So I didn't actually end up blogging two days in a row.  Who did I even think I was kidding.  While I'm glad that I wrote the last post of updates, I feel like the motivation to write sort of got used up.  Now, what I thought was important for me to document has sort of lost its immediacy.  Or perhaps it is because winter has finally arrived to Missouri in this second week of January.  Alas...

I guess what I really want to write about was the duration of my longing for a son.  I know.  This blog is totally a bummer.  Longing... waiting... longing...  Which gets me to thinking about the relativity of time.  We've been waiting nearly 9 months.  I was engaged longer than that.  Oh that wedding day seemed so decidedly out of reach.  And then along the way I blinked and opened my eyes to 7.5 years of marriage, a five year old and a 2.5 year old.

I was thinking the other morning about children.  Specifically, my desire to become a mother.  Six years ago this month Emerson and I boarded a plane for Skopje, Macedonia.  My heart was nearly torn to shreds with longing.  I had just miscarried our first child.  My arms ached for a child.  And while in Macedonia I began to pray, earnestly, fervently, face to the floor with tears streaming down my face that, like Hannah, God would hear the longing of my heart and give me a son. (1 Samuel 1)  I prayed that, like Barnabas, he would be a son of encouragement (Acts 4:36)

About 9 months later we welcomed our daughter Angalina into the world.  God had heard my prayers and indeed answered them in his own perfect way.  Juniper arrived 2.5 years later.  Honestly we were a bit surprised by the emergence of another baby girl, but thrilled.  Our God gives good gifts.  When we started the adoption paperwork chase a little over a year ago it seemed most likely that we would wind up with a boy.  That was just the statistical odds at the time.  By the end of our paperwork journey those odds had flipped and we had a decision to make.  Do we specify a gender preference (which honestly, just saying "preference" didn't sit well) or do we remain open to the quickest placement of either gender.  At first we left our option open.  Ane persisted in adamantly proclaiming her desire for a brother.  We reasoned and prayed and sought godly counsel.  Is making our preference known an act of wresting with God for control of our fate, or just another act of obedience, following the path he laid out for us?  In the end we decided to just go for it and request a boy.  We have all felt such peace over this decision.  Ane prays daily for her brother.  Such heart-felt, innocent, faithful prayers for him.

And as I was praying for him yesterday it struck me.  I have not been waiting 9 months for my son.  I have been waiting 6 years.  Ever since first giving voice to the desire of my heart for a son, an encourager to me.  God is answering my prayer, but he has invited me to participate with him in realizing the desire of my heart.  This road has been fraught with doubt, discouragement, distraction and fear, but in this journey I have deepened intimacy with the One who calls me to adventure by his side.  And isn't that his greatest gift? The gift of his abiding presence as we seek to follow him.  I truly believe that God speaks to us through the desires of our hearts.  For when we seek the fulfillment of those desires in Him it is He Himself whom we will always find.

As a teenager I came across a quote written in the dorm room of a friend with whom I stayed on a college visit.  It stuck me as powerful and I wrote it down and it hung on my mirror until my parents sold our home after I had moved out.  It said:
My goal is God Himself.
Not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing,
but Himself, my God.

All our hearts long for find fulfillment in Him.  My son, the one for whom my heart cried out with longing, has been found in this journey of obedience and communion with my Savior.