Surprised but not shaken, stunned but celebrating

Last Sunday was Resurrection Day, so I decided to have the kids do something fun to celebrate (that didn't involve Easter eggs).  We made "Resurrection rolls" (got the idea from Pinterest...yes, I'm a dedicated pinner).  I made homemade dough which represents the linen wrappings that covered Jesus.  The kids then rolled a large marshmallow in cinnamon and sugar (to represent the burial spices) and wrapped dough around it.  As you can see, it was a messy process:



We then put the rolls in the oven (the tomb) and waited (not quite three days, but you get the picture).  The result is that the marshmallow seems to "disappear" and the roll is "empty" just as the tomb was.  Not everyone was thrilled that the marshmallow had "disappeared,"  others enjoyed that the marshmallow oozed out in places.



By the way, it looks like chocolate inside (and believe me, if I could have gotten chocolate marshmallows we would have used them), but it's the cinnamon.


Some wanted to wear theirs...


Others just wanted to keep eating and eating and eating....
I thought this exercise was a good object lesson to describe Jesus' resurrection...but of course I got the following question from this little guy...

"So you mean Jesus melted????????" Oh well, can't win them all.

On to another topic (the "surprised but not shaken" part) which involves this guy...
 

There is so much to this, but I am going to try to keep it brief (ha ha).  God in His infinite wisdom revealed something to us recently about LB.  When God created LB, He used a unique pattern that caused his brain to develop (or rather not develop) in a unique way.  To give you the official diagnosis, he has "holoprosencephaly and agenesis of the corpus collosum."  At its very basic meaning, his brain did not split in places it should and he is missing his corpus collosum. 

Let me say that this diagnosis would not have been discovered if we hadn't pushed to have his muscle tension looked at (turns out that the muscle stiffness is just a very minor effect of what he has).  The neurologist, just to be safe, had an MRI done on LB to check on his spinal cord.  Never did we think we would be getting this result.  We have no doubt that this was revealed to us now, as we would have never chosen LB based on that diagnosis.  Brain disorder? Delays? Possible seizures? Too hard! Yet when we received the diagnosis, God said very clearly to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." 

Our visit on Monday with the neurologist was both overwhelming and encouraging.  LB is on the very high functioning end of the holoprosencephaly (HP) scale and is expected to lead an independent life.  That was encouraging.  The overwhelming part was that we now have a "team" of experts we need to consult.  We are waiting for appointments with an opthamologist, a geneticist, an occupational therapist, and an endocrinologist.  This is in addition to our neurologist and possibly a developmental pediatrician.  Even in that overwhelmingness is praise that all these people are in place to help us.  So that was this past Monday.

On Tuesday I was praying that in light of what we learned about LB, that God would make it extremely clear if we should continue to pursue a concurrent adoption.  Remember that if we get our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) for our little one now before getting matched with another kiddo, we will probably have to travel twice.  Hardly an appealing option. The LOAs are taking about three months and we are now in our third month of waiting.   I e-mailed our agency on Monday night to ask if the LOAs were still coming on that 3 month timeline, and if we should prepare ourselves for having to travel twice.

About an hour after I had been praying for God's clarity, our agency called in response to my e-mail.  Yes, LOAs were taking three months on average.  Yes, they knew we were hoping to be matched with another one before our LOA comes.  And...wow was my timing impeccable.  They had been planning to call us anyway to ask us to look at another sweetie's file!  Wow, that was a pretty clear answer! So yes, we will be bringing two daughters home this year!  Here is the stunning part...one is 18 months old, the other is 14 months old! Eeeeek!!! Back to babies!!!!!

I know there will be those out there that doubt the wisdom of bringing two more little ones home.  Here is what I have to say about that.  God will never give us more than we can handle.  If LB's condition was going to be so difficult, we would never have gotten the call for our second daughter (actually that would be 4th daughter, but you know what I mean).  I'm not saying our road will be easy, but we didn't sign up for easy. 

I can't reveal much about D2 (daughter 2), as we are still early in the process, but she will need some extra help.  Thankfully, because of LB, we already have a team assembled! We were able to send her medical reports (which included a CT scan) to our neurologist (who happens to be the very very best) who also had a neuroradiologist look at it (did you know there was such a thing?).  He could not tell us much, but clearly there were issues we need to have addressed.  There was a brief lingering fear that we could discover that she has so much more than what is on her report (like LB), but we cannot live in fear.  God also told me (He has to be really clear with me, because I don't always listen well) very clearly, that it sure was a good thing that He chose me in spite of how difficult I was, so how could I not choose her?

So there you go, we are indeed stunned but celebrating, and I mean for all of it.  God will use all of this to His glory and that makes us very very happy!