Are you ok?

The answer to that question is, "no! But we will be."  It appears I've been crying all week about anything.  Goldfish crackers on the counter.  Leah loves those.  The Good Doctor.  Leah loves that show. I cried while making eclair dessert and kielbasa soup.  Leah loves those.  I cried while putting the twins to bed, that started a whole nother mess :)  And all of this was while Leah was still home :)  WOW, what a hot mess!!

I'd like to explain Leah for a minute.  She was a good baby!  (Obviously we went on to have 4 more :)  She was a rough toddler.  She was very determined and would not give in easily (sometimes at all.)  She use to ask what her consequence would be.  She was weighing her options on if the deed was worth doing.  As she got older, we could reason with her.  Talk to her.  She still may have made some dumb decisions (I still do :) but she understood, learned and moved on.  Her motherly instincts came out with her sisters, and from what I hear with her friends as well.  She became someone I wanted to (and still love to) hang out with. Her sisters are going to miss Leah telling them what to do for the next 6 months.  Some of us will miss watching Greys Anatomy and Bachelor with her (we will DVR them :)  Steve and I will miss her talking her sisters down while they are FREAKING OUT about something, when she says "I've seen mom and dad really mad, you don't want to do this."  (she tells them other things that we don't know about.  They all come back happy so we don't really care :)  We pray she can get up on time at the orphanage and be happy in the morning, but she's in Africa, its all on her now.

In my time of talking with God this week, I expressed to Him my sadness of letting her go and my joyfulness of her going.  And one thing I kept hearing back was, "thanks for raising her, I got this now."
I think I've shared this before, but years back, when Brooke was sick, Steve said to me, "Shelly we need to let her go."  Obviously that had to do with Brooke being so sick, but that has stuck with my parenting ever since.  As selfish as I want to be, these 5 BEAUTIFUL girls are not ours. I want to keep them in my home and in my arms forever.  But they are on loan.  God has their lives planned and laid out for them.  We are here to mold them and shape them, and pray they follow God's leading.  As I watch Leah, follow God's leading I couldn't be more proud of her, or any of my girls for that matter.  The love they show for each other, brings my heart happiness and peace.  A piece of all of our hearts is in Africa, right where God wants it to be.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

God's got you Leah Rose!!!