over texts the last couple of days, and it is all I can do not to jump on a plane today and be there too. She is already making such an incredible impact and experiencing God's sweet presence in the midst of this overcrowded orphanage.

And, yesterday she told me that she had gone to hold my little Vestine. Ahhhh!!! This is the precious girl who I held, talked to, sang to, and prayed over. And, she has absolutely stolen my heart.

Tara's text said "I saw Vestine today! She is still small and precious. She doesn't like me much; she was scared. I'll win her over. :)"

Just those few sentences have been running through my mind and I have pictured her a thousand times today, laying in that bed, lined up among dozens of other children...I keep picturing the big smile I got when I came back the second day to hold her again, hoping to see it again in just a few weeks. :)

Oh man. I can hardly handle it.

I just don't know how to live both places. I cried to Mark about it this morning, as we drove to run the usual errands. I cried about it again over lunch at Tin Star.

Oh, and Mark wanted me to also add a picture of when HE met Vestine a few months later. :) I love the serious way she is checking out his face. Precious.

I miss these sweet feet. I can't WAIT to be there in just 28 days.

And, at the very same time, I'm so incredibly thankful for this boy's sweet feet, who inspired it all.

Sigh.

Such a time of transition. Such a time of patient waiting. Such a time of gentle (and not so gentle) trusting. Such a time of longing.

But, even still, it's also such a time of joy.

"You love Him even though you have not seen Him. Though you do not see Him now, you trust Him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy." I Peter 1:8