Sweet Reminders

My husband moved to Florida....without me. He left me with 4 boys, A bio unit with a dissection of a fetal pig, which is sitting plastic wrapped in my garage, and makes me shudder every time I walk by it, finals in three classes, two teacher luncheons, two end of school programs, a high maintenance home buyer, and a whole house to pack up. Isn't he romantic???

Yesterday I got up to a house that looked like Liam had free range of the fridge, toilet paper, and laundry basket....which he did, but at least my assignments were submited only 1 day late the night before. I was picking what I think was dried cheese out of the carpet when the phone rang.

Let me insert here, my awe at little kids. Do you know what all they can accomplish in just an hour, never mind a day??? Liam can redecorate the floor with Lucky Charms, fill the washing machine with mega blocks, clean the bathroom floor with chocolate milk, assist his older brother in sharing his stuffed animals, and throw an entire bags worth of dog food out the doggie door and onto the garage steps just in case our dog might get hungry if she ever decides to actually start going out to pee instead of doing it inside, and he isn't half as tired as I am just watching him!! Fast and efficient doesn't even begin to describe him! Thats youthful and incredibly impressive energy right there!!

The person on the other end of the phone was the realtor for our charming and organized home buyer. She wanted to come take measurements of her soon to be new home that she won't be moving into for another month and a half, but needed to measure today and no later, and could I please have children and dog and self vacated in two hours? Just how opposed is she to sour milk on the kitchen floor and over flowing garbage cans in the bathrooms while she measures??

It was kind of one of those days, where you are faced with the sad and honest reality that you are only one little tiny woman who most certainly does not possess super human qualities to create 4 male angels in the store, be at two appointments at once, or ever have a clean vehicle.

When I tucked my boys into bed, having threatened to break bones if anyone got up, lectured about the unwise decisions to hide homework, and bribed on-time morning promises from them, I looked at their little faces mostly clean from their showers, and said. "Sorry I've been kinda grouchy today".

They looked at me with these looks on their faces like, hah! kinda? today?? my oldest sweetly says, "Its because you miss daddy."

How is it that daddy can make everything better? I mean the kid is right, I am grouchy because my husband isnt here, but really what's changed since he left?

I still get everyone up in the morning. I still make lunches and facilitate homework and dress and change diapers for tiny little bodies. I still call teachers and get the groceries and wipe the boogies and make the supper; all stuff I still do when he's here.

But we do miss him and I am grouchy because I miss him and my 7 year old is one of the wisest little kids I know. So I told them, how about you remind mommy that she's being a little grouchy when I'm getting that way.

Today, was better.... until about noon! Then I had a baby covered in snot, wailing and super glued to my leg, a realtor wanting extra papers that I don't think even existed, a kid who had appendicitis like symptoms, and a half baked batch of cookies.

So I did what any I-wanna-be-supermom-but-I-can't-even-do-regular-mom-right-now woman would do. I ignored the realtors calls, I ate the rest of the cookie dough, I broke all speed limits getting to the doctor right before they closed and fed my kids takeout yet again. Thankfully the appendix seems to be ok living a while longer in its spot in my son's body. On the way home, Caleb and Liam were doing a pretty impressive rendition of the Veggie Tales theme song completly in spit, but it kept hitting the back of my neck and I wasn't really in the mood anyways.

I snapped at them to cut it out and for a blessed scond everyone was silent! Then a tiny Kyler voice says, "your kind being grouchy mommy."

I have to admit, it totally made my day! I laughed and said you are so right! So I let the kids eat several cookies, and didn't do the dishes in the sink, or pick up the toys on the floor, but we all snuggled and I felt happy knowing that I was my little kids' imperfect mommy, and I was totally loved and accepted by them!! And of course after daddy called, everyone felt better!!!!

And I know she's going to want to come tomorrow to look at replacing all door handles with the way my house looks. I don't know how, but she totally knows those nights I don't do supermom!!



Family

I think most of my blogs start out with, "I should be doing homework, but...." And so shall this one.

In my procrastination, I decided to take a shot at a blog that I knew I had to write as soon as I knew we were leaving Colorado. It is very dear to my heart, and I will probably be sobbing by the end, but here goes.

