Kloe

Look at this sweet girl. Isn't she beautiful?

And not just on the outside. She has such a sweet, gentle, tender heart.

She loves babies and baby dolls (still) and stuffed animals. And real animals.



I told you she's saving money to dig a water well in Africa, right?



$5,000 is her goal. Quite a lofty goal for a little girl....and I'm so proud of her for dreaming big and going after her goal with determination and confidence. She's saving coke cans. She even contributed some of her own allowance money to the fund. She's told her friends at school about it and they give her their coke cans from lunch (really, I didn't know elementary kids brought cokes in their lunches).

My sweet, tender-hearted baby girl has had such a hard week.

First of all, last Saturday - about 30 minutes before her basketball game - her finger got slammed in the car door. She had to sit out the entire game with an ice bag on her hand. Just today she could finally bend it all the way for the first time.



You can't tell it from the picture, but if you look at her finger from the side, the nail is actually raised up higher than the rest of her finger. Yep, pretty sure that nail's coming off.

And then today my heart absolutely broke for her when her sweet little, long-awaited, birthday-gift friend left us after only six short months.



As I sat holding her in the rocking chair while she cried, her sweet brother began bringing her gifts.....prizes he had won at school this week for math challenges and good behavior. He didn't know what to say....didn't know what to do....just handed them to me and pointed to his sister. Sweet boy.



What sweet, wonderful, amazing, tender-hearted children God has given us.

I am more blessed than I could ever have imagined, and grateful beyond measure.

It is so hard when they are hurting....either physically or emotionally. So hard. I want so much to be able to protect them from hurt, and yet I know it's a part of life in this world that they will have to walk through. I just feel so ill-equipped to help them and teach them and support them and guide them through it.

So today I have to choose to trust in this....

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:6-7

And this....

"If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." James 1:5