Hope and excitement

I have learned very well in this life that circumstances can't guide me. I will not allow them to rule whether I have joy and peace or not. But there has been a wave of circumstances in the lives of my friends that have caused excitement and hope to well up within me to mass amounts overflowing! I know this world is not our home and that we are just passing through; there is nothing that makes me want to stay and linger any longer than absolutely necessary, but it is times like these when I see my Father sending us postcards of love.

One of my favorite people is getting married in June after seeing much heartache and disappointment; this is one person I would have loved to spend a little part of each day with myself and could never quite understand why anyone would give that up through divorce. One of my dearest friends is in the finishing stages of adopting a little girl from China and to hear her talk of her husband and boys and the journey they are on to find this precious one makes my heart jump for joy to God. Two wonderful blessings in my life have just been accepted on a journey to a university environment that seems astounding and this makes my heart backflip. I am being allowed the privilege of watching my amazing neighbor be an amazing mom for the first time! Other friends families are being added to with new little creations regularly. One friend keeps me up to date on how she and her husband are loving people here and in India while some family keeps me in tune with a Nepali orphanage. Not to mention my own "awesome" family makes the number of laugh lines increase around my eyes almost by the second!

I have seen all of these endure hardship, pain, and brokenness. I have walked with them in some of it and had to be far away and lift them up to follow Him alone in other parts but oh, how wonderful it is to skip with them through these good times. It is these that make you glimpse the goodness of Him and how he works in it all!