Sweet sister

The final part of Matani's "getting ready for night-night" ritual is when we sit in the rocking chair: her snuggled up with her big fleecy blankie and me sweating profusely as that big fleecy blankie reminds me that our house sits at 85 degrees until the air conditioning comes on at 8:00p.m. and makes me wish her blankie was a thin cotton sheet. But wait...that's not really what I wanted to blog about. So back to bedtime ritual: we cuddle in the rocking chair and read her Bible, pray, and then rock while we sing worship songs for a few minutes before I tuck her into bed.

Praying for Mikaiya has been a part of our bedtime ritual for a while now, but it's more special now that we have a face to match to her name. So tonight as we sat, we held the picture of her that I keep on the wall above her bed. I asked Matani if she wanted to pray for Mikaiya and she started stroking the face in the picture and saying "Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you..." over and over and over again. In Mati's little toddler words it sounds like "Jejush wuv oo" and it may be that those were the sweetest words I've ever heard. My own eyes blurred with tears as Mati then once more put her sweet face to the picture and kissed it.