Leaning

I had so much fun at my retreat last weekend. I came home rested and rejuvenated! And while I loved loved loved almost everything about the retreat (except the 17 hours it took to get there), I must admit it was hard to be around all these mommas who were sharing pictures of babies with dark skin and big brown eyes when my heart is dreaming of my own little guy. Its hard to hear stories of gotcha days and big ways that God provided when my heart is longing to see the end of our story. It makes the ache in my heart a little stronger and the yearning just a little more unbearable. I will admit I have been unusually teary the last week. I seriously started tearing up in line at the Christian book store because they were asking for child sponsorship and had pictures of little dark skinned babies posted to tug at your heart strings. I almost lost it and then I had to remind myself, "you are in public get a hold of yourself."

This aching is real and this longing I have for our child is hard. And sometimes when I look at all the 'facts" I get pretty discouraged. If I lean on my own understanding of the way this works out it seems impossible and like this thing will never work out well. And I will be honest, I have been doing that a lot lately. I have been looking at all the wind and waves and I have been drowning a little. But just like Jesus caught Peter when he was drowning (Matthew 14:22-33), He is really faithful to catch me.

I was having one of those drowning days on Wednesday. I was crying and venting to Todd. I love that my husband is so wise because he listened to my craziness and then he said, "God's work is done best when it looks impossible for Him to do it."

So for now my eyes are back on my God and off the waves. The view is much better here.

My heart is encouraged by these truths.

Proverbs 3:5-6
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

Romans 8:28

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Since October

Wow. Cannot believe January is here and almost gone. I realized I havent blogged since October.

So here is an update on our life since then:

We are holding steady on the waiting list for Ethiopia. We have nothing new to update, no news to speak of but we have hope and I am filled with a tremendous amount of peace. So we wait in hope for the Lord! (Psalm 33:20-22)

We are still homeschooling but I admit with Christmas and vacations we have been a little lax in our studies but we just started phonics this week. Elizabeth is loving learning to read. Claire has up this point been interested in doing everything big sister has done but phonics were a little too boring for little sister this week so mom is having to re-work my plan a little.

In December my big little girls had their first dance recital together. Ohh my it was the cutest thing. As they step on stage Elizabeth was posing and smiling absolutely prepared for her moment to shine. But my sweet Claire stole the show by pulling her cute little tu-tu up over her head. So I was that mom who stood in the back row yelling in my calmest whisper "pull your dress down." But seriously the whole aduience was roaring with laughter at her cuteness.

Next week I am headed to Atlanta GA to join 400 other adoptive moms for the Created for Care conference. I am so excited I could burst. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I was looking forward to this conference so much but a couple weeks ago something happened that made my heart feel like this conference is more than just a break or get away. The worship leader for the weekend posted a song that she said the Lord laid on her heart for the weekend. And that song happened to be the very song God has used over and over to encourage my heart that He has been leading us. So I go forward with the certainty that my God prepared this weekend for me. And it grips my heart with joy!

In the thick of it.

I have not been a faithful blogger lately.

I have a lot of excuses.
I am really busy. With newly homeschooling our kiddos my time is extremely limited. I have to be much more intentional about what I do with each moment. It has taken some time to find a schedule that works for us. Like for instance, at first I admit I was wondering if I was ever going to find time to clean my shower again. (Not that I value cleaning my shower more than blogging. It is by far more fun to blog but there is something very soothing to my soul about taking a shower in a freshly cleansed area.) I have finally come to some sort of routine that seems to be working for us. And I even find there are a few moments where I have nothing planned that I could sit down and blog.

But then I think about what I will say. And this is where it gets tough. Do I say we are still on the waitlist? Do I say we still have 20 months until they say we could get a referral?

Do I just skip all the emotional turmoil swirling around in my head and tell you instead what the girls are being for Halloween? Not that I think its bad to blog about what your kids are dressing up as for Halloween. I will probably end up sharing that and sharing pictures because they are seriously so stinkin cute and they designed the costumes themselves.

But the truth is I long to share more but my heart aches and I am just not sure I can.

So here it is. This is me in the thick of it.

Some days and weeks go by and I barely think about it. (Well almost barely)

But there are other days and weeks when it hurts and it sucks and I just wish I knew when we were going to get to meet our son.

And in these moments I find myself leaning and flinging myself out on my God.

I read this the other day and it filled my heart with peace.


"When looking back on the lives of men and women of God the tendency is to say – What wonderfully astute wisdom they had! How perfectly they understood all God wanted! The astute mind behind is the Mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the Divine guidance of God through childlike people who were foolish enough to trust God’s wisdom and the supernatural equipment of God."- Oswald Chambers (My utmost for His Highest)

If I am a fool I hope it is in the sense that I trust my God and His timing impliciltly.

School is in session

Last week we had our first official full week of homeschool. It was fun. It was chaotic. And I have a few thoughts on the whole issue. One thing is I have felt completely like our family is right where we need to be. Homeschooling is perfect for us right now. It works great. I have said over and over this is what we will do until it doesn't work any more. And right now it feels like the exact place, time and thing for our family.

That being said it is hard. It is a lot of work to prepare lessons that are fun and actually teach. On top of that we still have other parts of life. We are a part of a co-op that meets once a week with other homeschool families. And that has been really fun but it has been a challenge to navigate new material. I was beginning to wonder this week if my house was ever going to recover. It stayed a mess most of this week. Part of it was new schedules and trying to get everyone and all their stuff where we needed to be this week. And my normal cleaning schedule was the morning which is now filled with school. So I am trying to figure out how to do all the things I need to in our new schedule. And how to get done all those things I planned to get done.

