Category: adoption

How It’s Been Lately

Posts have been a little slow lately (I know my reader(s) are hungry for my constant news… NOT!).
Between homeschool and watching a little boy (2 y/o) now during the days there has been minimal time to breathe around here. (My last day watching him was today). We just got off of a Discipleship Now weekend with the youth group. I think all enjoyed it. And now comes the usual exhaustion of a completed busy weekend.

I’ve found myself some time to reflect amid prepping the “new family member” room as we are finishing our last few pieces of adoption paperwork. While I feel like the phrase, “finishing our last few pieces of paperwork” is a lie, it feels nice to say likewise. =) There’s always just one more. But that paper takes on another meaning when it brings you that much closer to your new family member.

We did our child survey, identifying all the traits we would or would nit consider tonight. Matt joked that filling out the paperwork during Sunday Night football may have been a mistake.
Me: “Will we consider a child who has been convicted of murder?”
Matt: “YEAH!!! GO, GO, GO!!!!”
Me: “Will we consider a child with the characteristics of honesty?”
Matt: “Man!!! No way!!! What was that?!?!”

=)

I’m looking forward to spending an evening out of the house with no kids (say what?!) with Amanda tomorrow night. I feel like it’s been dark ages since we’ve sat down. And a good cup of hot chocolate at a bookstore is in order for sure. Don’t you love how a good Christ-centered conversation leaves you marveling at how quickly the time has passed?

Matt’s playing some war video game. I’m sure he loves that I keep asking questions during his relaxing time blowing up of “the enemy forces”. It’s a boy thing, I tell myself. Girls aren’t supposed to understand. 😉

So that’s how it’s been lately. A little busy, with laundry on the side. And the joy of lazy Sunday afternoon naps and good husband-snuggles during this wonderful football season. 

Looking forward to returning to a less-busy schedule (after the photo shoot, vet appointment, house-cleanup, and girls night out scheduled for tomorrow of course-hehe).

Some errands left to before our final safety audit in this adoption process (lock box, smoke detectors, and a convertible car seat to buy). I’m putting primer paint on my Christmas list. I figure I’ll try to get that room painted white and then when we meet/make the matching conference on a child we can ask them what color they’d like their room. Just trying to think of ways to make the room theirs and make them feel welcome.

sigh… alright, that’s all for tonight. Thanks for reading my randoms. =)

Happy Sunday night to all!

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Who’s control is in Control?

You know, I just wanted to take a moment to bring up the interesting conversation/battle of birth control into the topic ring.

I have many times heard the birth control method argued by Christians to be “responsible” and “enabling you to control when you have a kid to best care for the child.” I have also heard the conservative approach, and even “excessively” conservative approach argued that “we’ll take whatever the Lord gives us.”

I find this conversation interesting in terms of the Duggar’s new announcement that they are pregnant with their 20th child. So many feel challenged by that information and often throw in their two cents of, “those people are ridiculous” judgement. I could easily find myself in that camp when my kids are obnoxious. I could also find myself in the “test of faith” camp wondering how many other feminist thoughts we are going to try to justify by the Word because the thought of not controlling our family feels uncomfortable and we want to feel justified with our level of control.

Matt and I have had this conversation many times and probably will continue to have this conversation as we continue to surrender our family to the Lord. I agree with him that birth control, whether it be abstaining during your ovulation cycle or a non-abort-effasive method, in many instances can be very responsible. I think it can also be very wrong. I think it boils down to the heart, which is what the Word seems to bring me back to.

Am I saying, “no, I don’t want You plan over my own,” to the very one I call Lord? Am I saying, “it’s not convenient,” and viewing children as the “burden” that first began the feminist movement of birth control? Is my heart in line with what God says about kids? Is my mind with Christ’s on valuing and delighting in children? And does not being on birth control really mean that I’m going to end up with 30 kids? What about Hannah? Or those in the Bible that were barren? Or those in the Bible that only had a handful of kids?

Or am I using my “faith” in God’s plan as a cop-out? Am I being irresponsible in ignoring the things we so clearly know about women’s bodies and how and when contraception is at it’s most harvest-filled time? Am I being selfish in wanting a particular number of kids and controlling in being non-controlling?

