Spring has sprung! It couldn’t have come soon enough for me. I love the winter, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, trapping, hunting, ice fishing. There is a lot for a self-proclaimed outdoorsman to keep himself busy with in the winter. I also LOVE when winter comes to an end. I’m sure I am not the only one who gets the winter blues. That is always the place I find myself in about a week into February. Thankfully not a deep dark depression, just a little bummed out. I’m sure I can attribute some of that feeling to constant need to be busy and not being able to do all of the other things that I love doing outside the rest of the year.

Yep, I’m a busy body. I love to be busy. If I’m not busy I find a way to make myself busy. If I can’t find a way to make myself busy I make a list of things that I could potentially be busy doing. Oh yeah, I’m a list person as well. Sometimes I put things on my list that I’ve already done just so I can cross them off. Feels good right? The point is I always find more things to do, either around our house, a hobby, or at work. Some of this comes from growing up on a farm where there is ALWAYS more work to do. That’s part of why I love camp because the two are the same in that way. I also have to be busy in the spring because that is the camp “ramp-up” season. You can just feel the energy increasing as we ramp up and prepare for the summer. This time of year as we look to the start of the summer there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. My personal life is no different.

So here is what is currently on my list:

• Bury fence for garden (that darn woodchuck)
• Build steps to lake
• Chip all cut brush
• Try my hand at brewing beer
• Fix closet doors
• Finish building canoe trailer
• Clean up sticks in yard
• Get fountain running
• Reattach dock
• Fix canoes
• Finish annex (a building we are remodeling at camp)
• Router camp signs
• Paint signs
• Till garden
• Apply for deck permit
• Build deck (thanks Chelsea)
• Rebuild entrance to house

So, there are more but you get the picture. No sense boring you with the rest of my “to-do” list. Not going to lie. This list even stresses me a little. I have no doubt I will get it done this spring…that isn’t the part that stresses me. The part that stresses me is at what expense will it be to me to get this all done. I’m super thankful that Chelsea gets me so I’m not so worried there. She knows the ebbs and flows of my busyness and understands that I will be putting in some pretty long hours getting everything ready/done.

Sometimes we keep ourselves busy to avoid hard decisions. We happen to find ourselves in the midst of a very hard decision. There are so many different avenues and roads to pursue to build our family. Choosing the one that is right for us and for our future family is the hard part. So this is a question that has crossed my mind: Are you making yourself that busy to avoid this hard adoption decision?

A question I would be remiss to not ask myself. So I thought about it today. And I came to this conclusion: I’m definitely not avoiding it, I have never been more resolved that adoption is the right choice for our family, I need more patience like my wife, and this is a REALLY hard decision. Let’s not get that last point twisted in the least. This decision is one that will affect our lives and the lives of all of the other people involved in the adoption process, forever–a fact that isn’t lost on me. And guess what, this is one of those decisions that in a normal circumstance people could/would avoid making.

But this isn’t a normal circumstance is it? I don’t want anyone to confuse avoidance with discernment. You see both of those things take a long time. So while exercising discernment in our adoption we have already had some people confuse that for avoidance. This is a decision that is going to take time, prayerful consideration and lots of patience. It doesn’t mean the resolve is any less or that anyone is avoiding anything–quite the opposite in fact. We are always thinking, discussing, contemplating, educating, and praying about adoption. Which is exactly what we should be doing; you don’t just jump into this, it takes time.

We want to build our family—simple. But the way we are choosing to build our family, it’s a bit more complicated, and so much more than just adding another thing to the list.

~Eli