Loving Kindness

Every night as I pray with my beautiful kids I pray over them a prayer my father prayed over me as a child:

"May the Lord bless you and keep you,

May He make His face to shine upon you,

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace."

Then I will finish the prayer with a request that God helps them to be loving and kind, healthy and strong and longing to do what is right.

Every day I remind them: "be loving", "be kind", "are you being kind?".

I realize that being Christ-like means to love as Christ loves and to treat others the way that we would want to be treated. It's pretty simple really. Loving and kind.

In real life sometimes loving and kind seems so...well, hard. It is something that I strive to teach my kids and having examples of  kind deeds seems to be the best way to show my children what it really means to be 'loving and kind'. 

We  just announced a Garage Sale to raise funds for our next adoption (yes, we are adopting!). It's only been a week and already we have  a garage almost full of wonderful things for the sale. My mom in another State decided to do a sale to raise funds simultaneously in her home town. She is getting donations left and right from people who have never met us! I am so touched by these examples of loving kindness! I knew that God would work through this journey both in our own lives and in the lives of those who will travel this journey with us. It's about so much more than just adding a child to our family. It's about showing loving kindness to a child who most likely will have never experienced being held to go to sleep. Most likely he will have never known the tender comfort of a hug just "because". He will be learning about loving kindness from us, all of us that journey together to bring him home!

On a side note, my sweet kids have both started adding their own prayers at bedtime. This week, almost every day they have been praying that God will take care of their brother until we can get him. That just tugs on my heart strings. To hear my future son's siblings praying over him makes me feel so proud to be their mom. Mighty is especially excited and asks about his brother every day. 

I can't wait to tell you more about our adoption process. As soon as I have the new blog up and "ready" I will post more about it.