I peeked at the return and saw it was from my friend Marianthe. Marianthe and I met through our Journey to Me blogs a little over a year ago. A year ago she was following our journey to Isaiah and she was just beginning their journey to Creighton.

Through emails (and now phone calls) we have become sweet, sweet friends. She and her husband, Michael, have walked through several faith challenges – the kind that make you know that you know that you know that God is on the throne and He alone is moving for the orphan – to set them free from their ‘prison’!

Over the last year Marianthe and Michael have faced many seemingly insurmountable obstacles – and with each of these she and Michael have risen to the challenge and trusted God to do the impossible even when every single circumstance (from a human perspective) would say “I don’t think so”. And each and every time God has shown up with His mighty, strong arm and bared it for all the nations to see that He is STILL on the throne!!

Marianthe and I have prayed together, laughed together, cried together and believed together that Creighton is coming home. As I have blogged about before, God even brought Creighton’s birth mom out of hiding at the very last minute to have the DNA testing. Totally a 21st century Red-Sea-parting kind of miracle!!

One day Marianthe and her husband (who faithfully serves our country in the military) will come to visit us with their kids and we will hug and cry in person and surround ourselves with all these babies that we have prayed for with mountain moving faith!!

So last night, after I tucked the little ones into bed I sat down to open my special box. Inside I found the most beautiful treasure painted by my sweet friend Marianthe just for me! It is entitled “Days of Ezekiel” from the verse of the song “Days of Elijah”.

The painting depicts Ezekiel (the sweetest wake-up caller rooster ever) in front of our little log home. (We are all amazed at how much it looks like our home – and she has never been here!) There is a yellow ribbon to remind us of our son Tyler’s service and an American flag flies proudly from the front porch.

In the foreground of the picture are the flowers that do fill the front flower bed for most of the summer – Orange Day Lilies – one of my very most favorite flowers ever! It is a beautiful picture and I can’t wait for Marianthe to come see this place in person and see how identical it looks. It is spectacular! She is a gifted artist and used her talents to bless me abundantly.

It will hang in my kitchen as a daily reminder of just one more blessing that comes through adoption – precious friends who God has brought into our lives to walk this journey together – who together with us share a heart and burden for the orphans of the world.

Incidentally, tonight our small group came to our home for Bible study. Almost immediately after walking in the door folks noticed the painting standing on the counter in the kitchen. They admired it and exclaimed how beautiful it was!!

How very blessed I am and absolutely I will treasure it forever!