Christmas 2012

Christmas is a little different around here this year.  Ok, a LOT different.  Just look back at my blogs from years past, and you will see how we normally do Christmas.  This year, we have A tree.  That's it.  In fact, we are going to have to get in the attic and dig out the stockings before Monday.  They never came down.

There are a lot of reasons for the lack of ordinary festive decor this year.  The home remodel is one.  We still have the finishing touches on the kitchen remodel and time is precious to get these things done right now.  The thought of using that precious time to put up all the usual decor for Christmas was a bit...ok A LOT overwhelming for both John and me.

That's the easy answer.  Just didn't have time.  But the truth is, there are some deeper reasons why only A tree graces our home this year.  I. Am. Tired.


The past two years, especially 2012 has taken more out of me than I thought I had left in me to take.  Don't stop reading for fear this is another downer post about Christmas.  Nothing could be further from the truth! Second Corinthians 12:9-10 pretty well sums up my year:  But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me! So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).


This Christmas has meaning like no Christmas before.  Christmas celebrates the birth of my King.  My Savior.  My Lord.  My Best Friend. My Rock. My Fortress. My Redeemer. My Defender.  Never before have I understood those names like I came to know them this year! 

My Best Friend, My Redeemer, My Defender, My Savior
Not long ago, I was crying out to God.  I was begging Him to help!  I was at my end.  I was literally crying out with my audible voice in desperation to God over a situation where I had been falsely accused of some actions that had the potential for devastation.  It seemed as if the accusers were winning, that the accusations would stand without my defense being heard or acknowledged.  "How could God do this to me?", I thought. "How could that God who I was just beginning to trust let this happen to me?"  And immediately the cross came to my mind.  God in His loving and compassionate way reminded me that He more than anyone knew exactly what I was facing.  Jesus, His son, My Savior, left the comfort, the safety of heaven to come to this earth as a human baby.  God knew when He sent Him, and Jesus knew when He came exactly how it would end.  How could He ask me to walk the path I have walked this year when He knew exactly how it would end? Because He had already walked it!  

He, the One who had NO. Sin. None. Was accused of many sins.  Then he was spat on, beat and mocked, falsely accused.
For.
Me.

How could He ask me to endure the trials I was facing? Because He had already faced them for me.  Every time I look at a manger scene this season, I think of the choice Jesus made. For. Me. and YOU! He chose what I was begging to be released from.  He didn't have to endure it, He chose to endure it because He knew in the end it would bring my freedom from sin and allow me to spend eternity with Him! How could he ask me to walk this path I am on?   ^"For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin." Hebrews 12.  He could ask me because I had not come close to the sacrifice yet that He made for me. 


My Lord
I have always admired Mary.  She has been one of my favorite characters in the Bible.  Not because she carried Baby Jesus in her womb, but because in the face of all it meant, her only response to a request made of her by God was, "I am your bond servant. May it be done to me according to your word." Luke 1. I want to be like Mary when I grow up.  I don't want to belly ache when God asks me to do the hard stuff.  Mary risked it all!  Her family, her church, her fiance, her future.  She placed all of it on the words of a messenger from God! No why's, no excuses, no "I'll do that laters". Just  humble, respectful, faith-filled obedience. If I truly desire God to be Lord, then NOTHING is off limits! Not my children, not my family, not my finances, not my friends, not my ministry. NOTHING! I must say, may it be done to me according to your word...then trust Him to fulfill that Word.

Abba, Father
Never before have I understood my Abba, Father's heart as I do this Christmas.  I know this comparison breaks down on many levels, but because of the past year, I have a new understanding, awareness, revelation of what my Abba, Father must have felt that day when He heard His Son cry for the first time.  The vulnerability that cry engulfed.  The pain that must have coursed through my Abba, Father's heart as He knew the dangers of this world His son would have to face.  I can't even begin to wrap my human mind around what God was thinking in that moment.  Watching a child walk away from our family to a life that holds so many dangers gave me a revelation about all God did for me by allowing His son to enter this world as a baby in a manger that we celebrate each year.  I love my friends dearly, but there is not a one of you that I would have let my daughter go for in order to save you.  She is too precious to me. No matter how much I love each of you, I love my daughter more. But not my Abba, Father! He loves me...and you...enough to send His Son into this earth with the sole purpose of suffering for our freedom. Oh how I have taken that sacrifice for granted.  No words.  There are no words to describe the feelings, the gratitude, the humility that rises up in me when I think of how my Abba, Father was willing to sacrifice His own son in order that I...and you...might live! Thank you, God!  How can I respond with anything less than my life?!

