Today we celebrate 3 years that Brynn Olivia AiXin has been in our family. It has been an incredible three years! We have watched our girl grow and change over the last three years. We've had ups and downs. We continue to rejoice with our daughter, as well as work through her insecurities and emotional lows. Today we celebrate God's plan for restoration in our daughter's life. It has been an honor to be her parents the last three years! We pray that God will show us exactly what our daughter needs from us and that He will continue to use us to restore what has been broken. Happy 3 Years Brynn AiXin! We love you more than life itself! It is an honor to be your parents!
I love that Brynn's Gotcha is in November... National Adoption Awareness Month. I read this amazing
blog post... it spoke to my soul. She wrote exactly what I needed to hear. I am pasting a portion below, but click
HERE to read the entire post. Since I print my blog into a memory book, I never dwell on the struggles we face. Adoption is beautiful, but it is a hard road. I am so thankful that we didn't let our own fears keep us from allowing God to use us for His glory. We pray daily that we will keep our eyes on Him and allow Him to do the rest.
And this is what I want to share with y’all. With those of us that choose to follow Him off the beaten path and onto the exceedingly beautiful but often crooked path of adoption. Adoption is one heck of a sanctifying experience. It will showcase your fears, anxieties and failings. It will make you want to run screaming from the room when your selfishness surfaces or your laziness reigns again. It will reveal all the broken places you’ve not-so-effectively covered up. It will point out your sinfulness like nothing else. Adoption is walking out God’s call to “love your neighbor as yourself.” To “care for the least of these.” To bring a child that was once a complete stranger into your home to love and cherish forever. And the truth of it is, sometimes your “neighbor” drives you absolutely nutty. Sometimes your “neighbor” shrieks all night and throws temper tantrums all day. Sometimes the needs of the “least of these” positively overwhelms. Sometimes you fear that you can’t even parent your other children well for trying to fill the seemingly unending needs of one child. Sometimes you feel like you simply can’t go on one. more. day. This is when, if you allow Him, He will show you that you are as broken and in need as the child you are trying to parent. This is when, if you allow it, He will do His mightiest, most redemptive work in you. This is when, if you allow it, He will make you more like His Son. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 . So don’t miss this, struggling mama. God uses the weak, the broken, and the flawed to fulfill His plans. He calls us to join Him in this mighty, redemptive work called adoption. He brings children out of orphanages, binds up their wounds and makes them beloved children. And He uses every bit of the joy and the pain to point us back to His goodness for His glory. We just have to keep our eyes on Him, and trust Him to do the rest. - See more at: http://nihaoyall.com/2013/11/theres-no-such-thing-as-an-easy-adoption.html#sthash.DDoU1Lp3.dpuf
