Right now, he is jumping on my back. I’m letting him maul me in every way he can conceive just so long as he doesn’t touch my computer.
Please, no touch, Isaiah, I keep repeating. I think repeating is the reminder. As if he has short term memory.
But he doesn’t. It’s just that he’s 2.
And I’m overflowing with all kinds of grace today. Over him. Over my other four boys. Over my husband who is tired and cranky and trying to keep it together over a lack of sleep.
Grace is pouring out today because of what I received.
As we stacked in the jackets, pulled on somewhat-paired socks, and (finally) found everyone’s shoes, I quickly hit the front door in hopes of finding that the mail came. Disappointed by the empty box, I spotted him across the street. The mailman.
We had all piled into the truck, late for my first grader’s basketball game, and there he was in his blue uniform and satchel-full-of envelopes-glory.
For three weeks on top of two years, I’ve been waiting for this piece of paper to arrive. And it came today. An adoption decree for my youngest son, Isaiah Timothy Harvey.
The one who we prayed for when we didn’t know who he was. The one whose middle name belongs to my father who was, by a family’s last minute decision (full of grace) brought over from war torn and mixed-race orphan saturated South Korea just about 60 years ago so he could be adopted, his only chance at ever having a family. The one who has made me hussle after I thought I was done toddler chasing. The one who makes our count 5 boys.
The boy who has, yes, like the others, changed my life in his own way.
To say that I have been hungry, desperately longing, for this piece of paper to come is all truth. Today, I received the handwritten declaration, by the power of the state of Texas, that he belongs to us.
Thank you, Lord, for keeping us hungry, desperate, and longing for something we could not see. This is the good kind of hungry only the Father can satiate.