He is ALWAYS Right

About 3 years ago we were in the process of moving into our second adoption from Ethiopia. It was February then… I was in BJ’s on a Thursday and got a call from our SW who was doing our HS. She had just gotten word that there was a set of twins about to be born in PA to a mother with hiv. They had no families ready and willing to think about this idea. She asked if we would be willing to take these twins.

I went into obsession mode….lol I have always wanted twins. These were close…not over seas, and I knew the odds of the babies actually being hiv+ were slim to none, but that didn’t matter to me. I WANTED these twins.

D did not.

I went on a women’s weekend and obsessed about these twins. I wanted these them.

D did not.

I prayed and talked about it, and prayed and talked about it. I read my bible for clues….

Prayed some more, and then asked others to pray with me.

The last day of the weekend my friend A was giving the sermon and I suddenly knew that I was wrong. I did not want the twins. I wasn’t supposed to be their mother. It was as if God had said to me that there was a little boy in Ethiopia waiting for me and that I needed to go get him.

E was my little boy. And he needed us!

I have been doing the same with the China situation. I wanted it. I looked at those babies and wanted to have them home with me. A sweet little girl with pokey piggy tails, a beautiful little boy with a dimpled grin. I could see my home blessed with them.

D did not.

Until today…

Today I opened my FB page and saw this blog post listed. I looked at that sweet little face, those beautiful little baby fingers, and that smooth baby Ethiopian skin.

My heart is calmed. My angst over ‘losing’ China is gone. My search is no longer needed. There is a child/children missing us in Ethiopia. I need to go find them.

I sit here in tears…thinking about how good my God is. He knows. He knows! He’s always right. I love that He loves me enough to tell me no…

Blessed Reminders

This weekend has been full of wonderful reminders of the blessings that abound in my life.

I love this ornament. It was such a wonderful reminder to me this weekend that we much always praise Him.

So we will Praise him... continually and for always...we will Praise Him in the yes answers and in the no answers. We will praise him when we are happy and when we are sad... We will count it all as joy.
The boys sitting together playing DS. Sometimes it goes very well...lol sometimes not. This was a good time.
N is ingenious! He used a slinky to keep his hand made harpy-thing and microphone close so he could sing and play at the same time! :)
Then there was decorating...
E loved this ornament so he asked to have a pic taken of him with it...lol
D and I got to go out on a date for dinner on Saturday night. His boss took us out. It was a nice time, good food and fun company. He co-workers wife was so excited to tell me that she had read this article in a magazine about this amazing couple that had adopted kids from Ethiopia and 2 of them had hiv!!! LOL She told me all about them...when I could get a word in edgewise I told her that I knew the people in the magazine, that they were actually good friends...LOL She was so very moved by them and I said yeah.. they are pretty amazing people. We kinda love them. :)
Then we had the boys Christmas program... It was was fun, but a bit late in the evening for the kids. In all honesty my boys were excellent. N's day had been one of broken listening ears so frankly we were not sure how he would do. But he was awesome! And the fun part was that he knew all the words to all the other songs too, so he sang along to the whole thing. SO cute! He was in the front row and was excellent. Poor E man ended up between the 3 little girls next to him at some point during the evening. They were pushing him and dancing around him and the little boy in the white vest was plucking him...lol I was totally impressed that he did not wallop one of them. I was so afraid that he would.

My littlest blessings!! Aren't they they cutest?!

Grace Is Enough

Phil 4:11

I have learned to be satisfied with the things I have and with everything that happens.

Test this question: What if God's only gift to you were his grace to save you. Would you be content? You beg him to save the life of your child. You plead with him to keep your business afloat. You implore him to remove the cancer from your body. (You plead for the child in your dreams...inserted by me)What if the answer is, "My grace is enough." Would you be content?

You see from heaven's perspective grace is enough. If God did nothing more than save us from hell, could anyone complain?...Having been given eternal life, dare we grumble at an aching body? Having been given heavenly riches, dare we bemoan earthly poverty?...