A Gift
It was a gift.  A free gift.  We celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born.  But without the cross and the Resurrection, that baby born in the manager would just be a sad story about a broke young couple with nowhere for their baby to be born, right? But that's not it! That baby would grow up, work miracles, then die on a cross to be raised three days later.  All of that to offer you and me a gift of eternal life. A gift of abundant life here on earth and an eternity worshiping Him in His presence! I just have to receive it.  I can never earn it. But no matter how amazing it is. No matter how beautifully it's wrapped or how bright the gift makes your future, you have to accept it for it to matter.  And even after the gift of salvation, there are gifts every day that God offers us.  Every time we choose to walk in obedience and not rebellion, there is a free gift, a blessing.  Don't confuse the two: salvation cannot be earned! Most blessings on the other hand are tied to obedience and walking with God.  After walking the path I've walked the past two years, I have a clearer understanding of what it does to God when we reject any of His gifts. Watching my children reject the gifts I have to give them or the instruction I have given that will protect them from harm reminds me that my Abba, Father feels the same when I disobey or walk outside His protection.  I don't set rules and give instruction because I want to make my children miserable.  I set rules and give instruction because they are safe for my children.  I want to protect them from the outcomes that are harmful to them.  Oh how our Abba, Father feels the same!  This Christmas, I am keenly aware of the pain I cause my Savior and my Heavenly Father when I choose a path outside their will.


After the past two years, and 2012 specifically, I know that baby in the manger like I have never known Him before! As I celebrate this year, it is with a depth I've not known before. Through all the trials, I have come to understand like never before that the trials I face (and I am not saying to wish for trials or to think the trials even come "from" God! - that is a theological discussion for another time...or not)  if I allow them to, will throw me directly and intimately into the arms of my Savior! And this Christmas, that is what I celebrate the most!



Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.[For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and ^[c]draw us to Himself], 2 Corinthians 1:9-10

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Happy Thanksgiving, Paizley!

Paizley, this picture was taken two years ago this week!  It was the first picture of us!  Since I don't have a phone number for you, I wanted to send you a message on the slight chance that you might see this today, just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving!  On this day, I want you to know that  you are loved, you are covered in prayer, and you are missed! Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,
Mom
Psalm 139

More of You, No Matter the Cost!

I've really got to stop writing posts like the last one!  Seems that every time I do, I'm challenged on the truth I put into words.  Later the same day that I had written the post, I received a letter in the mail that opened a firestorm of events in my life.  Events that would bring a first for me.  You know when you say on a phone call, "get this fixed or you will be speaking to my attorney?"  Well, I had to make good on that for the first time in my life yesterday!  Someday I will share details - but right now, please pray for me.  I am up against a system in our society that I have learned this week is known for it's retaliation and blackballing of people who whistle blow.  And anyone who knows me knows that nothing gets my blood boiling like injustice....and this system works with underprivileged people all the time!  If they are doing this to me, I cannot even imagine what they are doing to those who do not have an understanding of the system or have the means to fight this giant!  It is on their behalf that I will fight this!  I wear a bracelet that says, "Be the Change!"  Putting feet to that in this situation.

