Happy 3 year Gotcha Day!

It has been three years since we walked into Beijing SWI and took the hand of Ren Qianting to bring her home.  

We have gone from this:

 To this:

And from here:

To here:

The last post was waayyyy back in June of 2011, just two months after arriving home with Lydia, TingTing as we called her at the time.  Then much to the dismay of all who followed us while we were in China, I abruptly stopped the updates.  

To answer the question: why'd you quit blogging? I have to give a very honest answer: because life got hard. Very soon after our last post at Lydia's 4th birthday, we came to the end of what we refer to as the honeymoon. And very quickly our life became very hard and very real for what has felt like a very long time. Between Lydia's adjustments and our own adjustments, as well as some challenging health problems for me, not only could I not find the energy or time to write on the blog, I have to say honestly I couldn't even process my days well enough sometimes to write about them in a coherent way. Instead I was the one reading some blog posts of others who were in the trenches with us trying to find some sense and encouragement for what we were wading through. 

Parenting, true parenting, is never for the faint of heart. And parenting hurting children is not for the faint of heart, body, or soul. But God is good - all the time - even in valleys and climbing out of them up rocky hills. And as you get up the hill and peek back at the view, it seems that's when we can glimpse the beauty of the valley that we couldn't see as clearly when we were in it. 

The grief - silent angry grief, the passive aggression, the paralyzing fear, the happy-girl facade - all of it makes the person who is emerging that much more beautiful. This precious little girl who is so intelligent, so focused, who seeks approval and affirmation to no end, who actually plays - really plays now, who is still haunted by fears but is learning to conquer those fears through trust - we didn't know this little girl at all at the beginning. And it has taken a faith larger than we knew we had even three years ago today when she first took my hand. 

I don't write this to sound overly dramatic, but rather to be honest and transparent. It hasn't been every minute happiness and stability. In fact there were many days that felt everything but that. But the truth is, we have to choose to "count it all joy", as it's all a part of this journey that the Lord has taken us on. And as the video shows, there have been so many moments of joy and fun and just learning to do life together.  And where we are today is so different than where we were 3 years ago, it's really quite hard to put into words.  The feelings are more felt and certainly more shown, the happiness is more genuine, the smiles are more relaxed (mine too for that matter), the days are more consistent, the relationships are more trusted, grace is given more freely, and the Lord is more relied upon.

Anytime there is this much personal growth in this amount of time for this many people, it's never what we would call "easy". But it's definitely what we would call good. 

To God be the glory!