Things have been very, very slow with our agency over the past several months. The reason for that is that there were several orphanages in the southern region of Ethiopia that were closed down by the government. Our agency’s transition home took in several of these children. For the past few months these children have been waiting to receive their last level of clearance from a committee that hadn’t even been formed yet. So the primary reason for the slow down is that that the transition home has been full of children that cannot be referred to families. We received exciting news yesterday that the committee has been formed and has begun working. We were not given any idea of how long until the clearances actually start coming in for the children in our agency’s transition home, but Blake and I are praying and hoping that it is very soon. When we were told on a conference call about the southern region orphanages that were closed down and that our agency was receiving some of the children my heart raced and I just had this feeling that one or two of those children were ours. I still really feel that this will be the case. The hard thing, if this is indeed true, is that my child or children were moved from an orphanage that the Ethiopian government shut down. It gives me sick feeling to wonder what made them decide to do that – what must it have been like to live in one of those orphanages? How long was my child(ren) there? What did they endure before they were there? The positive is that our child(ren) has been in our agency’s transition home for the past several months. I know, comparatively speaking especially, our child(ren) has been well taken care of. He/She/They have received good food, medical care, spiritual and education training, English lessons, and been around lots of “white” people that have come to adopt other children. (in other words Blake’s light skin and red hair won’t scare them! hahaha! ) My birthday is a week from today. I am asking Jesus for a birthday present. I want to see the face of my third (and maybe fourth!) child. Oh how I want that.

Ok here’s the numbers!

Our request is for 1 or 2 children(siblings) 0-6 years old.

We are #1 for a 6 year old of either gender.
We are #1 for a sibling set if there is one 6 year old and one younger sibling.
We are #2 for a boy between the ages of 3-6
We are #2 for a girl between the ages of 4-6
We are #2 for a sibling set if there is one 5 year old and one younger sibling.

(There is one family ahead of us that is open to 1 or 2 children(siblings) 0-5 years old.) That is what puts us at #2 for the last 3things on the list. If they get a referral before we get a 6 year old it will move all of those above numbers to #1 for us.
We are pretty sure we won’t get 1 child younger that 3 or 4 because we are farther down the list for younger children and we are almost positive there are older kids that are waiting to get cleared from the southern region and will be ready to be referred soon.

I hope this makes sense!

Financially we are about $6,200 short of our needed amount to complete the adoption process.
If we get a referral for 2 children the needed amount will jump up to $12,200.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been praying for us. Thank you to everyone who has encouraged us. Thank you to everyone who has supported us financially. Thank you in advance to everyone who will jump, scream, and dance along with us when we get our referral, and then when we get our court date and then when we get to go meet our child(ren), and then when we pass court, and then when we clear embassy and then when we go back and get them and bring them home! There is so much to look forward to! This season will come to an end and then we will have a whole new season and journey to begin!

So thankful for the wonderful people in our lives!

We got married December 16, 2000. So 2001 was our first year of marriage, 2002 was our second year…and well you get the point. Our year of marriage matches up with the actual year. The last few years I have looked at what the upcoming “number” represents in the Bible. From what I read, 11 in the Bible isn’t happy. And even our pastor told us at the beginning of the year that He believed the year would be a year of sowing and of transitioning and even of difficulty. This year HAS been challenging, but in so many, many ways we have been so incredibly blessed. God is so gracious. I was reading today about how we as American Christians think that we “deserve” to have a great life because we are Christians, but that we need to wake up and realize that we don’t “deserve” ANYTHING from God. Every good thing in our life is because of His grace. But the even more incredible thing about His grace is the part that is wrapped up in the promise that even when difficulties, tragedies, and heartache do come, He will make even those things turn out for our good in the long run.

This year will be our 12th year. 2012. 12 in the Bible stands for governmental perfection. Interesting since this is election year. It makes me want to pray for exactly that. Government. Our president, our national, state, and local leaders, the Ethiopian government and officials who will be handling our adoption, our pastor and elders, my husband. I’m praying for grace. Undeserved grace.