If you have eyes to read these words, hands to hold this book, and the means to own volume he has already given you grace upon grace. ~ Max Lucado Grace for the Moment Volume 1 (In the Grip of Grace)

The devotion above was from December 9th...preparing me for December 10 when we would find out that we would not be accepted by China to parent one of their children. My husband has an indiscretion from 20 yr ago that they feel deems us as unfit parents. This breaks my heart.... I think we are pretty good parents. Not perfect by ANY stretch of the word...but pretty good. And who the heck is the same person they were 20 yrs ago???!!!

It is what it is. There is no reason to get sad or upset.

I prayed, I asked. He has a better plan.

I was telling my friend yesterday that I know He has a plan. It will be the perfect plan. I had just been envisioning a tiny little girl of Asian descent with pokey little piggy tails and pink dresses.

I am then reminded that there are mommas out there that have prayed for years and years to see little tiny faces that look like the man they love, with blonde eyes like grandma or freckles or dimples because they run in the family.

I trust God. I know He loves me. I know He has a plan. His grace is enough. The child/children He has planned for us are the perfect ones for us... no matter where they are from or who they look like.

Remedy for Fear and Decisions?

Ask for prayer and have a conversation with your hubby! :)

I hadn't really pushed D on my heart issue with China because I didn't want him to say no. lol Dumb I know, but he's been so adamant about not adopting again that I felt like I needed to just be happy about the way that we were going.

But I just could not feel good about moving forward without at least checking to see if they would accept us.

So this past Friday was date nite. We have a study at church where we have a video, we meet together and then go out to dinner and talk. It's not something we get to do very often. So we did just that. And I shared with him my thoughts and my heart. He told me that he hadn't really been considering it because we don't think we qualify.

But he said that if I felt that strongly to find out.

So I have sent in a pre-application with one agency and have the agency we used for E to check as well since they know us.

We think that perhaps if we have someone willing to 'fight' for us we may be able to cross our hurdle. Of course God can!

So if He so chooses then we will get our answer of yes. No clue how long it will take...lol But I guess I better get used to the wait huh? We will be waiting a lot here soon... even if we do go on the special focus list. :)

Thank you all for your prayers and support. I feel so so much better. You all rock!!!

Still have no idea where the money is coming from. We are fundraising for the mission trip with the church and local people, so I may have to make my blog some kind of fundraising store...lol Will you help? Even if it's just to get the word out? :)
Thanks!!!

Fear and Decisions

So what do you do when you are given the answer to a prayer you have been praying for, for over a year.

What do you do when you have been given the yes?

Well, apparently when you are me, you clam up in fear! :)

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know I have wanted to adopt again for more than a year. I have been LONGING for it... praying earnestly, begging God to knock my husband in the head and tell him that we were wasting time. Seriously whining about the whole thing.

So, at the Orphan Summit God knocked D in the head, and I got the yes I had so desired.

The thing is we have no money. Seriously we have nothing to start this adoption with. Then I read a blog by a mom that said something to the effect that they had just enough money to pay for the application fee so that's what they trusted. So I began to pray for that, and God provided it, in exactly the way I knew He would. It's a long story but He did.

So we have the money to send in the application... and I am still scared.

We have no money!

We have a mission trip coming in June. If we go back to Ethiopia to adopt, we will have 2 trips...and a mission trip. Dude... I work a full time job, not so sure they are going to love all that time off?

I have had a burning in my heart for China for the last yr or so, which is kind of odd...not because it's China, but because Ethiopia is so etched into my soul. But those babies call to me, and I can't get out of my head that perhaps our next child is there. They may not take us, for a couple of reason's but I feel like I have to know. I feel like I need to know that they would not take us before I turn my back on that country and it's children.

D doesn't feel as strongly about China...lol... but then again he didn't want to adopt again until about a month ago. He did say that he would listen to my longing and feeling and let me explore whether China would accept us.

So here I sit...still praying...still afraid.

There is a part of my that is anxious about the time I am wasting in my fear...is there a child that needs us and the longer we wait, the longer they wait?

God has been showing us that HE wants us to move forward, I am just fearful of how to proceed... just 2 nights ago I was in a fit of fear, praying to Him asking Him what to do... I opened my devotional and the scripture was James 1:27. I am not sure it gets much clearer than that!

Will you pray with us?

Will you pray for funding, will you pray for peace, will you pray for discernment?

Thank you.