I am also learning that I am going to have to say no to some things. I like to be liked. I am a people pleaser so to say no to people or things can sometimes be hard for me.

But on another note we checked out a church gathering last week that is being lead by some old friends of ours. During the gathering the speaker was talking about how all throughout the old testament God would say to Israel "I will be your God and you be my people." Israel would complain and demand their own way and God would say no. "I will be your God and you be my people."

I am learning that I cannot control things. I cannot do everything. And honestly I am a little scared to death of the thought of homeschooling my kids all this year, let alone throughout the rest of their lives. But I sat this afternoon with my Bible open and thought about those words the teacher said. And I prayed that God would be my God and I would be His people.

In the end I will probably disappoint someone. I will probably not teach my kids everything they should have learned. I will probably forget something really important. I will probably forget to do something I told someone I would do. My house will not be spotless. My kids will watch tv and eat junk food. But this one thing I want to get right. I want God to be our God and I want our family to be His people. And if my kids learn that I will count it a success.

Waiting Game

August 31st, 2011. This is our official wait date. This means on that date we were added to the waiting list for our agency. We are being told that our soonest time we should expect a referral is June of 2013. Ugghhh. It seems so far away. But I know that our God has a perfect timing.

Here are some random thoughts of mine.

* God is faithful and could provide a referral sooner than that if he so chooses.

* God is faithful and if we wait two years or even more he will sustain and provide for us during our wait time.

* God has lead us every step of the way up to this point and I am not certain where this road leads but this is the path He has lead our family on. And He is faithful.

* I cannot wait to see my little guys face for the first time.

* I have plenty to do in the waiting time. Homeschooling, mothering, working, being a wife. I will be keeping busy. But my heart still has a little piece that is missing our baby boy.

*This week I have felt incredibly grateful that God has chosen our family to be entrusted with this task of adopting. This has been an incredibly hard journey and we have only just begun. But I have known God's provision, presence, and peace more throughout these past months than at any point in my life. And I can tell you with certainty that my God is faithful.

I am so filled with joy and gratitude to be able to say we are now officially paper pregnant!

First World Problems

Yesterday I caught myself in a bit of a tantrum. Most of it was internal. But it was a tantrum anyway. I was irritated to start with because Claire lost one of her sandals. We were at my parents house for the day and Claire and Elizabeth went with my mom and dad across the street to swim at a neighbors. They came back and the kids laid down for some quiet time. Later, when it was time to leave, I started packing up our things and then I went to get the kids shoes. I found 3 shoes. Both of Elizabeth's were there but only one of Claire's. So then I began to search for the missing shoe. We were pretty sure that my parents new puppy had carried it off. I looked all over the house and after about 20 minutes of looking inside my mom went to look at the neighbors house. The shoe was nowhere to be found.

I left the house without the shoe. I was pretty irritated. Not with anyone but just aggravated. And to make matters worse it was 100 degrees outside. We were supposed to stop at the mall on the way home because I needed to return something. We went into the shopping center and I was carrying Claire because she was shoeless. Of course the moment we get into the store the kids need to use the bathroom. And it is pretty difficult to help a two year old use the potty while not being able to let her touch the ground. Needless to say poor Claire's little tush went into the toilet. I was feeling quite irritated and generally crabby. We finished our business and made our first stop at the discount shoe store to get sandals for miss Claire. We bought our sandals and made our return and left the mall.

Somewhere within this time frame God spoke truth into my heart. It was not audible. But it was clear. I need to be thankful for these problems. The reality is many people in the world live their whole lives without shoes. They cannot afford them. So they do without. My kid loses one and I can go right to the store and buy a new pair. Many people have no running water or toilets. Let me remember that the next time I complain about having to take my kids to the potty. How would I feel to have to take them to a hole in the ground? And then have to get water from the lake less than 20 feet away?

So as my crabby butt was driving my air-conditioned van on my way to my air-conditioned house I remembered that the majority of the world lives without these luxuries. My first world problems would be a blessing to many. Did that automatically make me less crabby? Not really. Did my mood get dramatically better? No. And I had to stop on the way home because Claire threw up in the car. Added joy, right?

But it does add perspective. And I am still chewing on that one.

Abide

Emotionally I am in a rough place right now. My head is screaming this cannot be the right way, but then God speaks and says, "This is my way." We are still not "officially" wait listed yet. And everything within me is screaming and ranting about it. On the outside I still have to function normally. I have to do laundry and make meals and clean the house.

And I have the privilege of being entrusted two little precious girls that lean on me for their every need. And while I treasure them and am so thankful for every moment with them, I know someone is missing. I am longing to hold my precious son. I am longing for that moment when I see his face for the first time. And today is one of those days when I am just not ok with waiting. And my heart is broken by it.

But today is a day that I have to wait never the less. And even in the midst of this I am thankful that I can abide in my God. I am encouraged as I remember that my thoughts are not His thoughts (Isaiah 55). And that although this road is not leading where I planned or where I wanted, it was His plan all along.

And whether it will lead me where I want or not I am walking in obedience.

2nd Corinthians 5:7 (NIV)

"For we live by faith, not by sight."