Maddy's Here!!!

Maddy's HERE!!!!! So excited to have my sissie hanging out with me for a month!!!

 The kids LOVE having her here! They always confuse the two of us ALL the time and call us twins!

So excited for this adventure we are sharing together!!!

~Lily

Love wins

My little screamer has been screaming again. With her its baby steps. I look at monthly progress and not daily. It sometimes can be difficult and I feel so overwhelmed but continue to cry out to God to keep working in this tough little heart of my little screamer and also in my own. 

My heart literally exploded the other day as she was did a page of her kindergarten homework all by herself. Which is a HUGE accomplishment for her. “TIA DIDY (lily)!!!!!” she had cried out. “I can do it!!! I did it!” The biggest high five followed and I just sat there watching her and trying to not cry. Little baby steps. 

A day without screaming. A page of homework done all by herself. Her giving hugs instead of aggression. 

My little screamer was telling me about her living situation before she arrived. My heart literally breaks as she tells me about how she was beaten or hurt. “The crazy one beat me up.” She told me yesterday. “She beat me really hard.” It took me a moment to realize that “the crazy one” was her mother. At 7 years old, this is how she views her mother. 

Love wins. It’s baby steps. It’s loving and forgiving and correcting. It’s teaching and freaking out excitedly over a tiny page of homework. It’s being constant and lovingly firm. It’s having my yes be yes and my no be no. It’s lots of extra hugs and kisses. 

Loving my little screamer would be helpful with earplugs. :) No seriously. Sometimes I just turn up the music in my ipod and just pray that God would give me grace. 

How precious is every baby step. How precious is every smile. Every new beginning and second chance.

That’s how God loves. He gives us a new beginning. He gives us life. He gives us love. He delights in our every baby step. He smiles as we smile. He loves without FAIL. We look at the crazy and hurting world we live in and forget our God who LOVES us. So instead of leaving us to get beat up and die, He died for us and decided to love us unconditionally. 

He doesn’t leave us there screaming. He wraps us up in His arms and listens to our screams. And then whispers to us the TRUTH. 

That we are loved. We are forgiven. We are safe. We are understood. We are His!

Much love from Bolivia,

Lily Fluharty

Happy Mother's Day!

“Ma” she calls out to me and pulls my hand around her tiny one. “Mommy!” She says again and grins up at me. My heart melts for the hundredth time. All day yesterday my heart jumped as she called out “Ma!” 

He’s just starting to talk. I walked outside during dinner for one moment and walked back in. He looked over at me from his high chair with his goofy baby grin. “MAMA!” My mouth dropped open and I just smiled LARGE.

How I love these little babies. I’m not really their mommy or their mama. I can never fit that role. They have lost the one that they should have been calling mama. I can’t understand it and sometimes it can be so very hard. But I know that God has brought them here for a very special reason. He has put them in this family and He has also brought me here. So I can love them. 

Happy Mother’s Day! To everyone who loves a precious little one! Thank you for all you do!

God bless!!! Much love from me and the babies!

~Lily Fluharty