A Prayer For the Day

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I
may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."
St. Francis of Assisi

The Numbers Are In!!!!!!!!!!!

It's done. The paperwork, the notarizations, the trips to County Clerks offices, the photocopying...all of it, is done!! Last week I brought our entire dossier and home study to the Fed Ex office and found myself apprehensive to give it over to the inattentive man on the other side of the counter. I felt as though I was giving him my own baby (it practically weighed as much as one). That large stack of paper represented so much work, time, frustration and effort and, unfortunately, I'd recently read about people sending theirs out only to learn that it was LOST in the mail. Well, as you can imagine, I felt a good bit of uneasiness by the possibilities of error, so I laid hands on the package and asked God to assign one of His angels to guard it, I suggested Michael, and make sure it safely arrived on my case worker's desk. Thank God, it did. Of course nothing should ever be done quickly in this process, so I was told that even though my paperwork arrived on Monday, they wouldn't be reviewing it until Friday. More lessons in patience. Friday rolls around and I'm beside myself with excitement. I wait all day and slightly stalk my case workers with phone messages reminding her that my phone is broken and she should call Brian to let us know if our paperwork passed. Hours pass, Brian's performing a wedding somewhere and I'm at home trying to keep myself busy, but still no word on our status. I call Brian and ask him if he received any news, he says "no". I eventually look at the clock and it says it's 8pm. I realize that the agency's office, which is in Oregon and three hours behind us, is now officially closed. They didn't call. They're playing with my mind!! This is all a sick joke. I'm wondering if they're all on some kind of power kick? Just toying with our vulnerability. In the midst of my pity party, Brian calls me to say he just realized there was a message on his phone. It was our case worker, she said our paperwork was perfect, we passed.....and we are officially on the waiting list!!! I quickly repent for the thoughts I had just been thinking 60 seconds before and thank God for getting us to this point. What a wonderful feeling!!!!! So, here's our current status. Infant Boys #15 Infant Girls #43 and Siblings #11. The work is done and now the waiting game begins. I believe we'll be updated every three weeks or so and given our new status on each list. It's the closest thing to having a due date that I'm going to get. Thanks for everyone's encouragement and prayers during this process. We appreciate it more than you know.