Reflecting

Claire has been home for quite some time now, and even though the adoption process feels like it is in the rear-view mirror, and we are simply parenting four kids now, adoption informs so much of our everyday.  I see things through an adoption lens, if that makes sense.  I drive through a few car pool lines each day, and I'm struck by the community we live in.  People care for each other.  Families at my kids' schools know each other so very well and look out for each other's kids.  Carpool lines are filled with minivans and SUVs with kids piling out of their cars.  the occasional dog comes through the carpool line.  These kids are dressed well with backpacks full of learning and lunch boxes full of food.  Moms and dads drive through those lines with endless cups of hot coffee and tummies filled with a good breakfast.  All those same kids enjoy the neighborhood pool together in the summer.  And any sport or activity they want to try.  All the kids know all the kids.  Our community isn't without its sorrows and challenges.  But our community rallies around those who are personally experiencing the sorrow.  Our community is FULL of love.  We get to go to a church every Sunday that is AMAZING.  We get choices in everything.  We live within a few miles of a gazillion grocery stores.  I'm regularly struck by the simple - yet so very blessed - of the everyday.  And that on the opposite side of the world (many places in the world) it is the opposite.  Claire is from a deeply impoverished part of our world.  Where mothers quite possibly love their children but have no way to care for them.  What great pain to have to give up your child when you don't want to! How is it that we have such different circumstances? It makes me so grateful for our life, for Claire - deeply, deeply grateful.  But the circumstances of those on the other side of the world don't leave me.  Orphanages are something you can't "un-see" once you have seen them.  I'm thinking about what we might be able to do from our corner of the world to share our blessings.....