In a heart beat I read a whole book. I wasn’t planning to engulf it all at once, but what started as “let’s see what this book is about” finished with “I can’t put it down”. It is called “kisses from katie” and livia left it with me for a week, maybe I would read it. I didn’t get around to it until the last day before having to give it back. This is the second book I read this month, written by someone in my age group that also keeps a blog. i am so glad to remain in the writer’s lives reading snippets of what is currently going on. katie is a few years younger than me, but her journey started in earnest around the time i got married and moved to California. Katie moved to Uganda and now she has 13 adopted daughters. Her story is so much more than that. And I admit, the book title is a little cheesy for my taste – but the story intrigued me, and I am glad it did.
I have been keeping this blog. It is not the first one, but it is the one that I kept up the longest. Inevitably my writing gets dull. And often I can write better only in retrospect. But in the midst of admitting my mediocrity, I conclude that while I didn’t filter my blog more, it was part of my journey of processing. It is very hard to expose embarrassing emotions, like fear, anger, impatience and distrust. I got so wrapped up into trying to adapt and adjust that I had forgotten myself. There are things that I tried to process and expose, while keeping the privacy of those people’s lives. Overly cautious, it hindered my ability to dive in fully and get clean through to the other side. I still held on to stuff. I still protected. This is one of the reasons I prefer poetry to prose.
Forgive and forget. Trust God. Embrace the gift of today. Walk in faith.
I am sometimes tempted to go back and clean up my blog. But I don’t want to. Not yet. The story is still being written. And yesterday in the midst of reading this wonderful book, of someone younger yet so much more stronger in faith, we settled on a name. Senna Colibri Altmann. And now we pray every day, for her protection and for God to somehow reassure her little heart that mommy and daddy will soon bring her home.