Lucky #7

This story doesn't begin here, but my version of it does. Sort of. Around Valentine's Day, I was trolling etsy for cutenesses and this card gave me a twinkle in my eye.  I just had to have it and I didn't know why.  I'm an Austenphile, for certain. But something was tugging at my heart that I needed to buy this card for someone.

I traded e-mails with the designer of the card.  She was selling it in sets for Valentine's Day, and I just couldn't spring for an eleventy four dollar stationery at the time.  So I waited.

I waited until about a month ago. When I saw that she was selling individual cards.

I bought one.  Turns out the designer is from my hometown. She lives right up the street from where my father and his wife used to live.

I kept that card, the "Mr. Darcy" card in my Important Things Box. I kept it until I knew for certain the person for whom it was intended.

*** I have a dear friend MC.  We met on the internets.  She is the kind of person who knows your favorite things and remembers them.  The kind of lady who always has company, who is always making lunch plans with old friends and new friends.  The kind of teacher that students remember and thank for putting them on the right course. The kind of friend that shares her heart and encourages your own.

MC and her husband have been adoptive parents-in-waiting since I first came to know them.  That was in 2007.  I have read their adoption profile so many times; it's written and compiled with so much intention and love, it should actually be core curriculum for everyone even contemplating the act of parenting.  The act of nurturing another life in this beautiful, broken world.

MC and her husband have had their adoption profile reviewed seven times.  That means that they have gone through the emotional acrobatics of having their candidacy as parents reviewed SEVEN TIMES. They have waited seven times, their lives hanging in the balance, wondering if they were going to bring a son or daughter home.

***

I must have lost the Mr. Darcy card in a recent cleaning fit in preparation for a prospective tenant.

***

Last month, MC asked us to pray for the family of a baby girl reviewing her candidacy.

***

I had this feeling, though, that MC's Mr. Darcy was still out there.

***

Soon MC will meet her little Mr. Darcy.  Lucky #7.  I will be praying that their first meeting is sweet, that Mr. Darcy will be healthy and ready to come home and that MC will enjoy every moment with the new little love in her life.

*** Whomever, whatever your Mr. Darcy might be--let MC's story encourage you to keep the faith.