There it is.

My 11-year-old New Year’s Resolutions. Right between “get 8 and one half hours of sleep” and “become famous,” is “family adobt a baby.”

I don’t remember what originally started my interest in adoption. But, my mom says I was always interested in it. A year or two after I wrote these resolutions, I was just figuring out the internet on a very slow computer in our unfinished basement that I thought was the bomb. I would sit at this big old metal desk and look at the pictures of children available for adoption for hours. I asked my parents if they’d adopt one of these children. I think they thought I was a little crazy. Maybe I was. I didn’t have a clue about the process and the needs of these children. I just knew they needed a home and that we were a pretty good one. The Lord had warmed my heart to the needs of children even before I could easily see their faces. He was already preparing me.

I had forgotten all about this list until we were cleaning out my parents’ home during the summer of 2008 and found it in an old briefcase with a bunch of random papers of mine. And, as Type A as I am, I can tell you that out of the 20 goals on this list, only few were reached. I don’t even remember who Matt was (#2). I don’t think having a blog counts as becoming famous (goal #8). I think I did reach being the second most popular girl (#9) that year until Mary Beth (that would be contestant #1) ousted me for some reason. And, although I quickly reached having 40 pairs of earrings (#15), I never made it to Germany (#16) and I’m sure I quickly bailed on writing in my diary everyday (#13).

But, 22 years later, we “adobted” a baby.