When I was 12 my parents invited a newly wedded couple to our house. We had supper and I spent the rest of the night in my room consoling a friend who had just broken up with her "true love". Maybe I should write a blog on all of the things I would go back and tell my sweetly stupid self, especially about true love, especially at 12! Whew that would be a long blog!

Anyway, shortly after that dinner, this couple took me and my sister to a concert. We sat out in the summer breeze, eating subs and listening to amplified songs, and my sister and I totally fell in love them! We went to several more concerts, had a few more dinners, and then they had a baby. This baby became our live doll! This kid was dressed up as a girl and drug to piano lessons, and ate a bowl of whoopie pie frosting and watched Veggie Tales ALL THE TIME!

Larry and Beverly O'Connell became Uncle Larry and Aunt Bev. They let us stay up late giggling in their basement and watching movies, Larry taught us how to drive his massive truck, and they were always gracious enough to look at cuts and bruises and answer late night medical questions. 

We did a lot of camping and fishing with them. I hated hiking! We would be climbing some ridiculous mountain that Larry said was only a mile tops. 5 miles in, he would tell us, "its just around that corner" 18 corner later, we all crashed on the ground by a little stream where we caught 2 fish and headed back the same grueling way we came in.

The first guy that ever showed interest in me, never called me back after he met my family. It was not my dad he was most afraid of, it was my Uncle Larry!

One camping trip, Larry let me drive his truck down a little mountain road. He was sandwiched between me and my sister. A song came on that we liked and we turned it all the way up and started dancing. Poor Larry got headbutted until he turned purple!

Bev and my sister and I liked to watch movies. One day we all filed into the theater with our candy and popcorn and settled in. This movie was horrible! Everyone died!!! Shortly after my sister and I spent the night at Bev's house and we watched another movie. After the main character died, we decided that our new activity would be shopping!!

Soon I met a guy that stuck around for a little bit. Uncle Larry wasn't real fond of him, but he kept coming back anyway.

I knew I liked him when he got along so well with my #1 man, Colt!!

He joined in our ski trips, and camping trips and holiday celebrations, so I married him!

Skiing in Breckenridge

Camping over Fathers Day

4th of July

When I got pregnant, Larry, who is an OB/GYN, threatened to move to Antarctica if I didn't stop calling him in the middle of the night asking if that feeling was normal!

The best part of the pregnancy was that Bev was also pregnant!!

And the even better part was that the two little boys are the best of friends!!!

Bev and Larry and their three kids couldn't be more family to us!! They have been there through incredibly difficult time. They have been there through amazingly happy times, and when no one else was there, they were!! They taught us how to play Hand and Foot, They taught us that rain is NOT a good excuse to cancel a fishing trip. They taught us that how to ski, and ride a horse and drive a Dodge pickup. They taught us what family truly is!! We have so many memories with them, and I have no idea how we will be able to say goodbye!!

Its hard to believe that my little "baby doll" is now playing with my kids that used to be his age!!

O'Connell's you are and will always be our family, and there is no way we could ever tell you how thankful we are for you!!!We are all going to miss you!!!!

March 2nd 2013

March 2nd was hardly like any other day. I got up indecently early, ran through security and hopped on a plane to decide if we should uproot our family and move across the country.     

I hate flying! It makes me nervous and anxious, and Kevin would argue that calling what I am when I fly nervous, is like calling a  hippo a little on the large side.

Anyways. We flew to Houston and landed in a lot of bumpy wind. I got off the plane shaking and wondering how in the world I would get back on another one in a couple of hours. 

I did, however, and I forgot to pee before boarding.  A younger guy sat by me. He had earrings and pants that showed off his boxers, because lets face it why would you spend money on something no one can see?? He was very pleasant though and I was glad.

We had some delays getting off the ground. Normally I pray that we won't become airborne miles and miles above solid ground in a big heavy hunk of metal flown by an unseen man who may or may not have had his annual eye exam recently. However, my bladder was setting records on how large it could stretch out, and I was praying for that cruising altitude of gazillion miles from land.

It was bumpy! No it was horrific! The cool guy with the boxers and earrings began uttering the Lord's name and I am pretty sure that he wasn't using it the same way they do in Sunday School!