Then we get news about a family member that sent us to our knees in fear as well as concern and overwhelming sadness.  The battle with the social system had me once again wanting to walk away from the work that I do.  I know the enemy is out to get my ministry.  It is evident.  As I was in between phone calls on Monday dealing with the current issue, my phone rings and it is a reporter from the New Yorker calling to fact find on the piece I gave information for over a year ago (that honestly I thought had already gone to print and I just missed seeing it) about the corruption in adoption in Liberia when we worked there.  I am going to have to find the post of when we brought Toben home and re-post...not even sure I ever really posted about it because it was such a traumatic event at the time.  Google my name.  You will find a news article that says I trafficked children.  That was what we found when we got on US soil with our precious Toben after a 10 day fight!  Working internationally and accused of child trafficking.  Working domestically, and now this.  It was as if God was sending me a message with the call from the New Yorker..."Remember what happened when the enemy did this?  You spent a couple of weeks worrying if the FBI was going to show up on your doorstep and arrest you.  Nothing came of that!  You almost laugh at it now.  You will do the same of this situation!"  It was in that moment that God solidified once again the call He has on my life.  I'm not special!  He has a call on all our lives...you have one on yours too!  And then He reminded me of the week I went to Austin and had some life transforming moments with Him.

I listened to Bill Johnson podcasts all the way to Austin that week.  He spoke right to my soul!  He taught on some things that God has used to literally transform my life, my thinking.  The podcast that challenged me the most was "Being the Sacrifice Fire Falls On".  Google it and listen to it, but beware!  It is life changing!  God reminded me yesterday that I had prayed the same prayer Bill Johnson prayed....more of you, God, no matter the cost!  When Bill Johnson prayed that, he woke up paralyzed three nights in a row.  It's an amazing testimony!

Within weeks of coming home from that trip where I prayed with all my being to experience more of God and to know Him at a different level than I ever have, a child left our family, my house was torn apart by a remodel, my marriage hit some bumps and my ministry is threatened!  Every area of my identity has been rocked!  The small voice came back, "Do you still mean it?  Do you really mean  whatever the cost?"  And in the face of all the conflict, especially the threatening of my ministry, and in a moment that I truly believe God was saying, "You can walk away!", I knew I really did mean it!  More of God, less of me, whatever the cost! Bill Johnson says it best:

"Doesn't matter what it costs.  I died to that a long time ago.  I'm not in this because of what I get, I'm in it because it's what I was born for.  I was summoned.  I was called by The Only One who has a right to rule my life. I was summoned, I was called by name.  I would be a fool to say no to that summons, that call, that invitation. [I have a desire] to be the offering, that which attracts God."

Don't hear me say that God puts us through trials for kicks or for His own pompous need for us to need Him.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  He allows trials in our lives for our own need of Him.  In our weakness is when He is strong. It is in our raw need that we see Him the most.  It is in our desperate times that we learn to lean on Him...when we literally have nothing or no one else. And that is where these events have left me!  Raw, vulnerable and totally open to the presence of God because He is the only One who can bring peace.  I have learned to find contentment in any and all circumstances.  I have learned to not be led by emotions.  I have learned to trust Him and fight the enemy not believing the lies the enemy tries to throw at me.  I have learned to live by faith - being sure of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see - in a way I never have.  I have been challenged to believe that without faith it is impossible to please God and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him!  To believe any of that, I had to believe what I read in the Bible is truth and "reality" and not my circumstances!

And in the face of it all, I say, if I get a more intimate knowledge of God and relationship with God in the exchange, I say, YES!

Released

There is no manual for how to act when you have a wayward child.  There is also no manual for how to act when a friend has a wayward child.  I'm thinking me and a couple of friends could write one of those!  We have some crazy stories!  But God brought some direction...some instructions yesterday through the blessing of a dear friend!  Oddly enough, that same friend joked with me that she needed more blog posts to keep up with me...so Tracey, this is for you!  You have no idea how you blessed me yesterday!  THANK YOU!!!!

I had the pleasure of spending some time with my dear friend Tracey yesterday.  Tracey and I met in high school, but became kindred spirits when we were in the same Sunday School class after graduating college.  We have been through marriages, a miscarriage, births, all our adoptions - those that failed and those that brought a new life to our home...over 20 years of life together!  Through numerous moves on behalf of both of us, we have remained friends and stayed in touch.  And she is not even on Facebook!  So it's like a real, old timey relationship! Tracey has always been one of my biggest cheerleaders!  Every time we get together, whether it has been weeks, months, or years, we pick up right where we left off.  I have learned over the years that is the mark of true friendship!  Every time we meet, Tracey never fails to tell me how much she admires me.  That always blows my mind because Tracey is one of about three people on this earth who know ALL of my scoop!  I don't think there is anything in my closet that Tracey doesn't know!  And the fact that she is even still my friend knowing all she knows is pretty amazing..much less has such lofty things to say.

