Coming full circle

Recipe for joy:

1 little boy who until recently spent too much time in a crib with little outside stimuli, who loves water

1 large sandy beach with perfectly shallow waves

Mix well and enjoy. 

Here's a glimpse of the joy that peeks through redemption. 

This week is especially meaningful because one year ago we spent a week here, same beach, same house. Every week I refreshed this photo listing of a little boy who had grabbed our hearts on Reeces Rainbow. Every day we prayed for a family to find him, and wondered if that family was us. Every day we played in the sand, ran in the waves and wondered if this little boy could be part of our lives. Really a better question that we asked was whether we could adapt ourselves to be the family he needed. I would see our sons running and jumping in the little puddles left from the outgoing tide and think "he can't run but I bet he would love to sit in those puddles and splash". Picturing our lives with him. Praying for wisdom. Researching arthrogryposis a little more. And all week God was tugging on our hearts. 

So this week, a year later, here we are, and here he is. And while we fell in love with a picture last year, knowing it wasn't really him, we've spent the last five months knowing the real little boy and falling in love with each other. So to see his joy in the waves, his laughter when they smack his feet and belly, his love of living, well I don't think it was sand in my eyes. 

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A kind man near us found this starfish, alive, so cool to hold and feel his little jelly like tentacles feeling our hands. 

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Me: "what was your favorite part of the day?"

Maddox: "dada bury me in da sand."

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All that fun wears you out though. 

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"Mama Maddox gonna catch all da fish and eat all da fish!"

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And we ended the day with this reaction to "we will play in the water more tomorrow" when he wanted to get in, again, at dusk.