Here was the sun flower on 7/16. The top picture was taken 7/25! Can you believe that?!

But I am sorry and a little sore inside this morning about losing this giant plant last night. A raccoon, balancing its gluttonous body along the fence must have been spooked and mistook it for a tree. Boohiss! I tried to rollover and go to sleep (it happened around midnight) but my heart was a bit disturbed. I have to admit, however, that hearing my neighbors (yes, at midnight) relay things like "If you guys kill that little f@#$r, I'll skin it and make you a hat" was strangely comforting and therapeutic.

I am feeling quite humbled these past couple of days and it makes perfect sense that this little event might be the grand finale. Geez, I hope so. Really if this is the worst that happens to me this week, life is still pretty grand.

Sleep was evading me beforehand as I was pouring through an adoption book I checked out at the library. One of the chapters I read talked about dealing with your own losses as you progress through the adoption process. Often adoptive parents feel their own set of losses even before they bring home a child already wounded with probably the most painful loss one can endure. So you can imagine how serious the task is for parents to get healthy, grieve and come to a place they can parent out of acceptance of their own stuff and not out of fear.

Yeah, I know, light reading. I cried thinking about families enduring infertility and stillbirths, angry that they have all that pain and no answers. No explanations. I haven't thought about this side of it before and it really hit me. And humbled me. It's obvious to think about children who are unwanted, mistreated, even unsuccessfully aborted. But it's a bit of a paradigm shift to consider the parents who choose to adopt and their road to that decision.

I am overwhelmed but trusting God. Especially in His goodness. It is not a leap to believe in the existence of a higher Somebody, but it is out of the obedient heart that I will choose to trust that my God is not only mighty, but also so very very good. I am learning that He truly loves me and wants the very best for me. That truth is like a compass to me on days when I want to chase a proverbial bouncy ball onto a busy street, forgetting all the precedences that have been set beforehand that tell me the very thing I think I want will hurt me.

Because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it, I will also include some fancy-free after this leaded post:

beaunocurls. It was time for a change. Bradie does not like it. :)