I feel like I’m in an infinite loop - it’s another Sunday night and I wonder if I should get my hopes up while simultaniously already imagining the phone ringing tomorrow morning. Am I glutton for punishment or what? Well, before I delve into that topic any further, I’ll take a moment to savor the good things from this weekend…

  • We had the world’s best weather. All you people in other states just take for granted that your summer will be sunny and hot. Not us in the Pacific NW… up until Friday we were still enduring wet cold “springlike” weather, the kind that the slugs love and the rest of us could do without. But that all ended Friday and we’ve had perfect blue skies and 80+ degree weather all weekend. Amazing. It’s definitely a little harder to be in a blue funk when the weather is this nice. So that’s a good thing.

  • We had a lovely outing to the zoo today in honor of R~’s 5th birthday. Technically, her birthday is tomorrow, but B~ has to work and it’s also our anniversary, so we cheated and declared today her “official” birthday. (and we figured after noon it’s the 26th in Cambodia where she was born, so technically it’s 5 years since she was born… right?) We also did ice cream cake and presents and all that. A nice quiet family birthday party, just the way I like ‘em.
  • B~’s parents emailed this weekend that they are re-thinking their plans to come out in August. Apparently they caught on that I wasn’t altogether thrilled with the idea. (hmm, guess I wasn’t as subtle as I thought!) Not sure what they are going to do, but hopefully they won’t come right as we’re heading off to Vietnam. (y’know, if we ever get approval to actually go to Vietnam)

Zeeb and this neverending wait were often on my mind, of course. I had a dream last night that Zeeb was home, finally, and I was picking him up from the elementary school. But he wasn’t three, he was more like eight. The principal was trying to say his full Vietnamese name (and totally mangling it) and I was teaching these three boys how to say “hi friend” in Vietnamese. And then as I took Zeeb’s hand, he told me (in Vietnamese) that he would like to call me “Aunt” and B~ “Uncle”. It made me sad but I acted fine with it because I wanted him to be happy. And I think that about sums up all my subconsious fears about this adoption in one short little dream.

I’m reading another Philip Yancey book, this one is called “Disappointment with God.” So far it hasn’t given me any super-deep insights, but it is nice to read a Christian book that acknowledges that often times things don’t go our way, no matter how hard we pray or how much faith we have. I think that’s something I still struggle with — the idea that being a Christian doesn’t always protect you from bad things happening or give you an easy way out when life gets hard. As it says in Matthew 5:45, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” God is not some holy genie and just because I ask for something doesn’t mean he’s going to make it happen. But I know he cares and somehow he can use this whole frustrating experience for good, if I will let him. And I guess that’s the benefit of being a Christian. That and the whole heaven thing. ;-)

Anyway, here we are at Sunday night again. I know a lot of people are praying for us to get good news this week and I am so thankful for those prayers. It helps me feel less alone in this journey. I really hope I have good news to post tomorrow morning. If not, I’ll do a cheesy ode to our 13th wedding anniversary. So really it’s a win-win, right?