Sometimes we just don't understand

It has been an up and down week, and today is only Wednesday.
I had been following a sibling group from Oregon that we were interested in adopting. At times it seemed like it was very possible that we could be adding these darlings to our family, and then the wind would totally go out of our sails. We got the final word from our state, and Oregon, that the total number of children in our home was just too many for either state to approve adding more.
Wow. That was something that hurt really bad. I know rules are always in place because someone had abused a situation in the past, and the rules are to protect everyone. But in this case, it seemed so harsh to say it would be better for these little children to continue to lanquish on a state list than to place them in a family with "so many children." In another day, our clan of seven kids would just be another family. But with family sizes shrinking across the states, we are more of an oddity than any of us would care to admit.
Yeah, we're odd. We enjoy camping and bike riding, and running the big kids to their activities. We enjoy showing up at church, ready to learn how to handle another week by studying what God has for us, all 7 kids neatly dressed, hair combed, and happy. We love taking pictures doing crazy things, like jumping in leaves and body surfing in the ocean. We like to cook hot dogs and marshmallows on a fire, and tell stories of when the "big kids" were little, and watch the little eyes widen with appreciation for what their older siblings have done and maybe even believe that there are still adventures out there for all of us yet.
Crazy? Crazy enough to believe that someone out there still needs the loving arms of a big family to enfold them and help them traverse this big world. Crazy enough to believe that even though lawmakers and judges find our crowd to be "too big", we know we are effective as parents because we care to try it, and stick with it. Crazy? You bet. Alot of people we know don't want to stay up at night with "someone" else's kids and love them through the painful terrors that grip their bodies from the irresponsible acts of birth parents that just couldn't get it right for their kids sakes. Crazy, of course, but crazy enough to believe that in the midst of all our activity and motion, in a house that never stands still and everything seems to move, we believe there will always be room for "one more" . And crazy enough to keep seeking just what it is that makes our hearts sooooo desire to lift the burden of one more child who just may thrive in the crazy lives we lead as a family. A crazy family. And I guess we just like it that way.
An up and down week, but never down for good. Tomorrow will be another "up" day.