sometimes i forget how beautiful this story is, so this is to share it and also to remember it

one time a few years ago my family had a baby girl with us for foster care. we loved her loved her tried so hard to adopt her. a lot of shit happened and her birth mom was allowed to get custody again. she died shortly after, due to abuse and neglect by her birth mom, while we were still fighting to get her back. she was my baby sister. she was my parent's daughter. there's a lot more to the story than that, but the essence is that we lost our baby girl and it ripped my heart in half and shook my faith like i didn't know it could be shaken.

about a year later, my family decided to do foster care again. my parents really felt that we were supposed to have a baby girl in our family, you see. the very first call we got was for a baby girl. to pick her up from the hospital. for foster care. probably we wouldn't be able to adopt her, but hey.

mom and i drove to the hospital that afternoon. her name was kloie. with a 'k'. she was tiny and kind of looked like an alien. but in a beautiful way.

on the way home with kloie, mom and i were both getting our hopes up. but my mom kept saying, "katie - we probably won't be able to keep her. don't start thinking that way." but i did, and she did too, and the cool thing was that her name started with a 'k'. in my family the boys have the initials 'm.j.f.' and the girls, 'k.n.f.'. kloie with a 'k'. it had to be a sign.

so i was thinking of middle names for kloie that would start with the letter 'n'. the only ones that sounded good were 'nicole' (which is mine) and 'noelle' (which is christmas-y and she was born in june, so that didn't seem to fit). i remember saying with a certainty and a peace that came only from the Lord, that if she was meant to be ours forever, something would happen with her around christmas so we could name her 'kloie noelle'. and that i was pretty sure it would happen.

fast forward a few months until i hadn't thought about that car ride in a while. kloie was doing wonderfully. we adored her. she was (and is) precious. had been trying to avoid thinking about her future with us, because it would be much too hard to lose two baby sisters in two years.

i got a phone call from my mom. she said, remember what you told me in the car on the way home from the hospital with kloie? i said, no. she said, about naming her kloie noelle? and i remembered. and she said KATIE LISTEN TO THIS: i just got a call from the lady who plays piano at church and she is wondering if kloie would like to be baby Jesus in the nativity play this christmas. we can name her kloie noelle. it's kind of a stretch, but we can name her kloie noelle. you said it all along. GOD IS SO FAITHFUL.

and i cried and cried.

then, around that same christmas, we found out it was looking very very unlikely that she would be leaving us. further kloie noelle confirmation.

we had her baptized that spring. as kloie noelle.

but, the best is this: over the summer they started talking about adoption proceedings. and there was a hope that it could be finalized by christmas (!). further confirmation.

after that things got bogged down as they tend to. things weren't looking up for her being ours by christmas. i will admit i lost faith. everything was going slowly and i started to think, well okay maybe it's fine...maybe it's just not going to work out so well, but it'll be okay, just not as perfect as i thought God told me it would.

however let me just say, kloie's adoption is being FINALIZED in three days. final final final. she becomes official. oh just eight days before christmas. NO BIG DEAL EXCEPT ACTUALLY IT'S HUGE.

GOD IS SO FAITHFUL.

HE KEEPS HIS PROMISES.

WHEN HE DOES THINGS HE DOES THEM RIGHT.

oh there is so much more to the miracle that is kloie noelle. she is redemption and beauty and i wish everyone who ever reads this (probably three people i would say) will meet her someday.

and will get to hear her whole story.

and as a result will see in huge, bold, undeniable ways how much God loves and cares and provides and how truly beautiful His plans are.