A year ago this week, we had just finished our homestudy, and were anticipating an adoptive foster care placement by the end of the year. This Thanksgiving, we’re still waiting. No longer for a foster care placement, but to fly half way around the world to adopt a small boy and a girl waiting in an orphanage.

It seems like we’ve lived through five years in the last one. We’ve experienced some of the worst of humanity, and even more of the best.

Our children are also experiencing some of the worst of humanity, and we hope to bring some of the best to them. We don’t know the circumstances surrounding their being orphaned, but there’s simply no way that they’re anything short of tragic.

I find it remarkable that out of brokenness, theirs and ours, is the beginning of a beautiful story.

And it was out of Christ’s brokenness, and my brokenness, that the beauty of our adoption into the family of God began.

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:4-7 NIV

The brokenness of the last year sits heavy on my soul, but for this, I am thankful: Brokenness begets beauty.