I am now in a different spot with God than I was at the end of last year. Last year I was full of passion and zeal. This year I am full of quietness before Him. I spend less time praying and a lot more time just thinking about Him. Asking Him soft questions in my heart. Some things this year did not happen at all like I had hoped. Some other things happened that completely took me by surprise. Yet as I sit here writing this I realize how much I adore that God is such a mystery to me. I cling on to Him in desperation rather than pat Him on the back saying, “What are we gonna do next buddy?!” He is God and I am flesh. And that He dwells in me is ludicrously beautiful.

With the timeline of our adoption completely unknown I feel like I can’t even make resolutions or goals for this year. I just have no idea what is ahead. I have no idea if we will be adding 1 child or 2. And if he or she or they will adjust quickly and with ease or if it will be the battle of a lifetime. I have no idea if the next year holds days of excitement and fun or if we will all cry more tears this year than we have in a lifetime. I have never, ever entered a new year feeling like I am walking into the dark. But I sure do this year. Truly, only God knows.

3 goals anyway – just because

- lose 15 pounds!
- read the entire Bible through in a year
- get at least 1/2 way fluent in Spanish

I have seen many friends go through heart-wrenching suffering. I watch these two kiddos play and laugh and argue and be friends again and realize that I am blessed beyond belief. I think if I had to make ONE most important New Years Resolution it would be to strive all year long to hold on to joy. The joy of the Lord is His gift to me, His grace gift. And that joy is my strength. I will guard my joyful heart.

Happy New Year!!!

                                      
I was having a conversation with a good friend the other night about love languages. We were discussing our love languages and the love languages of our husbands. Later that night I was thinking about how often I forget that my husband has a love language, and that he has needs too. Every man knows his wife’s needs. She makes sure of it. But men are not usually as vocal. At least my man isn’t. Most of the time I don’t think he even thinks about his own needs much less voices them.

I was inspired (again) to meet his needs; to actively “speak” his love language. I was reminded of the honor it is that out of every person in the world I know his needs best, maybe even better than he knows them. And I have the opportunity every day to make him happy.

A friend of mine is a full-time teacher on relationships. She was talking to me the other day about how men are born with a heart and will for adventure. Their natural instincts and desires differ greatly from women and we need to be grateful for that! She talked to me about how the thing that will bring a man home is his desire for his wife. His desire to be with his wife. That was thought – provoking as well. I want to be the girl that my husband loves to come home to.

Its hard sometimes to not get caught up in my own needs. Its hard not to play that stupid comparison game of who “does the most around here.” I really only see a small part of my husband each day. A lot of his job is meeting needs all day long, and often I’m counting down the minutes until he can come home and meet my needs. I need to work on that. I make a resolution to love the fact that after Blake meets needs all day, I have the chance to meet his needs when he comes home.

Tonight I called him. I was sad that our agency office had closed for Christmas and we hadn’t received our referral and Blake feels sad too. I know he does. He told me. But then he said to me that God’s love is just as passionate as it was yesterday. God hasn’t changed. And somehow I caught what he was saying. I caught the comfort that God had offered to him today. That although we are disappointed and discouraged that God is still the same. He didn’t decide to take a rest and ignore us or ignore our child or children in Ethiopia. He is still just as active working on our behalf and on behalf of orphans as He was yesterday. I love that Blake hears from God for both of us when I am too emotional.

I have heard Blake talk several time to our youth about waiting until after high school to be in a relationship. Although I don’t think, of course, that we need to encourage our youth to be in relationships it always kind of hurts my feelings when he says that because WE were in a relationship through high school. But after seeing our share of heartbroken girls over the past two and a half years in youth ministry I realize the absolute wisdom in girls not giving their hearts away to boys that do not have the maturity level to be in a committed relationship. But it has also made me realize how super crazy blessed I am that my high school boyfriend did not break my heart. He has always, always been so careful with me. I have always felt cherished. I don’t know why we were such an exception, but I will always love our story.

Today is our 11 year anniversary. We went to a movie and then sat in the food court in the mall sharing a Stromboli and bread sticks. This has not been one of our easiest years, and we have no idea the challenges that face us this coming year. But I am so very, very blessed to be his wife. We talked about how grateful we both feel to have stayed so in love since we were just two kids in high school, and how blessed we are that our marriage has always been strong even when life has been tough. I asked him what he thought were the “secrets” to our happy marriage. His answers were: #1 staying pure until we got married and #2 having common goals for our lives. I loved his answers. I loved that he came up with them so fast. I am humbled by the strength God gave us to stay pure and the way He continues to put similar goals and dreams in each of our hearts.

