A Christmas-ish Letter from the Lovelaces

Two nights ago, I turned to Mike and said that we should do a New Year’s letter this year, not a Christmas one. Christmas letters are supposed to be full of the fun things you did this year. I knew our letter would be weighed down by the news that we were no longer on our adoption journey.

“I don’t want to make people sad,” I remember saying to Mike.

But then today, I read a quote (sadly, I don’t know who from, Instagram isn’t very reliable when it comes to attributions) that said “December 21st. Winter solstice. The darkest day of the year. Every day of the fall has been getting darker towards today. But tomorrow? It starts getting lighter. In tiny, tiny increments. But light is coming. It doesn’t get any darker than today. Light is coming.“

And I was like, well shoot. I guess we’ll be sending that Christmas solstice letter after all!

A few months ago, Mike and I made the decision to stop our adoption journey. I know that we’ve shared this news with a lot of you personally — for those of you hearing this for the first time, I want to first thank you for walking alongside us for the past three years. There have been moments of intense light, and moments of incredible darkness. Mike and I have drawn closer together as we have grieved the loss of a million little dreams that came with laying down this particular hope.

But I am reminded today, that light is still coming.

We have had so many friends cover us with love these last few months, both through meals and shared tears, as well as prayers and…well, shared tears. We’ve traveled and hiked and swam and rested and carried the weight of grief and joy across the globe. As it should be.

Many people have asked us “what’s next.” And the simple answer is “healing.” We aren’t ready to pursue any kind of “next steps” beyond meeting with an incredible counselor who is guiding us, gently, sometimes awkwardly, through this new season.

I’m so grateful that tomorrow, we get a little more light. And even more the day after that.

We pray that each of you have a truly hope-filled remainder of the year, clinging to the promise of light to come.

Brandy & Mike