We knew this could happen...

This is what we signed up for.  We signed up for the uncertainty and the risk.  We signed up for this because these little lives are worth the risk and they are deserving of love even if they're stuck in a flawed system.

But there is no way to prepare your heart or your head for having a child taken from you.

There have been and will be tears and all the various stages of grief (though I preemptively began that process last week when I found out that this might happen).  We may have only had our little booger for about 2 months, but we loved on him and treated him as if he were our own, and in our hearts he always will be.

He's not going back to the bad situation he was taken from.  Where he's going we are led to believe he will be safe, loved and care for.  Where he's going he will have both a mom a dad and he'll be reunited with a biological sibling, and they will be raised together in the same home.  We are sad that it will not be our home.

Its going to be a somewhat gradual transition and it looks like we're going to get to meet his new family.  We'll hopefully get to pass along the tid-bits of personal information on our booger.  That is not typically how this works.  We can share with them the formula that seems to set well with his tummy and what his current sleep schedule is.  We're going to send him with pictures and the quilt that was so lovingly made for him by a dear friend of ours.  Hopefully they will feel comfortable keeping us informed as to how he's doing.

We will miss him for sure, but I know that this means God has other children in mind for us.  He just needed us to take care of Booger for a bit so that his forever family could get their bearings.  The reasons given by the powers that be don't really matter, as illogical and unfair as they may seem.  God is ultimately in control and he always has a reason and purpose.  We are grateful for the time that we've had with him and the love we were able to show him.

And before you all go painting us as saints or these strong people that you could never be...  My heart is very broken as is Jeremy's, and thoughts throwing in the towel have certainly crossed both of our minds.  I've eaten my fair share of chocolate this last week and if we kept ice cream in the house it would be all gone.  Our strength is not our own.  Our hope is in Christ, and his call on our lives is to care for the orphaned.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:26-27

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:32-33