Troops, you can stand down.
Thank you all so much for everything you have done over the past couple of weeks, whether it's been offering up rooms in your houses, spreading the word to others, or simply praying for us as we continue on this journey. I know it's been less than forty-eight hours since I posted an entry saying that we're back to square one and I'm totally unable to see God's plan in all this, but trust me: I've never been happier to eat my own words.
On Sunday, right before I hit publish on that last entry, I reached out to the friend who had connected us with the original apartment. She had another contact in the same community and promised to get in touch with them. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the second couple, offering us their house from mid-June until mid-August. Three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, fifteen minutes' walk to the hospital. We're going to meet them after our next appointment at CHOP on the 21st and sort out how we'll be paying their utilities for the summer, which is all they're asking of us. I also heard from another family who has offered us a floor of their house, complete with two bedrooms and a kitchen of our own for the weeks before and indefinitely after the Philly house is available to us, in case things don't go as smoothly as we're hoping they will. (It's about half an hour outside of the city, but we're feeling okay about being a bit further away once we're out of that initial critical period surrounding Ethan's birth and first open heart surgery.)
We are also going to have a car; a friend who I had the honour of precepting during her extern summer many years ago is generously donating one to us. It's getting some work done right now but should be road ready within a week or so. It turns out that Ellen Degeneres is also giving away cars, so I asked her for a new one, since the one we're getting has many miles on it and isn't big enough to work for a family of four long-term (which is what we're hoping we'll get to be). I'm sure I'll be hearing from her soon. (This is the part where I wish there was a font that could properly express sarcasm plus tongue-in-cheek, mixed with just a tiny bit of crazy hope...)
My entire body broke out into a sweat when I read the e-mail about the house. (Granted, this could have been more to do with the pregnancy hormones than anything else, but I'm going with sheer excitement. Work with me.) Remember when I casually mentioned that I thought God was going to do more than we could ask or imagine? Apparently after I typed that I went on to completely forget it, because when the possibility of the first apartment surfaced, all I could think was, This is exactly what we were hoping for. It's perfect.
God, it seems, is not in the business of giving us what we were hoping for.
Take that any way you want. I'm certainly seeing it from both sides right now, my heart and mind torn between two extremes like it so often is these days.
I don't want you to think that there's a single corner of my soul that doesn't love my son as deeply and fiercely as it is possible for a mama to love, but I will admit (albeit in a very small and shaky voice) that he's not what I was hoping for. Hope is a longing, a deep desire for something to happen, and there's no part of me that wanted this to be the road my son and our family would walk. No one daydreams happily of a future that includes open heart surgeries and long hospitalizations and more uncertainty than you could possibly imagine. No one.
When I saw those two pink lines on the stick back in October, my hopes were vastly different than they are now. I was dreaming of things like a baby who slept through the night before he was twenty months old. Maybe he'd be a great eater. Or maybe he'd have curly hair like his Dada and sister. Those are the kind of things you hope for. Not a heart put together wrong and a body that isn't going to work quite right and a desperate plea for just one more day with him, please God.
An apartment seems like such a small thing in the face of all that, but coming to terms with the fact that nothing is going to be the way you pictured it is a hard thing to do, and having such a 'perfect' place felt like it was somehow going to make things better. It was something that I'd hoped for that was actually coming true, and it felt like such a victory.
But God is not in the business of giving us what we hoped for.
He knows that all our hopes, our wildest dreams and most elaborate longings cannot hold a candle to the plan that He's weaving together for us. He is not a God who does things by halves. We hope to find a car we can afford and someone gives us one for free. We hope for two bedrooms and He gives us three. We hope for an apartment and He has an entire house prepared for us.
I hoped for a baby with a perfect heart, and He gave me Ethan. Surely this is no mistake. If there is any foundation on which to place my faltering feet, it has to be this one. That He is making all things new, working tirelessly to draw the good and the best out of every single situation that has been warped by the brokenness of the world.
That more than you can ask or imagine means precisely that.
