40th Birthday--One to Remember

The day started tragically and ended with hope. First off in the morning, it was cloudy, cold and miserable outside. Then our daughter's teenage hormones were raging and she was growling at me all morning. Finally, Dad could not take it anymore and raised his voice when he told her she would NOT treat her mother that way. Then the tears spilled from Penny's eyes. After that she was bawling that we should take her back to the orphanage. We just quietly ate our breakfast. Soon, she was saying, "Sorry!" and told me that if she was reprimanded at the orphanage she would not have cried. She said she would have just laughed back at her nanny. She said that now she cries because she loves Mom and Dad. That made a few tears slip out of the corners of my eyes. Then after drop-off at school I came home and Jay called me. More tears. After the crying, he managed to tell me that they were letting him go and there would not be a teaching position open for him in the Fall. After the shock of that I got together with my friend, Tomoko, to go out for lunch for my birthday. As I told her in the car, "Perhaps God will use this to help build faith and trust in God for Penny. But, I wonder why he had to teach her this lesson so quickly. After all, we've only been back for 8 weeks."

Well, God's timing in allowing things in our lives is not always what we would have planned. After my lunch with Tomoko I came home. Jay got a sub and came home early. We just had some time together to just lie there in shock over the sudden, unexpected news. Then we went to pick up Penny. She didn't seem shocked to see Dad. She was back to her cheerful self. After stopping by the public library we got ready to go out for dinner for my birthday. We ate at the Hibachi restaurant, which was much fun. We were just thankful that Grandma's soup had cooled down since she tried to use her soup bowl to catch the flying piece of shrimp that the chef tossed at her and ended up spilling the leftover soup on her head, instead. We came home and ate Cold Stone Creamery frozen strawberry ice cream cake and taught Grandpa and Grandma how to play Uno. Penny is an expert after playing a million times at our hotels in Bangkok. She had lots of fun taking pictures and was thrilled to eat a lot of fish at the restaurant.

After all of the fun and the grandparents left we sat down to talk with Penny about Dad's job status. She expressed her worries. And her main worry wasn't even one that I had considered. She was afraid that this would mean that Mom and Dad might start fighting and split up. I was able to reassure her of our love for each other and for her. This led into quite a long discussion, too, about God's constant love and being adopted into his family. I reassured her that while there are difficult times here in this world and things will not always be perfect that we will always be family. And I told her how if we have trust in God we can go live in our perfect home in heaven with Him as our adoptive Dad. Then she asked if after that we would be born again (reincarnation). I reassured her that the bible promises that once Jesus washes away our sins our Daddy in heaven welcomes us home as his kids forever and ever and we will never cry again. She seemed to be drinking in my words. The coolest thing was that Grandma had just given us a book all about that very subject, which Penny loves. Before bedtime she gave me the biggest hug and said, "I love you!" That was the best birthday present, ever.