The battle is in the heart. And the surrender, on either side of the argument, is in the heart. But what I do know is that God calls us to self-sacrifice. His Will in exchange for our will. And His Will stretches us and is not comfortable because it defies our fleshly nature. His Will challenges and grows us. And while we can still be Christians and still be controlling, I just know one thing… the Judge looks at the heart to determine who is and who is not sacrificing in worship and evidence of their faith.

Paul states it this way in the Word, that all things are permissible for us, but not all things are good (or beneficial). It is important to weigh out the consequences of either side of this “birth control” argument and surrender our families fully to the Lord. For He even said, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

We need to be certain His motives are ours in all things, the make-up of our family included.

– to God be the Glory.

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"…Going to Training"

My two year old told my one year old in the middle of her afternoon play, “You watch my babies and I’ll go to training and be back soon.”

Can you tell we’ve been doing our foster/adoptive training for a good while now.

And alas, I finished my last class tonight. Funny how 36 hours can feel like a lifetime.

The final class brings a relief and yet a bit of fear too. You see, God told us to get our license. So we have. We’ve tried to be good kids. But as we finish this process up, it’s kind of like standing on a cliff after climbing the hill in obedience. It’s not a fear of someone pushing you off, God has more love than that. But it sure gives you a thrill at God’s prospect of saying, “Jump… trust me…”

It’s like that moment at the top of a roller-coaster hill when you have that split second somewhere between, “This was a good idea, right?!” and “BRING IT!!!” It’s that healthy wondering of what the horizon will reveal.

So much change has happened to our family over the past 6 months, from no longer watching Lexi to temporarily watching Kevin, to God adjusting our plans multiple times and reminding us that He is more than capable of using any situation to grow and change our family, to babysitting Mom’s cats and then ending up adding one of the cats to our crew, to getting into the swing of homeschool and delighting in Rachael soaring in her learning. We just never know what’s on the horizon. And it’s so exciting not to have the “this will be out of God’s control” fear that comes from a lack of faith, but instead to have a butterflied feeling of excitement and anticipation for what we have yet to see.

It’s like holding your breath and trusting that God will instruct you when to breathe before it’s too late – even if it gets a bit uncomfortable at times. He knows what He is doing. And He sure is moving.

Matt still has a class to go in 3 weeks and then our collective training classes will be complete. We have our list of things still left to get done before getting the final stamp of approval from the county before sending the application to the State for a completed license. But with all that being said, our application/license should be complete around Christmas. Christmas, people!!!! That may feel a bit far away when you look at Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up first, but when you think about the fact that i have started Christmas shopping/looking….. eeeeeek, people!!!! That’s in a blink of an eye.

God is so good to us. God has blessed us so. And I’m feeling like a little kid in a toy store as this adoption process is becoming more of a reality. Whooooo! Stand back and check out what God will do…!!!!!

We’ll be standing beside you, checking it all out and applauding His Greatness,

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A Little Something About Love

While in an adoption training we heard this story:

There was an adoptive/foster mom on the trainer’s caseload back when she was doing casework. This foster mom went to her foster son’s IEP meeting at his school to advocate on his behalf.  Everything was addressed in that meeting from the child’s behaviors to his current educational needs. And this mother sat on her own at the meeting in representation of her boy.

She noticed some cruel glances shot in her direction as the topic of the child’s “born addicted” status arose regarding his current behaviors. The boy sat silently and watched his foster mom as he noticed the judgements placed on her shoulders.  The foster mother sat contently, continuing to advocate for the boy’s services.

Not once did the mother state that she wasn’t his biological mother or distance herself from the drug abuses inflicted upon this boy through, “it wasn’t me” deflection.

Instead, she just took it all on her shoulders and left the meeting, having done the best she could for her boy.

The school district was unaware that her boy was not her biological son.
According to that foster mom, that “foster” label was on a need-to-know basis.

– Sometimes love is so strong it’s hard to put into words.

