This post has been a long time coming! - Part Three

Boy you guys get ugly when I don't finish a story!

So during this whole time of looking for a house in John's home town, praying through the job situation, praying for someone to take my place, etc, etc, I never stopped my daily morning meetings with God. One thing I have learned over the past 10 years is that no matter how I 'feel', I have to get alone with God every day! Just missing one meeting with Him will throw an entire day off. I guess I am a little less mature than the average bear because I truly can't be Jesus to the world with out that meeting! I can tell the days I don't...I am stressed, I am anxious, I react more in the flesh to people around me, etc, etc. So during these times with God, I wasn't really getting much out of it. I was reading and praying, but just wasn't hearing much. It was a winter time in my time with God.

So I went and got a book off my book shelf to see if I could spark some conversation with God. I picked up "The Gatekeeper". I have no idea where it came from, probably a garage sale or something, but I started reading it since it had to do with money and we were really struggling with how we were going to live with out my being at the agency. The book stirred something in me. This is evidence that God can use anything to speak to us when He wants to! I actually disagreed with about 90% of what the book said. I even laughed out loud at some parts. The basic principles of the book were good, but it was a definite prosperity gospel that I don't believe. But the book talked about each of us having a place in the body of Christ. That our specific talents and knowledge are given to us in order to accomplish the bigger work of God's kingdom. I thought a lot about that and leaving the agency. I knew that God took me through Eden's failed adoption so that I would know what I knew in order to bring the kids home from Liberia. Was he really calling me to quit?

There is no way for me to communicate my excitement over getting to quit the agency. It wasn't that I had lost my passion for children and families, but in all the attacks and stress, I had become hardened. I took each one personally and had in return built a wall around my heart and my ministry so no one could hurt me anymore. In a sense I had been serving man and not God because I was letting the reactions of the people around me dictate my worth and success. I had always (and still do) prayed that if I become prideful or get to a point where I can't serve my families in the way they should be as they walk through this incredible journey of adoption that God would shut my doors. So I just figured, this was Him answering that prayer!

But as I read this book and thought on the principles,something stirred. I mentioned to John a couple of times that I wasn't sure we were done in Liberia, but I didn't know what that meant. He felt the same.

In the mean time, we had met with a young lady who was going to come work for us anyway, but asked her if she would be interested in taking over the entire agency? After praying through that, she said yes. So we started the ball rolling to turn over the entire ministry to her.

Still not knowing for sure where we would live or how we would turn the agency over, I started making plans to be a full time wife and mother once again! I was so excited! See that has been my one true passion my entire life! When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say "a wife and mother". I still feel that way! The agency had taken over! It was the core of our home. Things were out of balance. And I was so excited to get to be with my kids full time again!

But even in that, there was this nagging feeling that I was running. I didn't really understand that because I had been on my knees this whole time. I truly had the heart to follow God! I wasn't trying to pursue my own desires, I had told Him I would do whatever He wanted and believed this was it....but there was still this nagging feeling.

On June 19, all that nagging feeling would get the best of me! It was about 10:30 at night when the phone rang. It was the sister of a friend who was in Haiti. She has been in the adoption process every since I have known her....about 4 or 5 years! She has lost babies too many times to count. She was in Haiti visiting her children and had just found out that things were in order where she could file her I600, but her husband was not with her. *Side note...this friend just had her visa denied...pray for her! I think she can get the kids home, but she needs the cooperation of the agency director to do that! Pray that all is in order FAST to get these babies home! - Friend, if you want to comment and put your blog address so my friends can follow your story, please do that! I just didn't want to reveal you unless you wanted to be revealed!* Since her husband was not with her, she needed to have a power of attorney for him. Her sister was calling me because they didn't know where to get a power of attorney that said the things it needed to say. I told her that was no problem, took down her e-mail address, told her to check it in a few minutes, and sent her the power of attorney that we use telling her to change Liberia to Haiti and it would work! After I hit send, I got to thinking....what was a seemingly insurmountable mountain to this friend, was a 10 minute fix for me. Not because I am better or smarter, or any of those prideful things...but because God has equipped me for this work that He has for me. So with the house quiet because everyone else was in bed, I started questioning my decision to quit the agency. I had seen the Red Letters Campaign logo on many of my friends websites, and their motto "I believe living my faith can end poverty" had intrigued me, but I hadn't had time to check it out. So that night, I took the time.

