This...

I walked into their room---almost only her room again---to find my Mermaid violently shoving our Toddler's leftover unpacked clothes into a hot-pink suitcase.  Her movements had an edge to them that I recognized in my own forced motions.  She was hurting.  And she was trying to hide it.  I shut her door and made her come sit with me.

As she walked over to collapse into my lap she began to groan an angry:  I DON'T WANT THEM TO LEAVE.  I felt the weight of all that my family had opened itself up to this last year and half crash full-force around me.

{This, this is why you didn't want to foster, isn't it?


Yes, baby.  This exactly.  (I didn't mention that the part I was referring to was her pain)


But, I am glad we got the Littles.

Yes, baby.  Me too.  So glad.}

I left her room wondering when she'd blossomed into this complex creature who felt so deeply and loved so fiercely and tried to look so strong amidst internal sorrow.  Again I was reminded how she encapsulated so much of me and her Daddy yet was fast becoming a version of us that was all her own.  I headed to my bedroom and shut the door.  I stumbled into my bathroom and shut that door as well.  I slid down the wall and cried the hottest tears I have cried in a very long time hoping that the insulation of two closed doors would protect my children from seeing their Mom truly fall apart.

I thought about my friend and her recent tattoo of a lotus.  Apparently they bloom in mud and muck.  I thought about how God could use the fracture my absence is creating in my toddler's heart to develop the early plantings of character and of compassion.  I imagine my Spider-man as a Joseph to his family.  A child who will grow into a man that will lead the way to redemption of a whole family...a cycle breaker.  I thought about my "one" who was no longer with us.  How we practiced facing unimaginable disappointment and packing of possessions and the shelving of our own expectations.

I didn't ask for ANY of this. 

But down deep I know that I did.  When I asked Him to empty me...to break my heart for what breaks His...to help my family learn to live a life that is fully poured out.

This, this unselfish love for others that can only be found in Him--- His example as a parent to His children who He loves more than I can ever comprehend.   

This, while painful to watch, is beautiful to live.

Tomorrow a family will be reunited.  At a great cost to my own.  But at an even greater by-product of growth for my own.   

For this, I am so glad.