By now I have a cut in my arm from my own finger nail, and poor Kevin is slouching in his seat hoping no one knows we are together. I think we was hoping with the way the other guy was acting that it would look like I was his wife. I am joining in my other seat mates cries, only I am pleading with God to either make the end come quickly or save us please!!! I don't know which one to pray about, the bone jarring 1000 foot drops, or the full bladder that stays up there at that 1000 feet higher without me!!

Finally the seat belt sign goes off and I rocket out of my seat. We pretty much bounced around the rest of the flight to Orlando. Once we start our initial descent, we are told that there are unusually high winds in the Orlando area, and that we should expect some bumps coming in.

What they should have sad was, hold on to you butts and tuck your head between your legs, because landing in this stuff is not going to be easy, in fact we might at times be flying sideways and there is no way the overhead luggage is going to remain in its current spots!!!!!!

I have never thanked God so abundantly for his green wonderful earth as I did once those wheels touched down!

We taxied and taxied and taxied, so I turned my phone on and saw that I had a text from my sister. It was weird. It just said to call her. Because it was taking forever to get to the gate I called her from my seat. 

What she told me pretty much changed my life!!

I'M GONNA BE AN AUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then my darling sister told me not to tell anyone. Are you kidding me?? Its kinda like someone winning the lottery, being taken to a shoe store and told not to spend anything for a while! Anyone who knows me knows that I am the worlds worst secret keeper!! My good friend who is an OB/GYN, commented yesterday that the world knew I was pregnant before my husband even did because of the nationwide shortage on pregnancy tests! He may or may not be accurate. Well can I tell strangers?? Yes I could, so I informed the entire plane that my sister was knocked up and thanked the pilot for keeping me alive long enough to find out that I was going to be an aunt. 

The people in the elevator smiled politely as I shared the good news with them and the guy at the rental car place congratulated me hesitantly. My husband's new boss looked at me funny when he asked me how I was liking Florida and I gushed that I was going to have a niece or nephew by Christmas.

When we got home I played charades with a friend, somewhat letting the cat out of the bag, because that's different than telling right????

We went shopping in Daytona, and I found the cutest little outfits!!

Kevin told me "NO" in no uncertain terms. He said, "Shelly, we will wait until we find out what it is then we can buy clothes, but I think we should buy this one." He was holding a little shirt that said " I love my Uncle" but I didn't take a picture because it wasn't near as cute as the ones I had picked out!

I am sooooo excited!! I cannot wait to meet my little niece or nephew, and if it is a niece she will be outfitted until she's 13 the week I find out!!!

Laundry Day

When Caleb was born, he was as easy as they come! By a month old he was sleeping 13 hours through the night. When he got his first tooth I didn't even know he was teething until it had been in for a little while! He ate great, he smiled all the time and he played by himself really well! Dream baby!! (Watch out for those dream babies; they are lulling you into a false sense of "I totally got this"!!!)

One night, though he wouldn't sleep. He cried and just wanted to be held. He was only a few weeks old and I was still recovering from a C-section, and I still really needed sleep, so I took my shirt that I had worn that day and laid it on his bed and laid him on it. He slept the rest of the night without a peep!

The next night when he started to fuss, I once again broke out that shirt that I had worn and gave to him. Again, instantly he was quiet and slept peacefully the whole night. I don't know when it happened, but it became standard that every night I would take off my shirt and tuck it into bed with my baby. Gross I know, but when you have three boys, a husband who works two jobs, and your going to school, you totally do what works!

Well Caleb turned one. We were in North Carolina on a family trip with my parents, and we drove 4 hours to a beach house. It was so much fun! I also happened to be pregnant again. An hour into the trip, Caleb is screaming for my shirt. I had forgotten to leave one out of the suitcase and we were driving my dad's pickup, so the luggage was tucked into the bed. 

Kevin is pleading with me to make it stop, and Micah and Kyler are plugging their ears. Finally Kevin turns to me and says in desperation, "Just take your shirt off and give it to him!"

we are driving down the interstate with lots of people on either side of us, my family is following in a long line of cars behind us and you want me to strip?!? They already think I'm the crazy one in the family! Micah took his shirt off and gave it to him. Caleb chucked it to the front of the truck and screamed louder. 

Desperation, people, makes you do things you aren't necessarily proud of. Once he had that shirt, he slept like a rock for the rest of the trip. Thankfully we stopped shortly after that and I was quickly given a shirt from the suitcase in the back. 