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Like Africa Does It

So due to the heat wave – mmmm, yes (dripping with sarcasm)- we have been entertaining ourselves indoors. And also due to the heat wave my poor littlest one has a won’t-go-away-and-very-painful diaper rash (yes we went to the DR. and got some helpful cremes) that is thriving on the heat and moisture. While I try to introduce my children to God’s worldview through our missions wall and talking about God’s work around the world, I wouldn’t have anticipated Africa to be visiting our hygienic living. So we’ve been doing life like Africa does it for my little Abi-bare-bum.

Abi being bare bummed means we are spending a lot of time playing with washable large Legos on the kitchen floor. Thus, I introduce you to our Lego creations:

Mommy’s creation” “The Garden of Eden”

Rachael’s creation: “A Wonderful Cage”
Abi’s creation: “Destruction” 
(she’s more into the abstract arts.)

And for obvious modesty reasons, baby girl is not pictured beside her creation.



In other news: 

Matt and I are 1/2 way through our adoption trainings. And can I just say here that while obedience to God’s call in our lives is a wonderful thing, these classes can be like PULLING TEETH for our social work majored, my foster care worker past and our “we can really read the policy manual too” annoyances. But alas…. perseverance, friends, perseverance.

We headed out to Aunt Jes’ work picnic/festivities. And I will post an entire post to that goodness. But let me just say here that it was a BLAST!

We got a bunkbed set off freecycle for the whopping price of $0. And while we need to purchase a ladder to accommodate the set when we plan on bunking it, I’d say free is an awfully nice price.

O, and then there’s this critter, who has enjoyed the freedoms of our preparation of our guest bedroom (second kid bedroom) to receive whomever God is adding to our family. Yeah, this freedom-seeker, took to contemplation atop of our queen box-spring before it found a new home elsewhere (the box-spring and mattress found a new home, not our cat… I promise….).

 
Jungle-boy!
So that’s us lately! 
On the horizon:
  • our first family mission trip – tagging along on the youth mission trip. We hope not to be a distraction, but to delight in Jesus together, while we still get our NEEDED naps in. =)
  • Home assessor – whom I LOVE- makes her first home visit the day after we return from our mission trip. And yes she will see our parenting of our crazy-off-schedule kids then. 
  • Family vacation to Myrtle beach 7 days after returning from the mission trip – no we’re not COMPLETELY insane, but yes we are driving… for 13 hours… with a 1 and 2 year old. 
  • Then Matt starts back to seminary for the Fall semester. I’ve been so use to his break that it’s going to be a real adjustment. 
  • And intermixed in that 4 week span we will be completing the remaining adoption classes (three hours a piece of “joy” – refer to above commentary).
  • And then by mid-September we will be completed with classes, waiting for our homestudy to be finished in 1-2 months post our class completion and then praying and waiting for our phone calls. 
  • Oh yes and add in some serious closet cleaning and repainting of our second kid bedroom amidst all that – and beginning some homeschooling amidst that as well….. 

IT’S GONNA BE GREAT!!!!!!

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You Said

“You said, Ask and you will receive
Whatever you need
You said, Pray and I’ll hear from heaven
And I’ll heal your land

You said Your glory will fill the earth
Like water the sea
You said, Lift up your eyes
The harvest is here, the kingdom is near

You said, Ask and I’ll give the nations to you
O Lord, that’s the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see
Your light, as it rises on us

You said Your glory will fill the earth
Like water the sea
You said, Lift up your eyes
The harvest is here, the kingdom is near

You said, Ask and I’ll give the nations to you
O Lord, that’s the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see
Your light, as it rises on us ” – Hillsong United

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvuoCrDfru4]

This song brought tears to my eyes this morning. I can’t help but be overwhelmed when I hear something so Biblical and so devoted to God’s mission. But it becomes more than just an outpour of emotion.

Church? Are we asking for the nations?

Does our heart break for the nations without the Lord as their God? Are we compelled to pray for open doors and tendered hearts, willing to hear and receive the gospel? Are we praying for tenderizing to the harvest? Are we praying for more laborers for the harvest? Does it break our hearts to think of the lost? Do we feel charged to go? Do we feel compelled to do something- anything- that more would be added to God’s number? Are we asking for the nations?

O that distant shores and islands would see your light and it rises on us!!!

Please, Jesus.

– to God be the glory.

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