2015

Today there are thousands of bloggers, from the little personal ones like mine to the big professionals, who will be recapping 2014 or looking forward to 2015.  I'm no exception.

2014 was a great year and a terrible year.  A trip to Hawaii to celebrate my dad being cancer free, celebrating my best friends family growing, my parents buying land in our area so they can move here.  My job continued to go well, my studio was full of amazing kids, my dogs continued to be awesome.  I had a lot of personal triumphs this year, too-- 5K, 10K and half marathon PRs, organizing a 65 mile running event and summer jazz band and learning the cello.  Best of all, we are 8 years strong in our marriage and 13 years in our relationship and are more freakishly happy every day.

During the Hawaii trip to celebrate being cancer free, we got a call from the doctor saying it was no longer so.  After 7 years of "not, not trying" we began charting and temping (words only the trying to conceive world would understand) and going through a terrible cycle of hope and complete devastation every month.  My faith really struggled as I tried to understand why God would allow such unfair things to happen and why He seemed to go completely silent when I needed Him the most.  My relationships with others struggled, as I have always been one willing to be the listening ear and support when needed but I needed that support and didn't know how to ask for it. 

The negative circumstances are resolved for the most part, however.  My dad is again "cancer free", though we will never again believe he is in the clear for good.  And, as you know, an old conversation from our dating years resurfaced and we decided to try to become adoptive parents.  With that decision, the stress and pain from the months of trying completely disappeared and God seemed to spotlight the decision and say "see?  I was listening, THIS is the plan!".

So as I look forward to 2015, I feel a sense of peace that is indescribable and makes no sense with the amount of unknowns in our future.  We don't know if and when we will be chosen by a birth mother to parent the infant she gives life to.  We don't know a lot about babies and might be thrust into parenthood in a hotel when we are chosen.  We don't know how we'll finance the adoption process without going into debt.  We don't know how the legal aspects after the placement happen.  We don't know if plans will change at the last minute. 
I will be writing my first grant for the arts council and don't know how I will do.  I will be running my first marathon, as well, which seems impossible.  Jim will be completing his first BRAN (Bike Ride Across Nebraska), the most intense week of riding he will have had to date.

But, it will also be a year of complete blessings.  Even if we don't become parents this year, we have already seen an outpouring of love from family and friends.  I can't explain the feeling we have gotten from the encouraging cards and prayers and how humbling it is when financial assistance has been given.  It's incredible.  I have never felt so blessed to live where we do, to have the home and jobs that we do, and the people in our lives that we do.  We feel blessed that we have hope to becoming parents again, and blessed that God has sped the process along. 

In all the uncertainty coming our way, we are convinced there are more blessings coming our way through them as well.

Thank you, friends and family, for your contribution to the past 27 years, and I look forward to 2015 with you.