Last night I fell asleep on a train. The ride was oh so comfortable, I was with my favorite people, and we were headed somewhere warm, relaxing, and placid. We were enjoying the ease of each other's company on a summer holiday so long that the end seemed too far away to feel real. Life was predicable and easy. So imagine my surprise when I woke this morning to learn that my train was not in fact headed to the Caribbean (can you take a train to an island?) but instead to a rainforest jungle where we were going to be having a huge family adventure. It was still going to be fun, I was still with my favorite people, but it was going to be a completely different experience than sitting on a beach drinking a Pina Colada and watching my kids play in the sand. Hacking through a rainforest is a lot of hard work! Especially with kids in tow. Even if you've been there before.

It wasn't really a rainforest I was entering. Unbeknowst to me, it was a new chapter in my life.

I woke up this morning with a plan, in fact I had been entrenched in that plan for many a month now.

The Plan:

- Get used to being a mommy to two kids. Check.

- Have Noah and Max grow used to our new family dynamic. Check.

- Make sure Max is 100% comfortable in our family. Check.

- Coast along and enjoy that for a year or so. Just starting.

- Finish basement, go on a bunch of fabulo trips, enjoy this period of peace, predictability, prosperity, etc, etc, etc. Coming soon.

But, God had a different plan and I was so entrenched in mine that He had to get my attention through my husband.

Chris woke up this morning with a purpose: to get us to the temple today. So, he was busy ironing his clothes with chatty Noah by his side. Noah talks often about the day when he has another little someone in our family but this morning next to Daddy the questions he was asking were a little different and they caused my dear husband a moment of pause. In that pause God planted a seed of inspiration that wouldn't go away no matter how hard his wife tried to nip it in the bud. And I tried. I had a plan - WE had a plan. A good one!

He carefully approached me with the question "What if we used the money we were going to finish our basement with and started the process to adopt from China instead?" "Well, no!" I said because that's not the picture I had drawn for our lives. We were headed straight to the beach for a year before we did that, remember? "And here's why." and then we continued to talk about it for the rest of breakfast. We had a whole lot of reasons why it would be smart to wait a year, why it made sense to wait a year, why it was a good plan. All of that could not quash that little seed of inspiration and my diligent husband. "Well, I just want you to be open to asking about it. Why don't we pray about it at the temple?" I'd just thought through a dozen well thought through reasons why it wasn't the right time but to be "open" and "obedient" to Heavenly Father I told him, "Ok. You are welcome to pray for that. I'm going to pray that if it isn't the right idea to wait a year to start, because I think it is, that God will let me know." and I was pretty darn confident. And comfortable.

I was so confident in my plan that it wasn't even really a concern. As I prayed while getting dressed for our session to start at the temple my mind was full of other worries and concerns. Chris' wasn't. He was praying for me, praying that if God had an important direction to send us in our lives that his wife would feel it too.

And that's how my train completely turned direction.

As I sat comfortably in my chair listening to the messages given in the temple my heart was inexplicably softened. It really was surprising. Suddenly I realized that what my husband was feeling was genuine, real, and needed paying attention to despite our well made plans. Gently a new plan, a new picture of what life could be like unfolded in my heart. Everything that proceeded to be said in the temple reinforced it and I felt the truth of it. And then I was happy and my plan didn't matter.

Heavenly Father is going to bless us with another child. I couldn't wait to tell my Christopher, but I was guessing he already knew. He was sitting all the way across the room from me and there was no way to signal to him what I was feeling. God probably knew that; He knew I was going to need a few hours to digest this on my own. And I did. It was my privilege and responsibility to consecrate all my time, talents, and blessings to God and how He is calling me to do that right now is to be a MOTHER and there is another child waiting for us right now. (Or will be soon.)

The longer I sat there by myself feeling Heavenly Father testify of this to my soul the stronger I felt about it. As I sat waiting for Chris in the Celestial Room at the end it was all I could do to only bawl a little and not make a spectacle of myself. By the time Chris made it to me I had controlled the tears because I didn't want him to know what I had experienced right away; I wanted to hear how he felt, he started this after all! When I asked how he felt he said he felt pretty much the same, that he didn't really get much direction but that he had completely changed his prayer from, "Should we start to adopt from China again?" to "Please let my wife know if we should adopt from China again." Well, his prayer was definitely answered. Inexplicably (except not), unpredictably (except not) my plan, my good plan, had been completely changed. I'm a little timid to even say so! I'm still trying to get acclimated to the thought that I won't be waking up in the Caribbean for the next while.

I better find my hiking boots.