Blessed

Sometimes I really can't believe how different one day can be from the next.  Yesterday at exactly this time, I was in heaps of pain, both physical and emotional, wishing I could just cease to exist for a while.  Today, I can't wipe the idiot grin off my face.  Why?

Well - look back at my last post about the Jobes family, friends who are overseas now for their second and third adoptions.  I wrote that at 1 am today, after bouncing back somewhat from my 6 pm low.  I sat on that post for days, wanting to write it just perfectly and finally realizing that perfect words weren't going to come, and I needed to put the word out about them and their need NOW.  The last thing I did before I fell asleep last night (or rather, early this morning) was check their FSP at Reece's Rainbow.  It read $21884.29.  That was up about $2,000 from where it had been when fundraising started for Linden's adoption last week.

I slept late this morning... later than late.  I knew I was going to be in pain today so I took benedryl before bed last night and slept well into this afternoon, not waking up until about 2 pm.  I woke up just long enough during the night to hear the good, soaking rain we've needed for weeks falling outside my window.  Then, when I woke up - in pain, as I expected (if you've not been reading long, I have endometriosis, which means chronic pain no matter how many times they slice open my abdomen, until I get pregnant or have a hysterectomy)... I wanted to check the Jobes FSP again... see if it had gone up any during the night.  See if anyone had heard the cries of myself and others to please help them bring Linden home.

And I pulled my computer onto my lap and refreshed the still-open page.  Thank goodness I hadn't been holding anything or it would have dropped with my jaw.  The Jobes FSP read $25,029.

Seriously?  It had gone up OVER $2,500 overnight - or over day, as the case may be.  And it wasn't done yet.  As I talked, stunned, to Faith and to a mutual friend who has been helping me spread the word about the Jobes need, that number continued to go up.  Just now I checked it, and it read $28,279.29.  That's right, they MADE their matching grant, hit $28,000 and continued to grow.

I'm literally speechless.  Seriously, I started writing this post hours ago.  The paragraph you read two seconds ago was written over four hours ago.  I'm that speechless.  God is MIGHTY to save the orphan!

And as if this weren't enough good news today... we found out that one of the babes from Katie's former orphanage that we've all been praying for has found a family... the same family as another soon-to-be former resident of that place!  They will be bringing home TWO girls from that place, into a family forever!  And finally... I saw pictures from one family's trek back from EE over the weekend.  They brought home tiny Keith, former resident of that same orphanage, along with four other older children... and they live in the very same state as I do, which means I get to meet those precious angels for myself!

It has been a good day.  I smiled today.  I was happy.  You might've thought I'd forgotten to miss someone. But elephants?  They never forget.