Sometimes I look at our sweet children and part of me just wants to do everything in my power to make their lives lovely: visions of gap clothes, golf lessons, awesome family vacations, and the perfect college education. But I have to slap myself sometimes and get out that book I say I base my life on: The B-I-B-L-E and take a look at what is important to God. The poor. The orphan. The widow. The forgotten. The lost.  My number one goal has to be teach them what it looks like to surrender…..and to love.

Destiny Hope has changed so much this year. She is has almost caught up with her brother in height, she has passed him up in weight, and her hair has FINALLY reached her shoulders!! She is her own person and we’re never quite sure what we are going to get out of her from one hour to the next. I still adore her, however, and I love to hear her talk. She has the absolutely sweetest voice on planet earth.  

Camden loves to draw and he is good at it. Camden, also, has this whole superhero world in his head – he calls it “Comedell World” (he is Comedell) and sometimes I will find him pacing back and forth in his room or jumping from couch to couch in the homeschool room and I will ask, “What on earth are you doing?” And he will say, “Thinking about “Comedell World.” I did not have a superhero world when I was young, but I did love to daydream. I remember that every night when I went to bed when I was around Camden’s age, I would daydream that I had braces, red glasses and a bunch of kittens. I mean, seriously, what more could a girl ask for. My best guess is that he will graduate from daydreams to real dreams over the next several years, and I hope and pray that Camden has a heart for God that allows the dreams that form inside of that head of his to be God-inspired dreams that He will see come to pass. I have great anticipation for his future. Soooooo blessed to be his mom.

Parenting is a continuous series of “resolutions”. Especially for me, I constantly have to ask God for forgiveness for not measuring up as the Mama I want to be. I not only have to be the best mom I can be, I have to strive to be the best teacher I can be while at the same time finding the perfect balance between the two. I cling constantly to Isaiah 54:13 which says, “I will teach your children, and they will enjoy great peace.” I pray that God fills in where I fail. I pray that while they lay in bed each night they give God the chance to teach them, mold them, and fill them with His peace and joy.

We heard this quote in the movie we watched tonight:

“If you could do anything and know that you wouldn’t fail what would it be? Once you figure it out – go do it.”

I felt like everything around me went silent for a few moments when I heard that. What an incredible thought. What an incredible challenge. Blake and I have some pretty big ideas, goals and dreams. And sometimes they scare me out of my wits. There is a bunch of room for failure in our future and a big part of me wants to play it safe. But as cliche as it sounds, our family has only one life to live. Our life here on earth is the only opportunity we have to show God how grateful we are for the life He gave for us. There are truly, truly awful things happening in our world. There are broken people that need Jesus. God has given all of us an opportunity to make a difference, and the “bigger than scared” part of me wants our family to be apart of that difference. But the super-duper awesome thing about God is that yes, He calls us to sacrifice and surrender, but He always leaves room for fun. He is an extravagant and abundant God.

Merry Christmas from our family!!

I was hunched over digging through stacks and stacks of messy piles of blue jeans looking for my size, when I finally just gave up and sat myself comfortably on the floor. And there in the far corner of JC Pennys I listened because I knew God wanted to speak to me.

I have spent the last several weeks doubting our decision to adopt from Ethiopia. I think about how if we had chosen to adopt an African American baby domestically, we would have had a baby home months ago. I know that if we had chosen to adopt through the foster care system we would at least have a child in our home, if not yet legally ours, AND we would have had to do zero fund raising and would have spent little to none of our own money. Sometimes, no a lot of times, it feels like we have done a whole lot, given a whole lot, worked a whole lot, prayed a whole lot…..for nothing.

Last December we talked constantly through each tradition about how the next year we would be doing all of these things with a baby boy added to our family. As we decorated our tree this year, I put on my happy face, but inside I was crying. Crying for the huge delay in our dream.

