Reflecting on the 4th...
Today I am sitting on the couch, typin' up this blog on my phone, listening to the kiddos discuss the best rout to beat the joker on the Lego batman wii game, and listening to the rain pour. This being the second day raining and pouring and a week now without a car has given me amble time to "reflect"...
Last night Jon and I were asked to help out a host family for the first week during the summer host program. This means a sweet boy, from Gary and Willy's orphanage will be staying with us his first week in America. It also means we get to love on him and greet him at the airport with a sign and hugs and cheers, welcoming him to this new land.
This land that is SO very foreign and so very new compared to his land of ancient cultures and long history. As we start to prepare for his arrival on the 9th, it brings sweet memories of preparing for Gary's arrival that seems so very long ago. The nerves, the fears, the pure overwhelming excitement! How we were so blown away by the instant we saw him we were head over heels in love. That just in that instant we knew, "this was our son." And, the day after mother's day this year we experienced it all over again as God opened our hearts to Willy.
I am awe struck, humbled and floored by how in less than 4 months, their adoptions have been fully funded. Who am I that I could possibly doubt that God could not handle the bill?? By His power and not mine, by His provision and not ours, by His love and not our own, our boys will be coming home.
America the Beautiful
Words by Katharine Lee Bates,
Melody by Samuel Ward
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!
