How are we doing?

How are we doing, you ask, with our daughter and our hearts on the other side of the world? I can truly say, that God is good and we(mostly I, b/c let's be honest, I'm the emotional one) are doing much better than anticipated.  God has truly given me peace that Ryah is being taken care of and loved while we aren't there.  That doesn't stop me from missing her at all, but it does keep me from spending every day on the floor of her room crying(Aaron is scared he will one day come home to this ha!) I watch videos and look at her picture pretty much every day- she is beautiful, and SO loved! I am anticipating all the things we will do this fall when she is home and unbelievably excited about our first Christmas with her! And today, I am missing her a little more than usual.  It's almost been a month since we met, that's unreal!
We sat in church last weekend and our pastor said these words that he said over 2 years ago, that inspired this post:  "God sometimes answers our prayers by giving us what we would have asked for had we known what he knows." 
And the tears just came.  I thought of my precious little girl on the other side of the world.  There are so many things about her that I wouldn't have asked for almost 3 years ago when we started this journey.  Hear me when I say, that doesn't mean these things are bad, I just didn't know.  But this whole time, God was shaping us and molding us to be ready for her- sweet Ryah Grace.  I may not have asked for it back then, but she is worth every tear, every heartache, every fundraiser, every prayer, every minute of the wait. We would do every bit of it again to end up with our precious girl and we are just praising God for knowing better, for knowing us, for having better plans, for giving us what we would have asked for if we knew what he knows.  He is so good- just so good.  Someone posted this song on our adoption facebook group yesterday and I can't stop listening.  There is so much beauty and pain in adoption and in our kids' stories- but that's a post for another day. But this song- so much truth and so much beauty. We can praise him through it all, he is enough- every bit of the hard we have experienced on this journey was not wasted, and it was all meaningful. And every bit we have yet to experience is purposeful. Thanking God for that truth this morning.