China Shoes

It was back in August of 2007, just a few weeks after we had moved to Florida from Minnesota, that we received a gift in the mail. They were shoes for a little girl as you can see by clicking on this link to a past blog: China Shoes. They were from an online friend and were the first gift I had ever received for a child of my own.

Those of you who have been with me on this blog (or in real life) long enough, know how the story played out. Much differently than we originally dreamed. Even after Isaac's unexpected adoption and my even-more-unexpected pregnancy with Elijah, we planned to move forward with our adoption of a little girl through China.

We were on the waiting list well over a year. Isaac had been born. Elijah had been born. And we made the difficult decision to withdraw our Dossier from China.

I won't get into the whole story now, but I will say that that decision was incredibly emotional and difficult for both of us. So much so, that I had to remove some girl items that I had received from my house. I just couldn't look at them without remembering the daughter we always pictured in our family. I sent the shoes, a onesie, and a few other small girl gifts we had received to our friend Rachel in Minnesota who was due to have a girl in the near future.

While this new daughter, due in July, won't look like the little girl we planned to adopt, she will be our daughter of course. And as such, I was incredibly excited to receive these items back in the mail this past week. I didn't expect them. It had been a few years since I had sent them. I hadn't asked Rachel to keep them or to hold them for me. So the fact that she did and sent them to me, made me cry all over again.

Bittersweet. Sad that our China adoption (which we would still probably be waiting another five years for -- minimum) could not be seen to completion. But excited that a new little girl will get to wear these precious items.

God is cool.