The Wonder of Christmas

As I watched the new year's celebrations tonight, truly grateful that 2009 was over and we got through it, there was a touch of something different, not fully sad, but not fully happy in my heart. For lack of a better term, I will call it wonder. It's the same thing that kept me up on Christmas eve.

I'm not talking about the wonder that comes with the Christmas story or kids on Christmas morning. No, this is something different. On Christmas Eve, just like tonight, I was kept awake by thoughts, unresolved questions about my daughter. A daughter I've only seen in pictures. A girl who already holds a piece of my heart so tightly that it will ache until she's here with us. I wonder if she'll have a present on Christmas morning. I wonder if she knows how badly we want to bring her home. I wonder if, somehow, she knew that our Christmas was incomplete without her. I wonder if she feels the prayers of her family, thousands of miles away. I wonder how she's treated because of down syndrome when we're not there to protect her. I wonder why God doesn't make this process faster. I wonder wonder if she's ever been told she's beautiful. I wonder why we didn't find her sooner. I wonder what that day will be like, the day I get to hold her and she gets to see her daddy.

That is the wonder of this Christmas. There is a tinge of heartache in it, but the thought that this year will bring Evangeline home is a wonder unlike any other.

My prayer, my hope, is that on some level, everyone will experience that kind of wonder this year. Because, if you do, that means an orphan is not an orphan any more. I can't imagine anything more wonderful than that.