Choices

A couple of weeks ago, my wedding ring broke. Yep broke. I was putting lotion on my hands before bed and it cracked. Strong lotion I guess?

It’s the 3rd time it’s happened in the same place and D’s is getting very worn out. His working construction, and the less than fine quality of the rings…led to them being out of life at the ripe old age of 17 yrs.

So we decided that this year for Christmas we would buy each other new wedding rings.

Online I went to see what was out there… do we match again or do we find something that is more practical for D and simple for me?

Goodness! Who knew there were so many choices? We found a store that was having a sale and went to check them out. Not so much of a selection, so we decided to go into the mall and check out the jewelry stores. Ouch! Not inexpensive…Maybe we weren’t going to get new rings, even plain bands were getting out of our price range.

I did find out that I am apparently some kind of wedding ring fashion nightmare though…lol I have always worn my engagement ring closest to the palm and the wedding ring next. You should have seen the crossed eyed look I got from one guy when I said, I simply wore them that way because I had gotten the engagement ring first and liked the way it looked. I mean, seriously does it matter that much? Then when asked what metal I wanted I said I didn’t care, I would know the ring when I saw it. I wear a lot of silver and gold so it didn’t really matter to me. Again the crossed eyed look.

I so wanted to say, look buddy, there are so many other things we could be worrying about. I want a ring that shows the love and commitment I have for my husband, however I do not need it to be a fashion statement.

So I settled on a simple gold band and D is getting one in that Tungsten indestructible metal stuff, his has crosses on it. (I am a little jealous of the crosses) So we don’t match…and that’s ok. 

This whole process reminded me of a scripture I had just read earlier that day from Phil 4:6-9 “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me–everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” (NLT)

I had needed the verse, as my brain has been on overload trying to figure out how to get everything done that needs to be done, and still keep my sanity and my job. It hasn’t been working out in my head, and it’s been messin’ with my heart.
So I printed the verses out, taped them to my computer at work and repeated it several times throughout the day.

As D and I stepped out to shop for rings, I began to worry about the money we would spend, Christmas coming, the adoption (as you can see my Chip in button isn’t moving lol), the mission trips… do we have the money? Do we have the time? Blah blah blah… and then this verse jumped back in my head.

God said…you have a choice, you can trust me… or not. You can choose to get all blingy (yep God said blingy) in your wedding rings or you can choose to be frugal and simple and know that while there’s not bling on the outside, the bling on the inside is shinier and more beautiful than any diamond or decoration.

So I choose to keep putting into practice all I have learned and received from Him–everything I heard from Him and saw Him doing. Then the God of peace will be with me.

I will share a pic of the rings when they come in. :)

World AIDS Day 2010

Here we are again...

It's World AIDS Day 2010

It it amazing to me that we are in 2010 and still having days like this... days to bring awareness to open the eyes of people that do not know. Do not know the severity of this illness in it's ability to take out entire generations of people.

Yet when managed properly just a chronic illness.

The crazy thing is that this illness is 100% preventable.

100%

If condoms were used during sex, needles were not shared during drug use... all would be well.

There are other causes of transmission, such as mother to child during child birth if medication is not used, or mother to child in breast milk...but it still goes back to the first 2 causes.

There is still the need for education.

What makes me the most sad is stigma involved with those that have the illness. We are not secretive about E's status as an hiv+ child. But we do not shout it from the mountain tops either. We have not disclosed at his school. We want him to be known for who he is, and the amazing child that he is, not for some virus in his system that cannot harm them. Although, since we are having World AIDS day, there are still people... educated, smart, compassionate people, that just do not know the facts.

We volunteer with an organization called Project HOPEFUL and they have started the Truth Pandemic campaign.

Today we remember the littlest victims of this thing called HIV/AIDS. The orphans that wait for a mother and father to love them. The problem is that many of them may not have long to wait. Many of them may not live long enough to know the love of a family. Because of lack of medication and stigma still associated with their illness.

Will you take a moment to say a prayer for these children. Will you consider sponsoring one until their family can come to find them? Will you consider adopting a child that deserves your love just like any other?

Will you pray today that we break through the barriers and find the cure, break the stigma, open eyes and hearts ... and love as the body of Christ those that are affected by HIV/AIDS.