Through my doubts, God has confirmed so faithfully to us time and time again that a child from Ethiopia was His dream for us before it was our dream for ourselves. I wish I was better about journaling and or blogging the crazy awesome ways God slips “Ethiopia” into the strangest places and times. He continues to define our hearts as hearts for the third world nations of the world. There are times Blake and I take a time out and ask God, “Do you want us to pack up and move to the mission field right now?” And we have had God clearly tell both of us each time: Not now – right now My will for you is to bring part of the nations into your home and call them your child/ren. So that is the call we continue to answer “yes” to.  That is what we wait for and God is who we hope in.

Our adoption agency created a yahoo group for the families adopting from Ethiopia so that we can get to know each other. All of us are “in the same boat” of being in the middle of a process that is taking significantly longer than we expected. I have had moments of utter frustration at the Mamas who are very vocal about how all of this waiting is God’s will. There are some who are quick to reply to any frustrations with comments such as “it will happen when God wants it to happen.” It makes me lose my mind. I just want to shout, “Do you think its God’s will for these children to be in orphanages instead of loving families?” “Do you think its God’s will that these children have lost their parents to poverty and disease?” “Do you think its God’s will that children all over the world are dying every minute from starvation, dirty water, and treatable illness?” For crying out loud everything that happens is not God’s will!!  I finally pulled away from the yahoo group because it became an unhealthy place for me.

But I still wrestled. I knew God had indeed called us to Ethiopia, but I was a little upset with Him for doing it when it was obviously the hardest path of adoption that He could have called us to. I was a little upset with our agency. I was a little upset with the process on the Ethiopia side. Then Friday I spent the morning with a friend and her foster children. Not only did my admiration for her quadruple but my eyes were opened to the fact that adopting through foster care is NOT easy. I also found out this past week that a friend of mine in the process of adopting domestically went through something very difficult in their adoption journey. And as I was digging through jeans at JC Pennys another friend texted me a story about someone who is painfully struggling with their (domestically) adopted son. And as I sat on the floor I said to myself, “I guess there is no easy way to adopt is there?”

And that is when God spoke.

“Christina if you had adopted an infant domestically you would have adopted a baby. That was not my plan. And Christina if the process in Ethiopia had gone quickly you and Blake would have come home with one baby boy. That was not my plan. Look at how far your “dream” has come.  For you and Blake the wait WAS needed in order for you to reach the point that YOUR plan lined up with MY plan. You WILL see when you meet your child/ren that MY plan was the perfect play for your family.

He set me free in JC Pennys. I should write a song. And although I don’t like the wait anymore than I did last week I feel oh so much better knowing that God has got this. He is still in control, and that although I have no idea who my child or children are God knows them. He is working each and every day refining, restoring, and redeeming. Every one of us are called to a difficult journey. At times, life makes absolutely no sense. But we have to keep our hope in Him, and believe for those moments where He shows up at JC Pennys and reminds us that all along He has been working His plan for the good of those who love Him.

Camden woke me up at 6:30 this morning. Leaning as close as he could to my face and whispering, “I just had two bad dreams.” He got in bed with us, smushed as close to me as he could, and fell immediately back to sleep. Me? – nope couldn’t go back to sleep. Now I know most everyone is up at that time, but not here. We sleep until 8 or 8:30 so 6:30 am is still the middle of the night.

I couldn’t go back to sleep because my mind was full of thoughts for our Ethiopian child/children. I laid quietly with my son’s arm wrapped around my waist and imagined if something happened to Blake and I, and our children were sent to live in an orphanage surrounded only by strangers and a rotation of care-givers. I imagined their grief and confusion. Then I imagined them being transferred to another orphanage – new strangers and a new rotation of caregivers. I imagined them having to under-go blood tests and chest x-rays and poking and prodding without a parent or anyone they trust beside them. And then I imagined a couple from Africa, that looked different and smelled different and spoke a language they did not understand, coming to get them. What if they put them on an airplane and traveled for 24 hours? What if they landed in an overwhelmingly foreign place and took them home?

And I literally felt sick to my stomach. I have mourned before for what my Ethiopian child/children will endure BEFORE we meet them, but this morning I am mourning for what they will endure AFTER we meet them.

God’s perfect plan is not disease.

