Changed.

So, Monday begins the last full month I will be employed by the Texas Baptist Home. That hit me today as I was walking from my building to the next to get some more printer ink. That’s been happening a lot lately. I’ll be doing my “every day things” and Bam.—I’m hit with a dose of reality. I know it’s all a part of the Lord preparing my heart for what He has next, and I find it comforting, but it’s made me oh, so nostalgic. Goodness, Lord knows I don’t ever need help being nostalgic; it comes quite natural to me. :)

Not that these past 3 year and 8 months will ever, EVER be able to be whittled down to simple numbers, but I figured something out today:

When they day comes (Sept. 3rd) for me to move on from TBH to uncharted waters, I will have had the enormous, overwhelmingly beautiful, eye opening privilege to have personally been a part of (if I counted correctly) 56 children being adopted. I will have personally served alongside 38 adoptive couples who had their lives radically transformed by the gift of adoption. This doesn’t include the couples that are still waiting to adopt that I worked with or those that decided adoption through TBH wasn’t for them, or those that adopted prior to me stepping into the adoption case manager position that I was able to work with in a number of different ways, or even those couples that decided that strictly fostering was where they were called.

I can't help but become extremely emotional just typing that out because I am sitting here and see all of the faces, hear all of the conversations, and feel the pangs of fear and grief and sacrifice and joy and elation and provision that come with adoption. (Is this the time to point out and correlate all of this to the life of my Lord Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on the Cross?? Good. Thought so.) My mind is just flooded and I pray I don’t ever lose any of what I just mentioned. It is all so woven into who I have become, that I honestly don’t see how it could leave me. Thank you, Jesus.

You know what? I don’t get it. I just don’t get why I would be allowed to experience and be a part of something so wonderful and sanctifying and challenging and wholeheartedly life changing. I am changed. I will never be the same because of the past 3 plus years. I don’t know that I’ll ever fully understand the Lord’s grace in allowing me to serve here at TBH and work with all of the people I have, but I do know that whatever the reason, I am grateful. Words will never do justice to how eternally grateful I am.

My soul has been moved. Adoption is so much more than the means of receiving a child. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve expressed that to people—both those that want to adopt and those that say they have no desire whatsoever. It is one way the Lord has allowed me to see His Gospel lived out today. It is of God, created by God, and God glorifying. I think i'll go ahead and save all of this for another post.

So, my heart is heavy today. It is heavy with all of the wonderful memories of the lives and Love I have been a part of the past 3 years and 8 months.

Thank you, Father for this eternal gift.