5 for 5

Sleepy six-year-old Salome' peeked her face around the hall corner and smiled her tender, toothless smile. I believe she was the sunshine's opening act. She sighed in a motherly way when Zion, who is perpetually hungry, held up the only remaining banana and announced he was saving it for Ezra. Emmaus entered the room frowning and Salome' crossly told him to stop being cross. "Shall we feed him?" I asked, as a seasoned Zoo-Keeper might. Salome' leaped to the task, pausing only to dip her toast into my coffee. With mommy's help, scrambled eggs containing just a hint of shell, appeared on three plates, along with three grapes on the side, for Emmaus.

Ezra quietly slipped into the day while Salome' and I showered. Towels were shared frugally, jeans found, and out of my closet stepped Salome' in black stilettos, dolly in hand and a seldom used purse to freshen her outfit. "Carpe Diem" indeed! "Shall I awaken Malachi?" she asked, in motion to do so. Thankfully, my intervention meant the beloved 9 year old brother, friend and sometimes foe, was spared the wake up call, as his midnight snacking left him in morning hibernation bliss.

This is the "stuff that dreams are made of". I love this joyful, chaotic, and challenging life!

When people ask us, "Was eight children your plan?" and "How did you come to adopt five children?" The truth is I desperately wanted just one more child, after our three biological children, five more would have seemed impossible. But Dennis felt three was enough, so without an "us" decision I was forced to wait. For five long years I researched every possible place from which to adopt. Each time I lay the material before Dennis he said, "Thank you Honey", as he does when I give him driving instruction from the passenger seat. The clock ticked, my thirty-five candles and our youngest child celebrating her fifth birthday, felt like the death of the dream to adopt a child. My time-line was done, I would surrender and quietly stop submitting information to my silent husband.

However, God did not release me! Every time I prayed I couldn't help but ask for a child. Then one day as Dennis led the family prayer, he asked God to be with the baby who was to be ours! In astonishment I asked Dennis if he knew what he had said. He responded, amazed by his own words, "Yes, it must be time!" Nine months later, two day old Malachi Matthew looked into the faces of his new Mommy and Daddy, and this was just the beginning... because five years of prayer, in time, became five children. In God's time and in His way, His gifts are always sweeter than we can imagine.