This past weekend my family was involved in a wedding out in Ohio. It was the wedding of one of my cousins, and she had asked my sister to sing, and my Dad and I to "officiate" the ceremony. This was the first time my Dad and I actually got to do a wedding together, so I was pretty excited. My excitement quickly turned to nervousness when my Dad told me that I was going to do my part in Spanish. While I have been studying Spanish on my own (dying to speak it fluently), the reality is I DON"T SPEAK FLUENTLY! Well, it actually went awesome. I read everything out of a little notebook my Dad had created for me, and it ended up being a lot of fun...my first debut with my Dad and my first debut doing it in Spanish!

Although speaking Spanish was one of the highlights, the bigger highlight was spending time with my 4 year old niece Emma, and my cousin's 6 year old daughter Maddie. My sisters had "conveniently" chose to fly to Ohio, and left my Dad and I to fend for ourselves on a 6 hour drive to Ohio with the 4 year old (actually my older sister chose to fly with her 4 month old, and my younger sister was coming from Boston...understandable!). But seriously??? My Dad and I??? We are the least experienced "kid" people. The whole thing was humorous.

The trip with Emma was actually flawless. I would like to now think my Dad and I are pros. We could totally go into business driving people's kids places! When we arrived in Ohio, we were introduced to Maddie, my cousin's daughter. Emma quickly made friends with Maddie, and within a few hours, it was like they had known each other their whole life. It was like watching a "best buddy" friendship unfold before my eyes, and it melted my heart.

After having spent several hours together, my Dad and I found ourselves strapping the two little ones in the car who had now become best friends, and driving to the airport at 10:30pm to pick up my two sisters. My mom had given Emma a bunch of presents to open throughout the car trip to Ohio to keep her busy. She still had several left, so she decided to share a few with Maddie. Here was the conversation:

Emma..."Maddie you can open this one." Maddie opens the present and her eyes light up to the sight of a candy necklace. Maddie..."Emma, you must have a really nice Grammy. Can you make sure to thank her for the present." Emma..."Yeah my grammy is really nice. I bet she would make you a basket of presents too." Maddie..."That's ok, tell her she doesn't have to waste her money on me!"

The conversation proceeded to be about things that made them sad in life...not getting to see people they are close to and dogs that had died and gone to heaven. The conversation was filled with laughter at times as they talked about how crazy "Pop Pop" is when he dances and sings in the car (to which my Father totally denied), and as they mimicked the Mexican lasso tradition they saw at the wedding rehearsal (you'll have to look that one up to totally understand) placing one gigantic glow stick necklace over their two heads claiming, "Now we are married!" The conversation ended with little 6 year old Maddie looking at me and saying, "I wish Emma was my sister...she is really nice."

It's not very often that I get to spend large quantities of time with little ones (not having your own children yet, and living in the teen world haven't really allowed for that). I wanted to share the stories from this weekend, because I can't begin to describe to you how much my heart grew this weekend just by spending time with a 4 year old and a 6 year old. Their conversations made my heart smile, and I just felt like a richer person having gotten to be a small part of their world this weekend.

I imagine every day what it will be like to have kids in my own home that I can love on every minute. I imagine what it will be like to drive down the highway listening to their raw and honest conversations. But most of all, I imagine the amount of love that I will have to offer them when they finally arrive, as my life unfolds as a new mom. In the meantime, I am so thankful that God has put little ones in my life that give me a glimpse of that road ahead and how incredibly full my heart will be when I call them my own.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Donut Story

Image
When I was about five years into being a Youth Pastor, I met a group of kids that changed my life.  Many of you reading this, who know me personally, have probably heard me talk about them numerous times.  Nate and I happened to live in the parsonage next door to the church I was serving at at the time, and would routinely come home to a group of boys that I would have described then as "rough around the edges."   They dressed mostly in black, had long hair, and sometimes even had black painted fingernails.  They loved to smoke, and they loved to skateboard.  After a few days of watching them through our window, Nate and I went outside and brought them some sodas.  We introduced ourselves, told them I was the Youth Pastor at the church, and invited them to come to youth group.  While they politely declined our invitation, we continued to invite them over and over again, attempted to skate with them, and fill them with snacks.  Until one day, ...
Read more

A Mother's Heart...

Image
It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again.  There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk. While words can be few and...
Read more

Stories Matter

Image
Yesterday, my family and I found ourselves at a local elementary school’s culture club, presenting about our trip to Ethiopia. Even as I write those words, it kind of blows my mind how God has continued to use our story in unexpected places. When the kids were old enough to understand, we began to talk about taking them back to their birth country when they turned 10. We figured at 10, they would be old enough to be pretty good travelers, but still approach the adventure with a childlike wonder. What we didn’t plan on, was that the year Biruk turned 10 would come on the heels of me taking a brand new job, our family moving to a new state, and buying our very first house, in an economy that felt as though it was tanking!  I remember talking to my counselor one day and sharing with him that while we had always promised this trip to our kids, it just didn’t seem to make financial sense. After all, last time I checked, Southwest Airlines does not travel to Africa. He said someth...
Read more