We were at some peoples house once and this lady had a shirt on that was exactly like one I had. Caleb started tugging on her shirt and whining, "shirt". It was one of his first words and I am not even joking!

When we first started leaving a dirty shirt with out babysitter, we got weird looks. It only took us forgetting it once and they would always ask, where is the shirt?? When my mom came to stay with the three boys while I had Liam, she agreed to it on one condition, that I leave at least three dirty shirts with her! 

As he got older, Kevin complained that it was weird having a little boy dragging around women's clothing in public, so we tried getting him to take a blanket. He would waddle into my room, dump my hamper and choose his favorite shirt, leaving the blanket like....well like anyone else would have left a dirty shirt . I would find my clothing stashed in weird places all over the house. Laundry day was devastating for this kid! It was kind of awkward.

So I sat him down around the time he turned two and told him he could pick one shirt. That would become his shirt and he would have to leave all of my other shirts alone. It took him a little while to leave my other shirts alone, but after spritzing perfume on it a few times, Caleb finally attached to the one shirt. This poor shirt is torn and falling apart, but its the most important thing in the world to him! 

I actually had another shirt just like it, and so now every once in a while, Caleb and I will get in an argument over whose shirt is whose. I honestly never thought that scenario would happen until I had teenage daughters!

Today I did laundry and both shirts got thrown in the laundry. While I was folding this load, Caleb found both shirts. He lifted them both up, buried his face in them and said, "This one smells like mine!" I asked him what his smelled like. He said, "It smells like black!" (Both shirts are black) I said well what does mine sell like? "It doesn't smell like black, like mine does." and he danced away as happy as can be!

So I hope this blog could put to rest any questions you all may have had. Yes we are officially the weirdest family in America! Go home tonight and hug your family close thanking God for them!!

Toilet Paper, Pterodactyls and Pop Music

I can't sleep! I lay down and I watch my little red numbers on my alarm clock slowly change. I have seen midnight for the last several nights! Kevin blames it on the time change. Maybe so, but before the time changed I was ready for bed by 8!

The thoughts that usually occupy my mind at this time of night are rather long and random to do lists that I wake up feeling frustrated that I have forgotten, and then the next night I lay awake trying to replicate them! Its all rather exhausting!

Last night I was making yet another list of things that I need to send with Kevin when he leaves for Florida. Usually I am going through all of my kitchen dishes and appliances wondering what I can give up and what he can live without. The coffee pot is still a rather hot button issues, in fact I'm worried we might not make it to our 10th anniversary because of it!!

Anyway, last night I was once again going through the kitchen in my mind packing things up. Then I thought about what I could use to pack the fragile stuff in, and I decided bath towels would be great! How many bath towels should I send?? Will he go to a laundromat in the 7 weeks he is without a washing machine....and a wife?Well that lead me to wandering around mentally in my bathroom trying to figure out what needed to go from there. Thankfully I fell asleep before making too long a list of bathroom items to pack. I woke up around 2ish. All of a sudden I realized that I needed to send toilet paper along. Then I started worrying that I would forget to get toilet paper and I couldn't fall back to sleep forever! When I woke up this morning I thought, well he can go get toilet paper at the store if I forget, why did I lose so much asleep over that??? This is my current state of life; and its driving me crazy!

While we were in Florida, apparently a man went into his bedroom and while he was cleaning his sock drawer or some such activity, the earth opened up and swallowed him whole! I'm sitting on the edge of my hotel bed, mouth hanging wide open and terror in my eyes, but I can't turn away as they start telling stories of Floridians who have had similar experiences walking in their backyards or golfing.Then the blonde lady with too much red lipstick on states that Florida is the sinkhole capital! Did you know that there is a sinkhole season in Florida, and that we are coming up on it? How exactly does that work? "Oh the sun's a little to the east today, better watch for sink holes!"

Shortly after coming home, I heard that there are lots of sharks off of the coast of Florida and they are warning people not to go swimming. Oh great thanks for that! Caleb wanted to go to the beach for his birthday, but I think we'll just sit inside with a sinkhole meter and maybe some balloons!

