Christmas without Sestra

I admit it - I was worried about celebrating Christmas without Sestra. There was such joy last year in "knowing" that we'd all be together in 2008 and we were so close to celebrating together in Kazakhstan... I was worried that this year's celebration would be be overshadowed by the disappointed expectations.

But God is doing amazing things in us. Here's my reading yesterday from Lamentations 3:21-33, a simply beautiful passage amidst far greater grief than I have ever experienced:

But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.

Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way

These times are both sweet and hard for us. Sweet in the anticipation of meeting our little girl, in enjoying every day with the boys, and in the knowledge that God is using this time purposefully and productively. Hard because with each day we lose another day of firsts with our daughter, another day of her life that we can't get back.

But we trust God's plans far more than our own and we wait for hope to appear. We will be together soon, and we will enjoy our time as a family of four now and a family of five soon.