Pressing Through

This weekend, I sat in church and bawled my way through an entire sermon.  I'm not sure if I have ever done that before.  I'm not sure if a sermon has ever spoken so clearly to me before in my current situation.  In fact, it was clear to both my hubs and I.  We looked at each other through tear glazed eyes and knew that our Father was speaking directly to us.  We just started a new series on prayer.  Our pastor started preaching from Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God.  He was wrestling with God for a blessing.  And then the pastor said, when was the last time you wrestled with God?  And he started talking about prayer, and how God's blessings are released in our lives through prayer, and most of the time, persistent prayer.  Um, yes, this is hitting pretty close to home.  He told the story of the woman who persistently went to the judge time after time, asking for justice, until he finally gave her what she wanted.  She had made her presence and her request known time and time again, she had faith that he would answer. And he did. So the pastor asked, does the judge know who you are? Does he know your request? Yep, checked that one off too.  These past few months have been discouraging to say the least.  We had an answer to our prayer, but not what we expected. And now, referrals have slowed down even more, seeming to be trickling out.  And we've been discouraged.  After all the prayers we have prayed over the last 2.5 years, we were beginning to wonder, is God even hearing us? Doesn't he love this baby more than we do? Why is he not home yet? Will this ever happen?  So this sermon could not have come at a more perfect time.  We are asking these questions, discouraged, and wondering.  And then we hear this sermon on persistent prayer?  Not a coincidence.  So, the sermon continues to go on, and then he says: sometimes, God appears hostile(or silent) in prayer so that we can resolve in faith to see his goodness. And I was reminded of a Psalm that I had just read the day before: "I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage, wait for the Lord" Psalm 27:13-14
And this is where he encouraged us to press through.  Press through in prayer, even when you don't get the answer you are looking for, or it takes a lot longer than you expected, press through.  God's blessings are there for us, we must press through.  Do not lose faith, wrestle with God, make your requests known.  We have been talking the last few weeks about how all of God's promises are "yes" in Christ.  Children are a blessing, and we know that God called us to to this, he promised that he would complete this adoption, so we are pressing through, we are claiming this blessing. The last reminder that the pastor gave us was that God is really the ultimate blessing that we seek.  So while we are pressing through, we pray that he gets the glory from this wait, and from our family.  We had gotten so focused on bringing our baby home, that we had let his glory slip our minds momentarily.  We know it's all because of him, and we can't wait to see even more glory revealed when we see that precious face.  So for now, we are resolving in faith to see his goodness, we are waiting, and we are pressing through.

Music for my soul

There's not much to post about these days in this waiting stage- we are still waiting to hear whether our update has been approved or not.  I was listening to some music earlier and just found myself longing for Africa and our baby. These are some songs of where my heart is at right now- longing, but knowing that God's love never fails and we will get there one day!

I have seen this video somewhere before- but randomly ran across it again today. It says so much of where my heart is right now. A father wrote this song waiting to bring home his children from Haiti- so beautiful!

These next 2 we sang at Created for Care and they have been stuck in my head since then- such truth and comfort:

Praising my Father- who we are hoping in today! Praying for good news soon!

January Numbers and Created for Care

This is our girl number for the month of January! We moved more than we anticipated- which is always exciting, especially this far into this journey.

This is our boy number! Slowly but surely these numbers keep going down.  Kids are being matched with families, and we are getting closer to seeing our baby's face! We are confident this is the year! 2013 will be the year we finally become parents.  It is sometimes discouraging to get on this blog and look at the ticker I have, ticking time away, and right now is says 2 years and 3 months waiting for our baby to come home.  This journey has been long- way longer than we ever anticipated, but it has been so good. We have been forever changed by this journey and I wouldn't trade it for anything! We have met some amazing friends along the way, and had the privilege of praying their children home, there's just nothing like seeing an orphan become a son or daughter.  Only God can do that, so amazing!  So while the wait is hard, and we would much rather have already had our love home, we continue to wait. We are waiting with anticipation- God is doing great things and we are trusting in our Father who is good.

 

This past weekend I had the awesome privilege of getting to attend Created for Care for the 2nd year! This retreat is such a blessing.  We loaded up a friend's van at the crack of dawn Friday morning for our road trip to Atlanta.  Fun times were had! We spent the weekend worshiping with 450 other women who's hearts are passionate about the same thing- God and adoption.  It was such an incredible privilege to be in a room where over 1000 children were represented-only God! This weekend was such a sweet time of encouragement for those of us still in the wait- to hear that God is faithful to his promises, we are not alone, our baby will come home, and God has big plans for him or her.  I bought the perfect shirt from the Ordinary Hero booth while there: a tiny little shirt that says "I'm gonna change the world" and we are believing that for our baby! God gave me a very specific burden for our adoption while there and we are excited to see it come to fruition.  We were encouraged in the Word- hearing about our God who sees us and meets us where we are, no matter where we are.  I was so blessed to share this weekend with the girls in my small group- and we are blessed to have each other in our lives, to be able to share our week to week with each other and have people who get it around us.  I wish I could recap every part of the whole weekend- but God just did so much! I already can't wait for next year- I have a feeling the weekend will take on a whole different meaning once we have our babe home.  This week we had our home study visit done for our move- so pray that it gets written and approved quickly! We are praying that is the last update we have to do! Thank you for continuing to walk with us on this journey, your prayers are much appreciated.