Today my husband sent me a video from CNN that was talking about pterodactyl mosquitoes that are scheduled to arrive in Florida this summer. They are huge and can suck your blood through your clothes and it feels like you got stabbed by a knife when they sting. Right now I feel like I am sitting in that commercial for orange juice. The one where they are  telling her all of the things that will go bad that day and she responds with, "better drink my orange juice". Which right now might be the only entry in the pros column of Florida: they have lots of orange juice!

Think all of these things are bizarre and probably won't ever happen to us? Remember that we are the family that ends up in the ER from toilet injuries and because a kid has a rock stuck in his ear. Remember that out of 11 years of putting ear tubes in little kids' ears, ours was only the second kid our doctor had to redo because of weird circumstances.  And did you know that retaining placenta after a C-section is virtually impossible? And yet I know from experience that its not totally impossible......

When we were headed home from  the Dominican Republic, I was so tired and very ready to be off of the plane, but as we were sitting on the tarmac in Atlanta waiting to take off for Colorado Springs, life felt almost perfect. I had experienced God's incredible love and peace in a way that I never had before. I had just spent a week of being with my husband and being called the "wedding cake couple". I was headed to see my babies, and I had just met Kirk Cameron. The sun was setting and it was just so peaceful! The airplane had a song playing and it was totally not Christian, but some popular pop sing that I had never heard before.

Its weird how certain songs, or smells, or sights can be the keeper of such vivid feelings and memories.

While we house hunting in Florida, and I was hyperventilating just a bit, we sat in the Corvette in front of a house and I was upset because the first three houses we had wanted to see had just been rented and I was starting to feel hopeless that we would ever find one that worked for us. I was questioning whether we were doing the right thing by moving to Florida and I was feeling very anxious. As we sat there waiting for the realtor to come, the song that I had heard in the airplane that evening on our way home came on. It instantly reminded me of the overwhelming peace I had that night. And of course that's the house we ended up with!

Apparently God can use pop music!!

The Next Chapter

10 years ago this coming May, I married my best friend. We honeymooned in Daytona Beach Florida. We found it funny that so many people asked us if we were on our honeymoon. On the shuttle back to the airport as we were leaving FL, a businessman was the only other occupant of the shuttle. He had his briefcase next to him and was reading a very important looking business magazine. After a minute he looked up and nodded at Kevin. "On your honeymoon?" Kevin acknowledged that indeed we were and because we were sure at this point that the answer would be because we looked so in love, he asked him. "How did you know?"

The man glanced up once again from his magazine and nodded towards our entwined fingers. "Your rings are still shiny."

Well, talk about not what we thought we were going to hear! I have looked back at our wedding picture a few times recently and after seeing ten years of yard work, dirty diapers, mountains of dirty dishes and dirty clothes, and our rings aren't as shiny as they were then. Go figure!

I told my husband at the beginning of this year, that we had to do something special for our anniversary this year as its going to be our 10th! (Keep in mind people, that I got married when I was 15, so I am really not that old yet!!)

Well we decided to take Kevin's Compassion anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic and what an amazing trip it was! We learned a lot, to say the least, about faith on that trip! We came home and I started thinking, well we still need to make the actual anniversary of our 10 turbulent, I mean blissful years together special in some way. So I started thinking and going through magazines and dreaming about what we could do to make this day 10th anniversary worthy.

And then one day while Kevin was on a business trip in Florida and I was expressing my desire to do something different on our anniversary he mentioned a possible activity for that day. "Would moving to Florida be different enough?"

I'm sorry what?? I wasn't really thinking of major life altering things like moving, but that would certainly be different.

It turns out his old boss had approached him about moving to Florida to create an accounting department for his growing business. In less than two weeks from that initial meeting, Kevin and I flew out to see the sights and get a feel for the area. 

We had a rental car; A brand new Corvette. Kevin was feeling pretty good about FL!

I found Kohl's and I felt a little better, and as a plus I didn't see any snakes!

We got back last night from that little adventure; holding 2 year lease papers on a house, and enrollment packets for our boys for the school there.
There is so much more to say here about how God has made it very clear to us that this is the correct direction he wants our family to take at this point, but I don't have the mental capacity or probably even the blog space to go into it all right here. We have known from the start of this year that he is getting us ready for unknown adventures that require a unity between the two of us, and a strong faith in God to lead us. It hasn't always been easy, but God has demonstrated in such amazing ways his immeasurable love for us, and His incredible faithfulness! We have come to know God in a whole new and astounding way this year already, and its only March!!

