{"id":335,"date":"2016-01-13T20:02:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T01:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/?p=335"},"modified":"2016-01-13T20:02:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T01:02:52","slug":"glorious-ordinary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/13\/glorious-ordinary\/","title":{"rendered":"Glorious Ordinary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"886027_10153081789647352_7128154802032272390_o\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is an Internet trend of choosing one word (or for me, one phrase, because I cannot follow the rules) to guide your year.\u00a0 Last year, my word was \u201cSure\u201d, which was the result of this epic and typically angsty email to my best friend, Anna:<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you heard of the thing where you pick one word as the theme of your year and kind of mediate on it?\u00a0\u00a0Well, my one word for this year is \u201cSURE\u201d because back when we very first got matched with Jia and everything felt really good and really right and I was riding the high of getting matched, (and please pardon how over spiritual this sounds\u00a0\u00a0because BLECH, but it\u2019s how it happened so\u2026) I really felt like God said \u201clisten, you need to remember how sure and right this seems right now because things are going to happen that are going to make you wonder if this is the right thing to do and it is, but it won\u2019t always feel like it\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So I am gripping that with all the will I can muster right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I clung to the word \u201cSure\u201d like a life raft last year, reading that paragraph over and over because there were, indeed, moments when the doubts and challenges pushed hard on my surety. 2015 was one of the best years, but also one of the heaviest, and through it all, I focused on Sure.<\/p>\n

So when it came time to choose a word for this year, I kept coming back to the word \u201cNormal\u201d as in, this will be the year we find our normal.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t really capture the entirety of what I was looking for. So I kept searching, and in my New Year\u2019s Eve Facebook post, I finally found it \u2013 a combination of two words that really got at what I was hoping for this year \u2013 glorious ordinary.<\/p>\n

In all reality, we haven\u2019t had a year of ordinary in a long time. We started fertility treatments back in 2011, so every year since then felt like constantly sitting in anticipation and what if\u2019s and why\u2019s. And then we started the adoption process and, I don\u2019t know if you know this, but the process of adopting a kid is KIND OF BONKERS so we had the opposite of an ordinary year in 2015.<\/p>\n

We spent last year bearing witness with wonder and awe at some REALLY BIG THINGS that have happened and we would have had to be blind to miss them.\u00a0 But now that we\u2019ve found something a little closer to normal, the wonders that happen are smaller, less dramatic, more, well\u2026. ordinary. And glorious ordinary is an invitation to make sure we\u2019re still paying attention, still embracing the wonder, still standing in awe. That we aren\u2019t missing the quieter miracles we see every day.<\/p>\n

Glorious ordinary is seeing Jia run off to play with her cousins like she\u2019s been in the thick of them all along.\u00a0 Glorious ordinary is feeling like we can actually go on a real date and leave the kids with a babysitter because they\u2019re finally ready. Glorious ordinary is watching Jia and Eden play their favorite games because they HAVE favorite games now, which they\u2019ve made up together. Glorious ordinary is hearing my kids fighting because, umm, yeah, they are absolutely real sisters. Glorious ordinary is being surprised when we realize someone hasn\u2019t met Jia yet because it\u2019s like she\u2019s been here forever. Glorious ordinary is watching Eden just come into her own self, her own skin, and shine brighter than ever after a rough end of summer. Glorious ordinary is morning snuggles, reading books, home work, temper tantrums, bike rides, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star at bedtime.\u00a0 It\u2019s the stuff we take for granted because it\u2019s like it has always been that way but I don\u2019t want to miss the miraculous in the mundane.<\/p>\n

2016 is my year of glorious ordinary, embracing the quiet wonders, the everyday, the little stuff, imperfectly, as best I can, because, let\u2019s be honest, no one really, honestly relishes temper tantrums, glorious ordinary or not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  There is an Internet trend of choosing one word (or for me, one phrase, because I cannot follow the rules) to guide your year.\u00a0 Last year, my word was \u201cSure\u201d, which was the result of this epic and typically angsty email to my best friend, Anna: \u201cHave you heard of the thing where you Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatwalltogreatlakes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}