Summer and hearts knitted together forever

School is off, schedules are pretty relaxed with lots of playtime with grandparents, TV, late nights, all good things.

Ella had a wonderful school year, finished on the honor roll with straight A's and received quite a few awards.

Riding has been going well and summer is in full swing at this point, two weeks after starting to write this post. Life lately has been extremely busy and honestly, pretty rough. Sickness, heartbreak, hopes, prayers, fasting, and lots of hopes and more prayers.

But there also been lots of happy times spent at the park riding the bike, playing with sweet Nataly who is simply blooming into this wonderful little girl who will soon leave us not of our her own will but because those who hold the power to make decisions in her behalf cannot see and do the right thing. It is truly on them...

All that I can say that I've been living by pure faith these past few weeks. My faith has gotten stronger although we have not received the answer we were looking for, or the outcome we were hoping for. Despite the fact that quite a few members of her immediate family, including the father, have had encounters with the law and served time, the state, the judge, and all the others involve (except for us, who have no decision making power), have made the unanimous decision to place sweet Nataly with the grandmother on her father's side.) We are baffled at such decision but according to Hrishi who spent most of the day in court today to get a first hand update on what the situation is as we never seem to get any updates from CPS, this does not come as a surprise. All decisions made in court all day in the other cases did not make any common sense. Children being placed with families who had serious problems, but were placed nonetheless because they were families..... . A really messed up system, that is for sure. I try but struggle to make sense of this, to comfort myself that for some reason this might be the right thing for Nataly. But it is not. It is not.

His ways are indeed mysterious and I can only hope and pray for the miracle of her being happy and safe, and fulfilled with her biological family. But mostly I pray for her not to suffer from this tragic split from our family, her true family up to this point. She asks for each of us in very specific ways. The special cooking that makes when she wants to play with big sister. The precious story reading and cuddle time they have before going to bed. The big smiles she gives daddy inviting him to play and caress her, and her stretched arms out to me and talking that she does when she wants mommy to hold and love her, all the sweet kisses she gives us. The precious quiet time she enjoys with us on Sundays in church when she loves flipping the pages of the hymn book and smiling at folks seated in the row behind.

And now what am I going to do without my Nataly???????