July 23rd, 2007 is the day the office in China that manages all the adoptions for the entire country logged our application to adopt a little girl into their system. This date (our Log-in Date or LID) was our identification in our wait, what connected us with other waiting families (I felt at times like I should wear a tshirt that said “7/23/2007 — what’s your LID?”)

In 2007, July 23rd came and went. We didn’t yet know it was our LID. On July 27th, 2007, Sarah called us and told us that they got word that we had a LID of 7/23. I then wrote the following in my journal:
“…I can say with authority that God called us to this and so forward we go. The wait will be a long one, but at least we can do it with confidence of our calling.”

July 23rd, 2008, a year later, we celebrated the anniversary of our LID with take-out Chinese by candlelight. I wrote a post about the things I had learned that year. We were learning a lot and steadfast in our call to adopt. But, I was frustrated at the lack of progress we could see in our wait. About that time, I wrote in my journal:
“I still like to imagine what that day will be like when we receive a call that our referral arrived. I imagine everyone huddled around my computer waiting to see her picture and then clapping and crying when we see her cute, pudgy cheeks and her tiny frame under layers and layers of puffy clothes. I wonder if she’ll have hair or any teeth yet? Will she be happy or have a sad, serious look? It keeps us going imagining…”
Of course, our referral day was not what we had imagined (you can read about it here), but it was just what God knew it would be all along.

July 23rd, 2009 we had dinner with Mark’s sister’s family. The 23rd is after all our niece Emory’s birthday as well. We had gotten word earlier that month that our paperwork, nearly 2 years later, had just been reviewed. That day, I wrote a rather therapeutic blog entry about the benefits of waiting. On March 10, 2009, we had joined the special needs program. So, by July 23rd, we were anxiously waiting to review files for children who might be ours. I stalked online sites about when a new list of available children for adoption would be posted. I longed to know when the wait would end and when we would see our daughter’s face. In my journal, I wrote a prayer out:
“Give us certainty, clarity, discernment, and wisdom as we look at files….I trust that you have the one already set apart for us. Help us to recognize her as ours when we hear about her on the phone, when we see her picture for the first time, when we read her medical info.”
I had no idea, nor would I have imagined, that our daughter was born on March 10th already, the day we joined the special needs program.

On July 23rd, 2010, today, we now have our baby home. We spent the evening with old friends tonight, some friends we haven’t seen in a very long time. We were all a part of a newly married small group ministry at our church 9-12 years ago. What used to be a newly married group now are marrieds with a whole lot of kids. So much fun to talk about Lydia and China (sorry to those of you I may have over-talked with!) and see her toddling around, so wonderfully fitting in as one of the group.

For so long, this date–7/23–has been a significant one to me. I don’t think a single July 23rd will go by without me remembering what it once meant to me. But, now, we have new dates to celebrate–the day we joined the special needs program and the day Lydia was born, the day we saw Lydia’s face for the first time, the day we got her updated information and laughed in delight knowing that God had answered our prayers in such a specific way, and the day we met Lydia face to face and she became grafted into our family as we are grafted into His family.

Thank you, Jesus.