its all the same sort of thing

it has been hot here lately and so last night i went to sleep with a fan blowing.  the sound of a fan at night brings me right back to hot summer nights in wilmington north carolina after a long day at the beach. that is a place that brings much memory joy.

this was a hard week.  but as all hard weeks it was also full of learning and blessing and miracle.

this week i started down at the university clinic- that was good.  this week i met with the social worker from the babies home about rose- that was hard as she outlined many potential new stumbling blocks on this already rocky path.  this week our friendly dog died- that was horrible- he ate poison left out for wild dogs and seized for hours before he died right outside the boys bedroom window.  thankfully they were asleep.  we buried him in the yard. there were lots of tears.  we miss him.

this week i was reminded again about God loving us through it all and our daily decision to remember to trust in all things.  even the frustrating things that don't appear to be going our way.  even the with the painful bits that pull us down.  even then, we can bear it, knowing it's ultimately part of a beautiful picture that we can now, only see a small part of.

here is one of the blessings.  jaja's family continues to bestow gifts for the medical care we gave her before she died. (yes, jaja died, i think i forgot to write about that, i will).  today a large rooster arrived- alive, along with several pumpkins and sweet potatoes.
this is my life.

of course zoe wanted to keep him as a pet. she was not into the idea of eating him.  but. tomorrow we will be eating chicken, a lot of it. 

life here is messy. literally and figuratively. but it is everywhere isn't it? maybe sometimes more dramatic- there are two monkeys fighting in my tree-and a beheaded fully feathered chicken in my kitchen sink-  but similar in the stuff that matters. life and death and kids and jobs and memories and hot summer nights- even if some of them are in march.