All About My Girl

I haven't written about my little Miss Cece in ages.

Actually, I haven't written about much in ages.
My blog has been a bit neglected...not because life hasn't been a wild ride lately.  Oddly enough sometimes the more that's happening, the more I'm learning and growing, and more deeply I'm being refined the more I don't even know where to start or what to write about.  I guess all that's in my head and heart sometimes has to sit and percolate a bit before it can be formed into words.

So I'll narrow it down and write about my little girl.

 One very exciting development is that we're FINALLY in the finishing stages of Cece's adoption.  After 2 1/2 years the paperwork is finished and we are basically just waiting for it all to go to court.  Hopefully that will happen within the next month or two.

This week we received her "file" which is her entire social services, medical and family history wrapped up in a binder.  Fascinating, nauseating, thrilling, and horrifying.  It is amazing to have the veil of secrecy pulled back and finally have answers to all the things we have intentionally been kept in the dark about as "just" foster parents.


 It also made me cry as I flipped through family history and records.  So much brokenness and pain.  Generation upon generation upon generation.   Overwhelming.  I cry because they are real people.  I cry because  these are the pieces of the puzzle that I will carry for my child, the pieces that will be hers to carry...and to lay down.  I cry for a mother who's own life and childhood is layer upon layer of pain. I cry for what she has lost.  I cry, and at the same time I thank God for stepping in and throwing a wrench in that furiously spinning cycle.  He reached in an pulled out one tiny little raven haired girl.  His providence and protection of this fragile little girl is written all through this binder.

Her history will always be echoed  in her shining black eyes, in her ear to ear smile, in her rosy round cheeks, in every part of her beautiful little design.  I will love that about her biological family.

Traces of the sins of others will be carried in her veins, and in her mind, and in her heart...BUT GOD.  I love the "but God"s in the Bible.  I love the "but God" in our story.  What Satan intended for destruction, our Father will use for his glory. What Satan has had a death grip on for decades, Jesus has set free. What has caused so much damage, will be healed.


I was dead in my own sin, without even a hope of saving myself,  BUT GOD in his great mercy and love reached down and plucked me out of the mire and adopted me as his own child.

BUT GOD.

Through no plan of my own, God in his great purpose and for his glory, saw fit to take this orphan named Carla and make her a daughter.

God brought together two painfully ordinary people, created a new family, and in time began to miraculously mend and restore our own broken family tree...and now has begun to graft on new branches.  I LOVE how God can bring beauty and life out of utter despair and brokenness.


 As I read through our daughter's history, and all that went on behind the scenes that placed her in our home (and allowed her to stay with us) I wept because at SO many points our story ,and hers, could have turned out very very different.  She so easily could have been one that slipped through the cracks.  One the system missed.

Out of the ashes He is making something extraordinary.

2 1/2 years ago we had just returned from 6 months in Mexico.   We unpacked and settled in for a couple weeks and then asked the Lord to once again allow us to love a child that needs to be loved...for however long we would have with them.  A couple days later we received the gift of a tiny, scrunched up, screaming 5 wk old.

As I spent days and nights soothing a colicky newborn I honestly wondered what I'd gotten myself into.  I came face to face with  my own self preservation, and selfish motives.  There were a few moments in the beginning when I considered giving this "gift" back, reclaiming my own life, and emancipating myself from someone else's burden....but over the days, and weeks, and months I grew to love her as fiercely as any mother loves her child.

When Cece came to our home we had NO idea that she would ever be our daughter.  We had no idea what her case plan was, where she came from or why she was with us.   We had no idea when she would leave...but we knew as foster parents that someday she would leave.  Just the thought of saying goodbye tore out my heart.

Today we are waiting for our final court document saying that she is forever our daughter, that no one can ever claim her and take her from our home.  She will no longer be a "foster child" that can be taken , returned or passed around from home to home.  She will be a full heir, a rightful member of our family, a beloved forever daughter.    She will be fully grafted in to our crazy little family tree.

Today Miss Cece is a charming, exuberant  little bundle of life and joy.  She is chalk full of personality.  Her smile and ridiculously generous giggle still lights up our home.   She is a full fledged 2 year old little princess who insists she wears frilly skirts and purple rubber boots together to church.

It's been so cool to see her personality, gifts, the little person God created emerge and bloom.

 Cece is a little mother.  She will "mother" anything she can get her chubby little arms around including her older and much bigger siblings.  She is a natural care taker and nurturer.  She loves and rocks her baby dolls...she wraps her arms around and strokes the hair of any sibling that happens to be upset, hurt, or sick. She adores and takes good care of her Daddy.  She has a very strong natural sense of empathy and compassion.  She is just a natural lovie.   She loves well.  

Cece a silly little bean.   She is full of goofy antics, expressions and loves to make us laugh.  She loves to sing, dance and make jokes.

Cece has a mind of her own.  Although she is not particularly strong willed (compared to a couple of my other kids) she knows what she wants and she knows what she likes.  She is asserting her autonomy more and more, as any two year old does.  She can throw an impressive little princess fit, but it rarely lasts long.  She's super sensitive and her natural inclination is to please her parents, she is very easily corrected and very quickly "lowy" (sorry)...which is a slightly refreshing surprise after bringing Silas through his preschool years.

Cece is smart.  She constantly amazes me with her cleverness.  Of course, we have always watched carefully her development and abilities but so far she is totally on track and even excels in many areas of development.  Her fine and gross motor skills, her problem solving, understanding non verbal ques, her sense of humor, understanding cause and effect, her understanding multi-step directions and follow through actually surprise me...mostly because our other kids all had difficultly with some of these areas.  The only area that is lagging slightly behind in is her speech but it's finally coming and she's adding words every day.  She has never lacked for creative ways to express herself.

I am constantly amazed at how God protected her mind and body as she was developing in the womb, and has protected her little heart every day since then.

Cece is now potty trained!  I didn't know if that would come late, or with more difficulty but by 2 1/2 she was ready and it actually came easier than it did for my last couple boys!  She still isn't 100% reliable of course but she no longer wears a diaper and she comes running and tells me when she needs to go.

 I love this little girl with a never ending, never giving, up always and forever love.  This is my little girl who I would go to the ends of the earth for, give up my own life for, and live every day for.

I have no idea what God's plans and purposes are for this little precious little one.  I do know that she belongs to her Father, her Creator, first and I can trust Him with her, whatever lies down the road.   I still can't believe that we have been given the incredible privilege of loving and raising this child.

She is such a blessing and a gift.




Soli Deo Gloria,