I clicked on the logo that took me to their site, and I watched the video. By the time it finished, I was broken! I had tears streaming down my face (that happened a lot at that time in my life, but this time it was for a different reason)! This group of brothers and sisters in Christ had my heart! One of my biggest struggles in the agency was that I felt all alone. We had no support from our church, John had too many commitments with his new job to really work with me, and I didn't have any "friends" who had a clue what my life was about. But as I listened to this video, I heard people with a heart for people that I had! They shared our frustration with the local church not doing enough to help people find their strengths and use those to change the world! They shared my believe that God intends for us to work as a BODY, not as individuals or even as individual churches. We are all one! Somehow, staring at the video screen, I felt less alone. *God side note - less than two months after this night, I had the awesome privilege of meeting the founders of RLC when they came to a fund raising dinner for Addy's Hope orphanage project! How awesome is that? They had no clue that just two months before, they had been instrumental in God working in my life! Still not sure they know that fully*

So I got my Bible, and my journal and got on my face seeking God with all that is in me! I got up from my time with God knowing that I was not going to quit the agency, but in fact it was going to grow. I literally scripted my conversation with God! I would ask a question, then I would write His response. He knew I had to hear Him that clearly in order to obey! And I knew I had to write it down because just as I predicted, within 24 hours, I was already wanting to say I didn't really hear God that night, and I could go ahead and quit!

I won't share all of the conversation here as much of it is very personal (the agency wasn't all the issues I was dealing with...and out of respect for my family, I will not go public with all of them!). But here is some of what transpired that night when the rest of my house was sleeping:
Me: Make clear the path you have for me!
God: Day by day, daughter, day by day!
Me: But how do I hope for tomorrow?
God: Faith and trust in Me (Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see)
Me: So can I "hope" to stay in this house?
God: Why not?
Me: Because we can't afford it!
God: But I can!
Me: **with lots of lines under it in my journal.....was frustrated at this point!** I know You can, but WILL You? That is my question for you!
God: Obedience - be obedient!
Me: What does that mean?
God: Get up each day and do that days work - let tomorrow take care of itself.
(some more personal stuff....)
Me: Can you not just give me a 'yes' or 'no'?
God: No! - ha!ha! (I have always said God has a sick sense of humor!) If I showed you too far ahead, it wouldn't be faith and it would scare you. I give you just enough grace for today - not for tomorrow.
Me: Am I supposed to hand over the agency? How do we do that?
God: Slow down....step by step!
Me: I want the whole picture!
God: You can't have it - you couldn't handle it!

So that is how I came back to the agency. After that conversation, I felt lead to go to Isaiah 54. Versus 2-3 had been a verse I had written as a promise for Addy's Hope for a long time...and God renewed that vision in my again. It says, "Enlarge the place of your tent; Stretch out the curtains of your swellings, spare not; lengthen your cords and strengthen your pegs. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left. And your descendants will possess nations and will resettle the desolate cities." Basically, God said, get your stuff together! I am fixing to blow the doors wide open and you are going to expand!

I have it now marked in my Bible as God's promise to me in June 2008 to keep walking through the fires, both in ministry and personally. Verses 11-17 became my life verse that I clung to in the coming days as I came out of the fog of depression and gained a boldness in my daily life, "O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of crystal...You will be far from oppression, for you will not fear; and from terror, for it will not come near you....whoever assails you will fall because of you...No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgement you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me," declares the Lord. "

And God has stayed true to His promise. There are still areas of great struggle! Areas where I don't understand what God wants from me. But I know now more than ever that God has my back, my side and my front! He wants me to serve him, walk in faith and obedience, and He will take care of the rest!

I have seen more miracles in the past 5 months than in my whole life! I went to Liberia this summer with a resolve and confidence, knowing that I was going in the power of the Holy Spirit, and stormed every office I entered! I didn't go in "begging them to work with us", but I went in knowing that I was sent by God to speak on behalf of His children in need. It was an awesome trip where I saw God's visible hand too many times to count!

I came back to the agency knowing it is God I work for and not man. There are times that people will be unhappy with me, and that is ok! I do my best to serve, and that is all I can do!

So that is the rest of the story....well, up to today as God is still writing my story! Praise God!