So at this point  many of you may feel rather indignant that you are learning about this in a blog, but believe me when I tell you I couldn't even begin to imagine calling each one of you and crying through a rehearsed speech in which I tell you I am moving over 36 hours away. Everyone who is part of my Colorado life is so special to me, and I can't even begin thinking about not having you a few minutes away; not meeting you for a Chick-fil-a date, not swapping babysitting with you, or not running into you in the church hall way.

I do, however, hope that all of you will take advantage of the fact that you now have friends living close to Disney World and would love to have you stay with them!!

Our current plans include Kevin going to Fl at the beginning of April and the boys and I will follow at the end of May when school is finished. Until then, lets party people!!

Discovering God's Heart in Pedernales

I sat on an airplane a few days ago overwhelmed with all that I had just experienced in a weeks time. I thought about going home and wondered how I would be able to tell  people about all that I had seen and felt and discovered. I wondered if I should write a blog with a few funny stories, and few of the heart warming stories, or if I should just put up pictures with a short description, or if I should even write this blog.

To give you a good and accurate picture of what I experienced this last week I would need to be totally open and transparent; I would need to be honest about some pretty personal struggles. Not to mention it would be a pretty long blog. But as I have found myself standing in a grocery store overwhelmed with the abundance of food and provisions contained within its walls, sobbing, or standing in a church service realizing how true the songs I am singing really are, I decided to at least take a stab at this blog. So here it is. Its probably long, and may even make you raise your eyebrows, but its whats in my heart right now.

This past year I have struggled a lot with rejection and feeling unloved. I have had to figure out how to handle relationships that are also unloving and condemning, and through it I have struggled with anger at God for allowing people to do the things they do. If he truly loved us, why would he let us walk around with so much pain seeping from our broken hearts? Was He really even there aside from showing up when we screwed something up? The "godly" people in my life were really good about pointing out the wrong, but never God's love, and weren't they supposed to be the example of who Jesus is?

I came to a point where I felt like I had given up on God. I couldn't ever seem to do it right or do enough and I was exhausted and worn out. Oh I never said any of this. I went to church and sang the songs, and prayed the prayers before meals and "liked" all of the Christian Facebook pages; but I had given up on the perfect love and the illusive hope that went along with it. 

Two weeks before we left for our trip to the Dominican Republic, Kevin and I attended a unique workshop of sorts for a week. It opened up our lives like a book and revealed our hurt places and our defensive places and our angry places. It also painted a clearer picture of who God really was and showed us lies that we had believed about Him and ourselves. We both walked away with a tiny seed of hope in our hearts that maybe the perfect and unconditional love was real; for us; even in our imperfect state and through all of our mistakes; even if the "godly" people told us we didn't deserve it yet.

Amazingly enough feeling loved makes you live an entirely different way! I wish some of the "godly" people would realize how much more motivating love is than condemnation!

Then it was time to leave on our trip. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave my kids and I didn't want to go with a bunch of people I didn't know to a place I wasn't familiar with to do things I was uncomfortable with.

I sobbed my way through airport security, and got on the plane feeling desperate to get off! All at once I was overwhelmed with incredible peace. I knew I was supposed to be on this trip, I knew my kids would be fine, and I knew God was waiting for me at some point in this unfamiliar week. Those first few days held many moments of feeling out of place, and even more moments of undeniable strength and peace from God. 

On Monday we were headed to our second Child Development Center and our second home visit, where we got to go to a child's home and meet their family and hear a little bit about their lives. I had been to the Dominican Republic before, and I had experienced these home visits before, but the minute we walked up to this particular home, I knew something was different. My heart literally felt on the verge of breaking in half as I noticed two little feet sticking out from under a scrap of cloth. The baby was laying on a mattress caked with mud and God knows what else. The little toes immediately pulled at the mommy inside me. The baby was three months old!

The mother was the only adult present. She sat in a chair and never once interacted with any of the 5 children present. She quietly told the Compassion worker that was with us that she had a mental illness, and that one of her children had died; She had 7 more living. 

