diamond in the rough

This morning, after I had left for work, my husband did something really special to surprise me. We continue to wait patiently (is there any option here?) for our foster care licensing to be approved. The social worker sent it in two weeks ago and he predicted it would take four weeks total to travel all the beaurocratic inroads. So.....to prepare and keep me somewhat sane, we have been working on the room that will be the nursery little by little. It was set up as a spare bedroom with a queen bed and two dressers. Our good friends the Wilsons lent us a crib a couple weeks back so that joined the group. It was starting to look a bit crowded so I mentioned to Dan that we probably would have to take the queen bed down soon, especially since I would like to move one of our recliners in there if we have an infant placed with us. Like any man who's wife talks of having furniture moved, this sounded suspiciously like hard work. We talked briefly about accomplishing it this coming weekend but the subject ended there. This past weekend, while on the way home from a continuing education conference, we stopped to see my cousin and her husband who had so generously offered us some baby things. You see, they have twins who are 1 1/2 so have had tons of baby goods pass through their house. We stopped and visited briefly and were entertained by the Nick and Hannah show. By the time we left they had loaded us up with two car seats, a stroller, diaper genie, playmat, bouncy seat and LOTS and LOTS of misc. baby goodies! They were so generous to us in passing these things along. Thanks Bud and Lindsey for your generosity, support and excitement for our journey. Once we got all this stuff in our soon to be nursery it was more than a bit crowded. So, to surprise me, my husband took down the bed this morning and brought the frame to the basement. When I got home this afternoon and walked down the hallway and into this room it looked....well...like a nursery. Of course my eyes welled up with tears because I want so badly for this all to work out and having the room nearly ready makes it very tangible somehow. My husband knows me well enough to know how much this would mean to me. I've decided that from now until a child is placed with us, I'm going to use the rocker in his or her room as my place to pray for protection for this child and for God's peace for us as we continue to stumble our way through this. As for my husband, well, he keeps finding new ways to show me how much he loves me. I am so blessed to have him next to me on this journey. He's a diamond in the rough and I love him.
Here hoping for a diamond in the rough for all - Kendra