Happy New Year and December Numbers!

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry it's a little late- things have been a little crazy around here lately! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year- I cannot believe it is the start of another year already! And what a year it is going to be! Monday we got our December waitlist numbers- we were praying that this would not be the case, but we are trusting God in his timing. Even in not answering prayers the way we expected, we are trusting that his plans are better! For December we are: (sorry- having technical difficulties and cannot get the pictures to post)

For a girl:

36

For a boy:

25

We are *hopefully* moving into our new house in a little over a week- so we are in the midst of boxes everywhere and lots of packing still to be done, so I will update more later!

Big things are coming for our family in 2013 and we would appreciate your prayers!

November Numbers

Friday we got our November numbers as we headed out of town for a weekend with family in the mountains.  After 3 months of no movement in our boy number we were thrilled to see a change, even if it was small.  Our November #'s are:

For a girl:

For a boy:

We are slowly but surely getting closer every day to seeing our baby's face.  Please keep praying with us.  Your prayers mean so much to us during this incredibly long wait.  Trusting in His timing.

World Aids Day

Today is World Aids Day.  This is something that has become close to our hearts as we adopt a child from a country that has been ravaged by this disease.  Many people's knowledge on the disease is stuck in the 1980's.  The truth is, we have come so far since then.  Medicine has advanced in so many ways that those with a diagnosis of HIV+ can be on medication and the virus can become undetectable in their blood- how amazing is that?  HIV is considered to be more manageable than Diabetes.  Please take a minute to watch the videos below and educate yourself.  The second one is a little long, but so worth watching. Education is so key in fighting this disease.  And please pray for the orphans all over the world who are living with this disease in countries with no access to the medical care we have here in the US.  If you would like more information check out Project Hopeful for some awesome resources.

Check out the other video here: A Nick News Story

Update

          How has it been over a month since I have posted?! Sheesh! We've been a little busy with house buying and selling lately. Our house sold after 15 days on the market- pretty insane! And a few weeks  ago we found our new house! Though we won't be moving until January.  We are excited for more space and still being able to live in this area of WF, which we love! Our new house is only 0.8 miles from our house now- love how God truly is in every little detail of our life.  So I've been busy on Pinterest and finding new projects for decorating the new house, finishing up projects here, etc, and some traveling thrown in there- it's been a great distraction from the overwhelming wait of this adoption.  That's another reason I haven't posted as of late- there has been no news.  After getting our October #'s last month and seeing our boy number stay the same for the 3rd month in a row, it was a bit discouraging. I didn't do a post for our October #'s, but we were 30 boy and 40 girl.  Thankfully, there were a few referrals this month, praise the Lord! Some months we lose focus that these numbers are not just our waitlist numbers, but they represent children, children who were orphans, and are now daughters/sons! So amazing! So we should see some movement in our numbers in a few days.  Honestly, each month I am praying that we won't get numbers, that we will get our referral instead.
             
        These last few months, since July really, when we updated our parameters, have been a roller coaster.    We have been praying like never before. I was journaling this morning and thinking about how the end of the year is coming quickly, and I am still trusting in God's word, and his promise to complete this adoption.  I am confident that 9 months ago I felt God tell me to pray boldly for a referral by the end of the year.  And these past few months with little to no movement have been hard.  This is the 3rd holiday season we've gone through without our child. We never thought that would happen.  Sorry if this post is jumbled and makes little sense.  There are just so many things going on in my head and heart right now that it is hard to express them, as I read on a friend's blog yesterday, it's hard to put into words, and it's hard for others to understand unless they've gone through it.  This has been the most trying season of our life- but we know that He makes all things beautiful.  All of the pain in the wait is nothing compared to the eternal weight of glory that we will receive.  The wait will make sense when we look into our child's face for the first time and realize that God has perfectly ordained him/her for our family.  And on the hard days, that is what I have to remember.  I was reading through Psalms this morning and was reminded that God is for me, even when it seems like this wait will never end, His plan is greater. And he has a record of all of my tossings and tears.  All the nights that I lay awake thinking about our baby, wondering if he's safe and warm and healthy.  God knows, and loves him incredibly more than I ever could.  And most of all, my hope is in Christ and his work on the cross- not in whether or not we get a phone call.  But please keep praying boldly with us, that God would fulfill his promise to do more than we could ever ask or imagine!