Friday, September 2, 2011

Laundry Therapy

This past week has been slow. Each day I am hopeful that there might be good news on a court date or some other development with our adoption, but it turns into another day of no news. I am the type of person that likes to keep busy, likes to have a list of things to do and frankly, likes to be in control. Right now, I have no control over the pace of our adoption and no idea when our children will join our family. That is a tough realization and a helpless feeling.

Couple of nights ago I was folding laundry in the bedroom. I had my favorite music playing and I enjoyed a quiet moment accomplishing a rather boring task. I looked at the basket that was full of clean, unfolded clothes and couldn't wait to have it all neatly folded.




Instead of my usual style of rushing through the task, I took my time, enjoyed the music, folded each item  and placed it into a pile.
The task of organizing and smoothing out wrinkles seemed to do the same in my brain. I felt less anxious about everything for some reason. I emerged out of the bedroom and Eric sensed the difference as well. We jokingly called it "laundry therapy".

Tonight, I decided to try this method again. And it worked!! I took pictures for this illustration and now all the kids clothes are folded and put away (added bonus). I'm not sure why this task is soothing to my brain, but there is something about taking something unorganized and making something neat and tidy out of it.

As I looked at these pictures, I noticed Emmi's shirt with an elephant on it. A gentleman in Ghana hand painted it and it is her favorite shirt to wear. All around our house there are reminders of Ghana and of our children. From the various souvenirs we brought home, their pictures to a beautiful painting on our wall.

The other day I found "A"s yellow hairband that somehow made into our suitcase and I couldn't hold back the tears. I pray they know we are coming back. I pray they know the wait is out of our control....

3 comments:

  1. So ironic that I've spent all day doing laundry & decided I needed a break so I'd check in on some blogs...and found THIS post (apparently just moments after you wrote it)! I can not tell you how much I relate to this today! Though we don't have the artwork & little headbands to take my mind off to Ghana, we do have photos...and even just they can elicit tears from this waiting mama.

    Great post...and just another example of how parallel our lives seem to run! Can't wait to see you tomorrow!

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  2. Praying Jesus will hold your little loves, comfort your mommy heart and strengthen your family's faith through this wait.

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  3. So hard. I'm proud of you for finding something productive to do to work through your anxiety. Waiting is HARD, but Remember, the Lord calls us to wait to refine us to be more like Him, and to prepare your little's hearts. Loving you from here!

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