With a guarded heart

I reached a big turning point this week, I called S my son yesterday and when blogging I wrote MY KIDS. I know that sounds small but it was a HUGE deal for me. I have had faith all along that God would provide for our adoption, and I have never had a single flicker of doubt that we would end up with the perfect match for our family but I was scared to death to call R and S mine because we still needed SO much money. I wanted to open my heart and embrace that they were one day going to be sleeping in MY home, playing in MY yard and part of MY family but what if these two beautiful children were not the perfect match, what if God was using them as a stepping point, guiding us in a direction that lead us to where he wanted us to be. I have known for quite some time that I was in fact guarding my heart protecting it from breaking if we did not make the finical goals to keep S and R I needed to be safe from hurt but I lost the battle. It started with little cracks like the night I dreamed of the first day Craig and I get to meet, hold and hug S and R. I could see their faces, feel the warmth of the Ethiopian air, the shaking of my body from the nerves and even taste the tears that left me as they first touched my skin. I felt my heart split every so much more with each gift of prayer, time, love and finical support because we were one dollar closer to them. With every phone call and email that I shared with Caitlin (our family coordinator) I knew I had just lost another stitch that I had desperately sewn in to try and keep my heart from bursting but for whatever reason yesterday was the day that I let it go. I stopped retying the threads that were unraveling, stopped hiding behind my fear and allowed MY heart to take it's first beats as a mother of 5. Those are MY babies in Ethiopia and NOTHING will stop me from reaching them and bringing them home so that it's MY hugs and MY kisses tucking them in at night, MY smiles they are greeted with every morning and MY love they feel when I'm holding them safe , warm and tight.