The baby woke up and began looking around. The 8 year old boy jumped up on the bed to get her when he realized her eyes were open. She gave him the most precious grin I have ever seen and watched him the rest of the time we could see her.  It was obvious that this was her main caregiver.

This home was in such disrepair that we couldn't even go in. The father came home and we stood around the front of the house under a big tree, as he explained that the few possessions they had had were sold to try and get money to help his wife. There was a little girl about 2 or 3 years old. She had only a dirty pair of shorts on. She climbed up on a plastic chair and laid down on it letting her head dangle over the edge. I couldn't resist reaching down and tickling her little brown tummy. She giggled. I melted.

We all moved closer to this family so we could pray over them. I scooped the little girl up. I don't know why I did; I had been cautious about doing this since some kids didn't seem to be comfortable with  a lot of physical contact, and I the language barrier prevented me from asking her if I could hold her, but the need to hold her in my arms was too overpowering. 

She seemed surprised when I held her close, but then she wrapped her little arms around me and laid her head on my shoulder. I couldn't concentrate on what people were praying, all I could do was bury my face in this little girls filthy hair and beg God to figure out a way to take her home with me; away from the filth; away from a mother who wasn't able to give her this affection; away from a hungry little tummy; away from a world where losing a sibling was painfully common. 

The prayer ended and we were told it was time to go. The father called her Janel and said something to her in Spanish. Our translator looked choked up and just nodded when I asked him if she had just said she was coming with me. Two more times the father asked her if she was going with me and two more times she nodded her head.

Everyone was moving toward the bus and I knew it was time for me to put her down. When I sat her back on her chair, her little hands held onto my shoulder blades and her eyes stared into mine. She watched me all the way back to the bus and the minute I was safely in my seat, I lost it.

I sobbed and sobbed as we pulled away from this family who had stolen my heart in less than 20 minutes time.Our translator was also very emotional.

I cried until I thought I couldn't cry any more, and then I sobbed some more. I yelled silently at God, angry that he would allow this to happen to tiny innocent babies. Back at the project, it was time for us to go play with the children involved in the program but I stood off to the side and cried, unable to get a hold of my emotions. I am sure anyone who saw me thought I was a very crazy white lady!

As the day went on and I was finally able to interact with the kids, I kept asking why God didn't do something. Towards the end of the day, I felt very clearly that he was saying that he was; He had sent me there and now what was I going to do?

I cornered a staff member and began asking what we could do.  I got information to be able to send a monetary family gift after we got home. I pushed and asked and made myself a nuisance until I was told that there might be a possibility of getting the little girl registered in the program and assigned to me to sponsor her.

That evening as we sat in a circle recounting our day with each other, I found myself again overcome with emotion. In that moment as I realized I had been struggling with the reality of God's love all day, I felt God once again impress something on my heart. Yes God had given that little girl the gift of my arms that day, but even more he had given me the gift of her arms! 

We experienced even more in the coming days, but Janel was never far from my thoughts or my prayers. I felt overwhelmed by an amazingly powerful love when I thought of her, and I realized on the way home, this was God's love; it was real! She wasn't rejected or forgotten, I wasn't rejected or forgotten, God had an immense love for both of us. He saw both of our broken little hearts and he had a powerful plan for both of us that included endless and massive amounts of hope! Even more he had this same love and purpose for the people that had hurt us! It was there everywhere for everyone, it was awesome!

I am still dumfounded how I came out of that experience so aware of God's love! Normally it would have just been more proof that God doesn't care like I think he should, but that wasn't the case.

I have cried for Janel every day I have been home. I have prayed for her and smiled when I look at her picture and emailed the country staff several times asking if she has been registered yet. I am pretty sure they are getting ready to figure out how to block my email address. ;-)

I am so thankful for this sweet little life that intersected with mine. I got a chance to see sponsors meet their sponsored children, and I can't wait to go back and get to spend more time with her.

There were hundreds and hundreds of sponsored children that we got to see affected by the amazing work Compassion is doing. The kids in the centers had hope in their eyes! 

Check out their website, Maybe you'll find your own little "Janel" that will touch you and remind you of God's awesome love!

Compassion

Thank you God for not only looking out for Janel and for giving us a chance to help in their time of need, but also for using her to open my heart to your incredible all consuming love!!