My husband and I are both cancer survivors. I do not believe for a minute that cancer is God-created. I do not believe that God gave us cancer. I do not believe God delighted in our suffering or the suffering of our parents.

But God made good come from our cancer.  Our faith is stronger. Our testimony is greater. Our confidence in our calling and in our relationship is deeper than it would have ever been if cancer had never touched us.  I have emotional scars. I wrestle with a fear of hospitals and doctors, but

Thanks to the grace of God, I do not consider that part of my life as Plan B.

God’s perfect plan is for faithfulness in marriage.

Yet I read about the life of Solomon. The son of a man and woman who committed adultery….and devised a plan of murder. Solomon, however, was chosen to re-build the temple. The temple was the house, the dwelling place of the Spirit, the presence of God. What an incredible privilege! He was given wisdom in such vastness that he is considered the wisest man that has ever lived. I am sure Solomon knew the story of his parents. I am sure it caused him emotional pain, anger, doubts and questions, but I believe,

Thanks to the grace of God, he was never considered by God as Plan B.

God’s perfect plan is for children to be raised in their own families.

I know it. I really do. But I have wrestled with that when it comes to the fact that I will love and raise a child that is not my own. I want us to be God’s Plan A for all of our children, not just our biological children. I want to believe each of our children were created to be apart of OUR family. Plan B sounds not good enough. Plan B sounds like “lets just try to make the best of it.” Plan B sounds sad and forever disappointing.

But maybe I have “Plan B” all wrong. Maybe “Plan B” is not about second best, but instead about God’s grace. This grace is beyond my understanding. It is a blow my mind mystery.

God’s grace is so extreme that He has a way of making Plan B beautiful. It is almost as if God takes Plan B scratches out the B and writes “A” over it. My Ethiopian child will have scars. He will have giants to fight and heartache to endure because of his past. But with all of my heart I’m clinging on to God’s mysterious grace. Believing that 20 years down the road (hopefully sooner!) Blake, Camden, Hope, myself, and our Ethiopian born Davis will look back and think, “How could this NOT have been God’s Plan A?”

Maybe I am off-course. Maybe I am naive. Or maybe I have just seen God’s grace turn ugly into beautiful time and time again.

Today is orphan Sunday. I am praying hard for my Ethiopian child across the ocean who is living through ugly, fallen world, harder than I can imagine heartache. I’m praying that God’s beauty is on its way. I am praying that His grace is chasing him at this very moment. And lastly, I am praying that although I can’t see it, and it still seems so far away that He IS setting His new, redemptive Plan A into action.

- Christina

In April 2010, five and half years after having my little girl I started getting baby fever. Remembering the thrill of seeing that positive test, feeling the baby move inside, finding out if its a boy or a girl, snuggling a newborn and trying to decide who he/she looks like, picking a beautiful name….  I thought of it all…..all the good stuff.

 I made myself remember my watermelon size stomach (not my favorite), un-medicated labor and delivery (ouch), nursing (ouch – yes I know its not supposed to), sleepless nights (also not my favorite), two year olds (enough said).

 But I couldn’t help it – the fever wouldn’t break. Yet I couldn’t get the go-ahead from the Lord (or my husband either which is slightly necessary). Then in September, I started reading about the orphan crisis. And suddenly the thought of having my own baby seemed absurd (this journey is uniquely mine . 4.6 million orphans of all ages in Ethiopia. 4.6 million orphans with no family in one country alone. One small conversation and my husband was captured as well. He wanted a pre-schooler. I still wanted my baby.

As we began the six month process of completing the paperwork,  I joined our agency’s yahoo group and saw the waiting list of other families adopting through our agency. I couldn’t ignore the fact that 8 out of 10 families wanted an infant. Many of these families had never had a baby of their own. Many others had a toddler at home so in order to keep the birth order of their children intact, they had to request an infant. I have had the incredible gift of carrying and giving birth to two biological children. In addition, my children are school-age which gives me plenty of room to go older. I gave in a little and we widened our age range to 24 months.

