Destination CHENGDU!

Our agency has confirmed our Consulate Appointment (CA) date to be August 30th, and we've booked our tickets to China!

We will embrace our son for the first time on Monday, August 22nd in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan.

Please be praying even now for this miraculous day. Praying for his heart to be comforted by our love and for God to be even now preparing his little heart to embrace his new family. Prayers for God to fully equip David and I with the wisdom, strength, patience, and the endurance we need to parent our new son as he grieves and braves the changes in his life.

What a journey we've been on! Miracles and confirmations that Jesus has directed every path! We are humbled by His goodness and once again in awe of His timing.

August 22nd. It isn't a date we will ever forget.

Eight years ago, we had only the promise of a future hope to hold onto. We were shattered. Barely able to grasp the hands of the Father who was even then reaching down to us. It felt like we had been standing on a bridge overlooking the rapid torrent of the falls, when suddenly we awoke to find ourselves plunged into the icy waters below. Struggling to survive the current that kept taking us under. No compass to follow. No way of turning back. Completely drowning in the greatest sorrow of our lives, the final goodbye to our little boy - the last time we would see our son, touch his little hands, look upon his beautiful face this side of heaven.

August 22nd. The day before the last goodbye.

As hundreds of friends and family gathered to mourn the death of our son and offer us comfort, I remember feeling completely numb. Was this really happening? Was I at a funeral for my son? My baby boy? How did this happen? Weren't we just celebrating David's birthday? Stopped at a red light, minutes from tucking my little boys in their beds, and from nowhere our lives forever changed by the recklessness of another. Slammed from behind by an SUV going 70mph. He never stopped. His drunken state too intoxicated on alcohol and drugs to know the damage he had caused. And here I was, just days later watching others file into a room to small to hold them all, the love was beautiful, the sorrow too much to hold. Who were they coming for? Who lay in that small casket draped in baby blue? Everything was so surreal - like the set of a movie - I was watching my life unfold before me and I had no control over any of it.

This was my son these people were coming to say goodbye too. Will he awaken soon? Can I never hold him again? Oh please. Please. Please! let me hold my baby again! Just one more time to feel his soft cheek next to mine. To feel the weight of him in my arms. Oh Please no! No! No! Not my son. Not my baby! Somehow, without my knowing it, I had been cast as the grieving mother in my own life, but this was a part I did not want to play. Please someone, anyone, take my place. I don't want to lose my son!

It felt like at any moment I would wake up from this nightmare. Only the days stayed dark, and there would never be another morning without the mourning. Hayden was dead. The funeral was for him, and tomorrow we would bury our son in the dark, cold ground. Oh my heart! I don't want my son in the ground! I want him in my arms. I want to care for him. I want to love him. To dress him and feed him and play and sing and, oh! I want to be his mother again! Please God! Please give me my child!

The numbness that had once distanced me from the truth fled as the rawness of the reality exploded inside my heart. It was too much for any human soul to endure. I crumbled to the ground and heard the screams of a mother desperate for her child and even in the weeping could not recognize that they were my own.

Death creates spaces of loss and missingness. Those never leave us. I've never felt whole again, and the part that is broken, the part that longs to hold my son again, that part is in a constant state of waiting. Waiting for the glorious day when we will see him again. Waiting for the day that He calls us home and the one who loves us beyond any other, the one who gave his life for us, Jesus himself, stretches out his hands to heal us and make us whole again. Yes, August 22nd is a very emotional day. It has always meant separation. The beginning of the missingness and empty places.

On August 23rd, we gathered together with close friends and family to celebrate the life of our sweet son, Hayden Matthew. As we wept over his broken body, we could never have imagined that the God of the Universe was already planning a way to make this day beautiful again. Huddled in the chapel, our tear-filled songs lifted up to heaven echoed the love we felt for Hayden and the deep ache we had to see God's hands work for our good. My cries unrecognizable even to myself pouring out from the depths of a shattered heart joined with the overwhelming fear of not knowing how this will ever be alright, how we will cope, how our lives will ever feel normal again. Packing away his clothes, his memories, I tried to hide the reality of his existence, but try as I might, I couldn't pack away the loss. It stayed like an unwanted house guest. I awoke to it each morning - slapped in the face by the sting of death. Pushing myself to create a life out of pain. Struggling to keep my head above the water. Soon I found myself floating with the current of the hurting. No direction, no purpose, just floating, just existing. Sorrow upon sorrow raged through my heart. There is no comfort for a mother who wants nothing more than to hold her baby boy again. There are no words. There is no acceptance. There are no moments of relief. Just the weight of empty arms, the pierced pain of broken hearts, and the beginning of a lifelong goodbye.

And now here we stand on God's promises and His faithfulness! Eight years of remembering the saddest goodbye and our Mighty God has redeemed even this day! What healing we would have missed had we chosen not to listen to the Father! How could we know He had this planned when our hearts were pulled to adopt back in October? For you see, as an adoptive family, we celebrate our children each year on the day we first held them, a celebration of a new chapter in our family's story - a celebration of life! How wonderful are God's ways! How awesome are His plans!

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I feel from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! ~ Psalm 139

And this year, on August 22nd, we will celebrate a BRAND NEW DAY when we embrace George Mason for the very first time as our son! God has given us the incredible gift of another son and we will welcome him into his forever family on August 22nd.

And, on August 23rd huddled together in a room in Chengdu China, George Mason Yang will officially be our forever son as David and I sign the adoption papers.

August 23rd, 2003. The beginning of the long goodbye.

August 23rd, 2011. The beginning of a forever family.

Now who among us can deny the overwhelming love of a God who brings about healing in such a GLORIOUS WAY!

Our hearts will always long for our son, Hayden, but oh the JOY, the inexpressible JOY in knowing he is safe in the arms of Jesus! Our hope is secure in the God who brings beauty out of ashes. We will see him again and when we are reunited around the throne of heaven, dancing in the streets of glory, their will be GREAT JOY!

For God has multiplied our family in unimaginable ways!

Bringing into our family a wonderful daughter who shares the same birthday as her brother and whom we embraced at 17 months old, the same age that Hayden was when he first entered heaven's glory and saw the very face of God.

And as we prepare to embrace our adorable new son on the same day, eight years ago, that we said goodbye to his brother, Hayden, we are in awe of God's plans for us. These days that would bring nothing but pain and sorrow have been redeemed by the Father to give us JOY even in the midst of the painful remembering. Oh how He loves us! PRAISE HIM!

To only my Maker my Father my Savior
Redeemer Restorer Rebuilder Rewarder
To only a God like You
Do I give my praise!