It's A Marathon, Not A Sprint!

Tomorrow very early in the morning I will get up and go to run my first marathon.  It's been one of those things I've always wanted to do and the time came where I was in good enough shape, had been running enough to just extend training up to (hopefully) this level, and go for it!  It's my first so my only real expectations are to finish, and not come in last place :)

Adoption is very much the same way.  There are months or years of work before you actually go to make it happen.  You don't know what to expect.  There are so many things that can go wrong in the process that can delay or derail your adoption.  It can be painful at times.  But in the end, when you cross the finish line, I've heard there is a feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration. 

We had talked about adopting for many years and the time came when we were ready to go for it.  There were times when things could have gone wrong but didn't (we were in excellent hands :)  The waiting was the hardest part (and for ours it was certainly NOT the longest it took by far compared to others...).  There were stressful times but in the end, it was so totally worth it.

I still remember the feeling of being in the plane as it started rolling away from the gates in Kyiv on May 9th, 2012, with our 5 children on board.  It was such an amazing feeling of excitement and thankfulness that God had allowed so many things to go right, for all of the support we had received, and that Kayleigh and Michael were now ours.  They've been the best finish line medals of any race we've run :)