Not Just Election Day................

It's 36 minutes until November 4th, 2014. Election day for most, Birthday for some, and for us it will be Family Day, Forever Day, whatever you choose to call it.  For us, we will put a period, or rather an exclamation point on the end of a 2 yr and 2 month journey. A journey we never planned to take, yet it feels for me like the exact journey we were meant to travel, every tall seemingly impossible but amazing mountain, and every dark and lonely, isolating valley......and everything in between.


When I spend time thinking back on the last 2 years, I get teary every single time.  Luckily, life gets in the way of pondering too much. But I think it is good, might I say, necessary to do so.  Remembrance can bring wisdom, insight, faith, and overwhelming gratitude.


Tonight as I put the littles to bed and rocked the youngest to sleep, I started getting teary thinking that this is their last night as foster children. This is it, we made it. We will be the Kitzmans, party of 5, FINALLY on paper even though its been that way in our hearts for a long time. We may come dragging across the finish line but we come to this particular finish line knowing that God was in every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month in these two years. That He used a failed Ecuadorian adoption process to detour us into the state foster to adopt system and bring these two precious little ones into our lives is really nothing short of awe inspiring sovereignty and grace.  He has been so faithful to us.


As we have said before, we could have never imagined the roller coaster ride that we were about to get on but He met us at every high and carried us thru every devastating low. His provisions for the journey were daily and just what we needed even though some days we didn't know it nor acknowledge it.  We had so many tangible evidences of His love and presence. 


When my cancer diagnosis was thrown at us from seemingly out of nowhere, I could not turn to the left or to the right without seeing His hand all over it.  From the many, many wonderful friends and family members who surrounded us with love and encouragement and help to the exact Physical therapist who had a daughter that was graduating from college who loved taking care of children and who just happened to be moving up to Lexington and would be happy to sit for us thru radiation. It still fills me with so much gratitude and love for how He chose to specifically provide in our time of need the exact person who could care for our kids while I was going thru all the treatments and appointments of the longest summer of my life.  


So as I get ready for bed on the last night of being a foster parent to the littles, I thank God for the journey. I thank him for the challenges, the pain, the lonely moments, and even the times of despair. I thank him for the laughter that the babies brought to our home, the joy of watching healing, developmental strides, chewing....oh my, thank you for the chewing, and the simple pleasures of cuddles, snuggles, and giggles. I thank Him for it all because without it all, tomorrow wouldn't feel so amazing.  My faith and confidence in who God is and always will be has grown leaps and bounds.  My trust in His goodness even in the midst of more challenges with my mom's cancer diagnosis has been galvanized in the experiences and the nuggets of truth we have learned along the way. God has been gracious to give mom good lab results and pretty miraculous results from treatment just as He was good to complete our foster to adopt journey by giving us the desires of our hearts.  The thing is He would still be sovereign, gracious, and good even if our journey had ended differently.  I am thankful that I learned this truth and know it to be true much deeper in my soul than ever before.  We spent most of these last two years not knowing how they would end and that taught us so much. I now live life a little differently and a little less fearfully, more day to day, hour by hour and minute by minute. Resting in His plan, His timing, and His sovereignty over our lives is freeing and I am thankful for the chance to face loss and even my own mortality to understand this even a little more. To God be the Glory, great things He has done.