If Home Is Where Your Heart Is. . . .

 This day makes me so sappy--I am half weepy every year and half so happy and grateful.  But every year I cry for your birth mom.  This lady I do not know, but this lady that gave up so much and in turn, gave me so much.  I think of her as a brave woman.  She carried you to term.  She cared for you as best as she could for several weeks and then she bravely gave you up and placed you at the gate of the best orphanage in Kigali.  I think she's brave.  But I cry for her.  I cry for her because of what must have made her make the decision to give you up.  I cry for her because she doesn't have you any more.  I cannot fathom the hole you would leave in someone's heart forever. There are so many things that I wish she knew about you.  I'm sure when we get to heaven and get to meet and I begin to tell her stories about her spunky daughter that she will nod her head knowingly because you are probably so much like her and like her mother.  There are so many things I cannot

Empty.  I've been thinking about that word a lot today.  It is typically such a negative term that carries such a deep and heavy meaning.  When someone feels empty inside it is said or thought with such deep and hurting emotion.  When your mailbox is empty and you checked it with such great anticipation.  When a fisherman goes out and comes back empty.  There are zillions of ways that empty is used and I'm feel like most of them are negative.  Empty means containing nothing and if you are expecting it to contain something, then that nothing is dark and hopeless. However, today, Easter, empty is a word that brings such humbling joy.  When I just sit back and think of what my Savior did for me, it literally takes my breath away!  On Friday, He went to the cross and bore MY sin knowing full well that I wouldn't be always grateful or always aware and knowing full well that I wouldn't fully turn from my sins at all times.  That is humbling.  Then on Saturday, while His