I loved this enough to pass it on...

I read this today and it really touched my heart. I know there are a lot of our adoption friends that read this blog....so this one's for you! May it bring a tear to your eye and a smile to your face, just as it did to mine! Enjoy!
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We Are So Blessed

We have the opportunity to pray and wait and plan and hope and dream and work for our child. Circumstances don't allow us to take our child for granted...ever. We do all these things for so long and at such great emotional cost, that when our child is finally in our arms, we truly cherish every minute...every second.

We are blessed to be in our child's life. We are blessed that God planned for us to be a family, and that we were given the opportunities that brought us together. We get to see all the best parts of mankind in our wonderful children. All the goodness and potential and innocence and ambition and confidence and love. And what a beautiful sight that is.

We are blessed to have run this race. It is long and often it is practically impossible to complete. But we run anyway, and believe in ourselves and our child enough to do the impossible. We run, knowing that at the end of this great race, a child is waiting for a chance at a wonderful life. And we get to be the ones to give them that life. WOW!

We are blessed that when our child laughs, we are the ones to hear it. And when our child cries, we are the ones she looks for. When our child feels pain or joy or accomplishment or excitement, she shares it with us.

We are so blessed to have had the chance to see life from a different angle. To see that things don't always go as you planned them out in 5th grade - but that better things are in store. To be part of the few who feel constantly misunderstood. To be one who always has to be on guard against the rude and ignorant comment. To feel the frustration of not having the perfect comeback to that comment until 3 hours later. Our kids can use those experiences and lessons we have learned. We are deeper, stronger, more compassionate people because of the journey. And the world our child lives in is better because we have grown in those ways.

Our child is blessed. She is patted and hugged and nestled and rocked and kissed and squeezed and taught and tickled and corrected and praised. She is told of her value in God's eyes. She is certain of her value in our eyes. And she never wonders if she will be cared for tomorrow or the next day...she sleeps comfortable each night, safe in our care.

We should tell our children we are proud - we have saved and scrimped, prayed and begged, planned and schemed, worked and worried, and hoped endlessly for them.

We have dedicated years of our lives to finding them and bringing them home to their forever family.

And we have given our whole hearts to them even before we ever saw that precious face.

Now THAT is love.

And parents who adopt know all about that.

Author Unknown