all the time

Sometimes, I have to ask myself.

What if I was not born in the family I am in today?  What if the things I have been through in the past year had never happened to me?  What if we hadn't adopted?  What if I was born in a family of two children instead of five?  How would that make me different?  What if I wasn't home-schooled, what if I went to public school?  What if I never got a camera five years ago?  What if God didn't bring Trey into my family 5 months ago?  What would I be passionate for if I wasn't passionate for orphans or photography or adoption?  Where would I be without this blog?

It all goes back to this....

God chose it all.  Every little bit of my life that I could have never chosen for myself.  The way that I'm passionate for orphans and adoption... not everyone is.  Not everyone would sometimes rather live in Africa and not everyone has a deep passion placed in their heart for orphans.  Everyone is different and everyone is special... obviously.  But what is even better... God chose it all before time.

The whole point of this is... life is lovely.  No matter where God put you and no matter how it was all planned out before time.  It is lovely.  So lovely.  I hate it when people say their life sucks.  Because it really doesn't.  I understand that sometimes it does suck.  I understand that sometimes it's completely horrible.  But you have to learn to find the beauty in it.  The everyday beauty that you would otherwise not ever see.  That's what it has taught me.  Not to dwell on the bad parts.  The lovely and beautiful parts that are oftentimes overlooked.

Like... looking down and seeing skinny jeans with baby toes... and seeing him play with that little thing attached to his carseat at my favorite restaurant ever?  usually i'd see it and look straight back up.  this time it was beautiful.