Our wait time was supposed to be 4-6 months. Four-Six months until we received that phone call telling us that they had a child ready for our family. The week our paperwork was sent to Ethiopia the wait time became 5-8 months. Then, over the summer, they widened it once again to 10-16 months! At that point, we increased our age range to 30 months. The reason for the increased wait times is that the government is processing fewer cases a day, and requiring a much more intense investigation of each child before they can be matched with a family. The agency we are with is a popular one. There are many ahead of us in the line. Right now there are 66 families ahead of us that we know of.

Today (October 25) our paperwork has been in Ethiopia for 8 months. I have come to a place of desperation. I prayed for God to open my eyes to what He was trying to teach me through this. I asked God if I had missed something. And finally He answered. He asked me to give up my desire for a baby. So I asked Him to take it, if that is what He wanted. Sometimes all He wants us to do is be willing, and He graciously steps in and helps us with the emotions behind surrender. Over a matter of a few days He began to change my heart. And He did it in ways that seemed so practical.

1. I was sitting in the bathtub relaxing while my children watched a movie and I heard him whisper, “You couldn’t do this if you had a baby.”

2. I babysat a four year old and my kids had a blast with him, and I pictured him being browner and with the last name Davis.

3. I thought about the hopes I have for the future of our family, and realized how having an infant would limit us – especially me.

4. I read the statistics telling of the large percentage of people that want a healthy infant when they decide to adopt, and found myself feeling desperate to be different than the norm.

5. I remind myself that although this sort of started out with me wanting a baby, that God has been driving into my soul month after month that this is NOT about me and what I want. It is about loving as He loves. It is about purpose. It is about surrender.

I continue to realize that something our Pastor told us from the beginning is so true, “That when God calls us to something it is always about SO MUCH MORE than we thought it would be in the beginning.” He is such a step by step God. He doesn’t give us more than we can handle…… at one time. He whispers for us to move forward and after we take a step, He whispers for us to move again. It is like when you squat down, reach out your arms and say all sweetly to a baby, “Walk to me! You can do it.” And when they toddle a few steps you step back and beckon them a little farther.

That is what God has done with us….but especially me. Yesterday we changed our request to 1 or 2 children 0-6. We opened it up as wide as we could. Our kids want to stay the oldest, and we respect that, so at this point 6 is the oldest we will go. We also feel that we might possibly adopt one more time so we went ahead and let our agency know that we are open to a sibling set of two (it is certainly less expensive to adopt siblings than it is to start the whole process over a second time, but if we do get matched with siblings God is going to have to work a miracle to provide the extra $6,000 that we will need) As far as I know, there is no one ahead of us that is open to a child over age 4 so it could be tomorrow that we are matched…..or it could be much longer. Only God knows.

We are excited. We are nervous. We are so very ready to see his or her (or their!) face. Yet at the same time we are wondering what comes next for our family – because we are confident of this – God is still beckoning us forward. And as long as He’s got His arms out, we are going to keep taking one step at a time.
                     
                               

Our pastor has been speaking to our congregation over the past several months about how we all go through “siftings” when God is about to bring us through “shiftings.” I sit on the front row and want to nod my head,  stomp my foot, and wave my hankie. I have known our life would shift since we filled out the preliminary adoption paperwork 13 months ago, but there have been times over the past year that I have thought this sifting thing was way too complicated for the shifting we would be going through.

When we moved here, it was an answered prayer that I was given the opportunity to minister alongside my husband. I threw my heart into the youth ministry as well as several friendships with women in the church that I clearly felt were opportunities from the Lord. I lived blissfully here in this city and in my church for the first 15 months.

 And Then: God called us to adopt, And Then: God gave us a passion for ALL orphans and not just our own, And Then: God renewed the calling He had placed in our hearts for the nations, And Then: God captured our heart for the poor.
 AND THEN: God took us on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic and multiplied all those things one hundred fold.

All these things that God has done in our hearts has left me feeling isolated, confused, and frustrated. Blake has been able to take these same things, and tuck them away inside for the right season. Me….I feel at times like I have become a crazy woman. The flame that burns inside of me for orphans, third world nations, and the poor causes me to fear I might stand up in the middle of church and start preaching my own sermon. (side note: Our preacher hears from God and is an amazing preacher with an amazing heart for our city)

I have felt this sifting whittle away at me. It has seemed to me, to be more destructive than constructive. I broke down yesterday and cried and cried and cried. I felt forgotten. It felt incredible to cry, though. To let my tears and my brokenness and my confusion cause me to come before God completely vulnerable. I turned on a worship CD and felt God speak Ps. 91:1-2 over me, “Dwell in My secret place. Hide under My Shadow. I am your refuge and fortress.”