Thank you all so much for everything you have done over the past couple of weeks, whether it's been offering up rooms in your houses, spreading the word to others, or simply praying for us as we continue on this journey. I know it's been less than forty-eight hours since I posted an entry saying that we're back to square one and I'm totally unable to see God's plan in all this, but trust me: I've never been happier to eat my own words.
On Sunday, right before I hit publish on that last entry, I reached out to the friend who had connected us with the original apartment. She had another contact in the same community and promised to get in touch with them. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the second couple, offering us their house from mid-June until mid-August. Three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, fifteen minutes' walk to the hospital. We're going to meet them after our next appointment at CHOP on the 21st and sort out how we'll be paying their utilities for the summer, which is all they're asking of us. I also heard from another family who has offered us a floor of their house, complete with two bedrooms and a kitchen of our own for the weeks before and indefinitely after the Philly house is available to us, in case things don't go as smoothly as we're hoping they will. (It's about half an hour outside of the city, but we're feeling okay about being a bit further away once we're out of that initial critical period surrounding Ethan's birth and first open heart surgery.)
We are also going to have a car; a friend who I had the honour of precepting during her extern summer many years ago is generously donating one to us. It's getting some work done right now but should be road ready within a week or so. It turns out that Ellen Degeneres is also giving away cars, so I asked her for a new one, since the one we're getting has many miles on it and isn't big enough to work for a family of four long-term (which is what we're hoping we'll get to be). I'm sure I'll be hearing from her soon. (This is the part where I wish there was a font that could properly express sarcasm plus tongue-in-cheek, mixed with just a tiny bit of crazy hope...)
My entire body broke out into a sweat when I read the e-mail about the house. (Granted, this could have been more to do with the pregnancy hormones than anything else, but I'm going with sheer excitement. Work with me.) Remember when I casually mentioned that I thought God was going to do more than we could ask or imagine? Apparently after I typed that I went on to completely forget it, because when the possibility of the first apartment surfaced, all I could think was, This is exactly what we were hoping for. It's perfect.
God, it seems, is not in the business of giving us what we were hoping for.
Take that any way you want. I'm certainly seeing it from both sides right now, my heart and mind torn between two extremes like it so often is these days.
I don't want you to think that there's a single corner of my soul that doesn't love my son as deeply and fiercely as it is possible for a mama to love, but I will admit (albeit in a very small and shaky voice) that he's not what I was hoping for. Hope is a longing, a deep desire for something to happen, and there's no part of me that wanted this to be the road my son and our family would walk. No one daydreams happily of a future that includes open heart surgeries and long hospitalizations and more uncertainty than you could possibly imagine. No one.
When I saw those two pink lines on the stick back in October, my hopes were vastly different than they are now. I was dreaming of things like a baby who slept through the night before he was twenty months old. Maybe he'd be a great eater. Or maybe he'd have curly hair like his Dada and sister. Those are the kind of things you hope for. Not a heart put together wrong and a body that isn't going to work quite right and a desperate plea for just one more day with him, please God.
An apartment seems like such a small thing in the face of all that, but coming to terms with the fact that nothing is going to be the way you pictured it is a hard thing to do, and having such a 'perfect' place felt like it was somehow going to make things better. It was something that I'd hoped for that was actually coming true, and it felt like such a victory.
But God is not in the business of giving us what we hoped for.
He knows that all our hopes, our wildest dreams and most elaborate longings cannot hold a candle to the plan that He's weaving together for us. He is not a God who does things by halves. We hope to find a car we can afford and someone gives us one for free. We hope for two bedrooms and He gives us three. We hope for an apartment and He has an entire house prepared for us.
I hoped for a baby with a perfect heart, and He gave me Ethan. Surely this is no mistake. If there is any foundation on which to place my faltering feet, it has to be this one. That He is making all things new, working tirelessly to draw the good and the best out of every single situation that has been warped by the brokenness of the world.
That more than you can ask or imagine means precisely that.