Our First Born

In this interim between the bare necessity of gathering money via fund raisers, I am slowing down and enjoying time with Sonya in our shared home schooling experience. It was recently brought to my awareness that while we are biding our time just waiting to bring Sonya's sissy home to America, this is the last "season" Sonya will have me completely to herself. And do I really want to be so completely wrapped up in providing for our next child that I fail to provide for the one standing before me every day asking for my time and attention?

My little Sonya is preparing to turn eight in less than two months from now! Where has the time gone, my friends?! It was just yesterday I was bringing her home from China to meet her daddy for the very first time. Imagine now, this once helpless baby who needed to be cared for in all matters of survival for a chance to flourish is now preparing herself to act like a big girl and walk everywhere on her own two legs for the entire two weeks we are back in China to bring sister home!

I am actually pretty incredulous that she'll make it the whole two weeks without asking her daddy to carry her, though. Of course, that will mean Randy will be carrying two little girls instead of one because we all know how that works when it comes to children! And, in case you have forgotten, Randy is preparing himself to be able to carry one daughter in each arm, so...this should be good.

Digressing, as I prayed over Sonya tonight, I asked the Lord to give Randy and me wisdom and understanding, love and sensitivity, to minister and parent our two beautiful daughters in such a way that there will never be a need for insecurity or jealousy between them. I further asked the Lord that as He prepares the three of us to welcome Mei Mei into our hearts (this has already happened, actually) and lives, undergoing a great metamorphosis which is all positive and beautiful and glorious, that Randy and I both remain cognizant of potential dissonance arising from stress and uncertainty throughout the next year and thus manage to seek God's leading in our every step so as to greatly minimize this dissonance through Christ Jesus.

The small "interim" I am experiencing at this present moment is soon coming to a close. Very soon, and with the Lord's help, the time is coming for me to press into the next fund raiser with all that is in me. If I could take a lesson learned from the last fund raiser, however, it would be that even though gathering the necessary funds is an important and viable means of gaining our second daughter's freedom, our first daughter, our first born, my little girl who is soon to turn eight years old, needs me more than ever right now, her last season with mommy to herself. As a mother, I dare not marginalize the significance of such a need as this.