I felt His shadow. I felt safe in that secret place. I knew I was not forgotten. But as the evening went on I kept having this thought that I loved this secret place so much that I really would like to stay completely hidden in His shadow until the sifting was over. Like the post below I wanted to keep my heart in God’s hand and not put it out there for a good long while. But of course that was wrong. Wasn’t it?

This morning I woke up and was immediately hit with discouragement.  I buried myself under my covers and cried out to the Lord. And He began to speak to me. He whispered words here and there about seasons, about sifting, and my eyes began to be opended to things of which I had not been aware as well as things I could not have possibly known except that I believe they were breathed into my thoughts by God.

I saw how my heart has been so involved in my church that it has caused me to pull my heart away from my children. God spoke to me about the future and how because of some things Blake and I have learned from our agency as well as some things we have felt from the Lord, that the shifting of adding to our family through adoption might be much bigger than we first expected. The Lord showed me that my children need my heart right now. They need our home to be a place of security. They need my focus to be on their growing walk with the Lord, and they need to know that Mommy is here for this family first and foremost. They need to be taught about the Great Commission daily. They need to be encouraged constantly to see life from the perspective of the lost and hurting. I am called to teach them these things. I am called to represent the love of Jesus to them. I am called to live in peace and joy so that they can know that their home is a safe place.

As I opened up my devotional an hour later, I was not surprised to see that God was confirming His word to me. The devotional was about making your home a mirror of Heaven. It talked about making the concentrated effort of having a home that consists of laughter, nourishment, and growth.

So I am now asking God exactly what that looks like for me. Blake still needs me at youth, I like to think the youth girls need me, and honestly I need them as well. They are precious to me. I feel, to begin with, God has shown me that it is a change of perspective. I need to consider it serving rather than considering it “my heart and passion.” For this season IS indeed a season of shifting. It is a season of shifting my heart and passion back to my home. I know without one tiny little doubt that my heart and passion will get another chance to be back in ministry somewhere, somehow, but for now I believe that God is calling me to have a singular heart and passion for my family. Another reason I believe He is calling me to this is so that I can more easily remain in that secret place. I will need His shadow desperately when we I am helping our new child grieve and adjust; as well as helping Camden and Hope process the changes to our family. I will need to be able to fall back on a developed and intimate relationship with His spirit in order to walk in discernment, wisdom, and patience. I will need to know how to call out and believe for His strength for myself, His healing for our new one’s grief and fear, and His voice and presence to step in for Camden and Hope when they have to share our time.

I feel a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders just to have a Word from God. To have a glimpse of the reasoning behind all the sifting, is like breathing fresh air. To know that all along His plan for me has been good makes me want to worship.

If you are being sifted, don’t grow weary. There is a reason and it is for your good and for God’s glory. Worth is the Name of our God!

I have felt fragile lately. Like PMS that never ends. I find myself starting something: laundry, dishes, home school and I’m feeling fine, then half way through I want to cry. Sometimes I don’t know why, sometimes I can track back to something specific. Some randomness that didn’t effect me in the least when it happened, yet for some reason sneaked into my subconscious and started wrecking havoc inside.

Yesterday in the middle of the day I had a few minutes to myself so I curled myself into a ball on the couch, and asked God just to say something to me. Because His voice is like nothing else. His words make me whole again.

He sat on the ottoman in front of me… I seriously think He did. And He looked at me. And then He breathed a picture into my mind. A picture of me walking around with one hand outstretched as far as I could reach it, palm open and up. And on my palm set my heart.

 ”You are walking around asking everyone that you come into contact with, what they think of your heart. And its getting beaten to a pulp. You gave ME your heart remember? And I miss it.”

So in that moment I pulled my bruised and bleeding heart back to myself, and to my Savior sitting in front of me on my ottoman, I handed it back.

“He is jealous for me. He loves like a hurricane.” – John Mark McMilan