Yesterday Tracey invited me to come to an event at her parents' church (the church where we rekindled our friendship all those years ago) where she was the featured guest bringing the program.  The theme verse for the event was 2 Corinthians 9:8 "And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."  It was on the wall behind where Tracey stood to sing and speak.  I love holidays!  This is absolutely my favorite time of year!  So being at the event where everything is festive would normally be a thrill for me.  But as I walked around the room looking at the themed tables and greeting long time friends that I hadn't seen in years, something was off.  There was a fog, a heaviness.

Tracey got up to sing.  She sang lots of oldy moldies as she said from our youth!  I'm not particularly fond of thinking of songs from my era as oldy moldies, but I guess I am getting to "that" age.  Tracey challenged all of us to put aside the stressed of the day, the week and just concentrate on the blessings in our life.  As I did that, there was this voice that popped up and said, "when you are thinking about the blessings, don't forget the pain of the one not with you!"  The fog was back.  Immediately, I heard that still small voice that has become my comfort and my strength over the past few years say, "That's not me!  That has never been me."  I realized in that moment that since Paizley left our home while we were out of town that day, I have felt a need to be sad.  I have felt like being happy or being fully joyful was wrong.  I have never lost a child who live in my home to death.  We lost Addy, and that was very painful, but it was different than losing a child you have held, poured into day in and day out.  John and I have talked often that having a child who walks away from your family is much like a death in the family.  There is obviously still the hope of reconciliation someday that you don't have with a death.  And I don't mean to lessen the pain of my dear friends who have lost children to death.  But as I sat there yesterday, I thought of stories I have heard of moms who have lost children to death and how they weren't sure how to be happy again.  I felt that tug of war in my soul yesterday.  The pain of the past few months, not just missing my daughter and granddaughter, but the false accusations, the total rejection of who we are, has been more painful than I could have ever imagined.  But God's word says that joy comes in the morning!  The problem was, the enemy had me convinced that the morning couldn't come until my daughter was fully reconciled to me.  The problem with that is...that reconciliation is not my choice.  So my "joy" was dependent an event that I couldn't control.  One of the adoptive parents I am doing a home study for has hit some of the bumps we all face in the adoption process.  We have talked quite a bit about the spiritual side of adoption.  She had sent me a message earlier that day.  God as setting the stage for me!  I love it when He does this!  Reminds me again of just how much He loves me (and YOU by the way!), and how personal He is! The message was from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.   It was on obedience.  John 14:15 - If you love me, you will obey my commandments.  It talked about how obedience is a choice. God will not force us to do what He asks, He is a gentleman.  Two years ago, we obeyed.  That obedience is what God uses to show Himself to us and to others.  The outcome of the obedience isn't what I had hoped and definitely not what I had dreamed, but the obedience - doing what God asked me to do - and the continued obedience in this situation, is what God is asking of me.   In that moment yesterday when Tracey asked us to count our blessings, 6 faces popped into my head as the breath of one of those blessings brushed my neck as I held her in my lap.  I pulled her a little closer to me and the tears began to fall.  The release had come!  God had spoken.  "Stop making yourself pay for what you had no control over.  You obeyed when others would have ran.  You obeyed when others told you to run. Stop forcing a cloud over every family event.  Enter this glorious season of thankfulness and of celebrating My Gift to you with a full heart."   Wow!  I didn't know!  I didn't realize until that moment I felt I had to have an element of sadness to every family event we did - family pictures, carving pumpkins, watching a movie as a family.  I felt like I had to almost verbally acknowledge the missing piece before we could go on with our event.  But God released me from that!  I can enjoy the holiday traditions we have as a family without having a moment of silence that someone is missing.  My other children deserve a mom who is all in...not holding back because there needs to be a cloud over all we do.  

There will be times of sadness, I know.  There will be genuine mourning in the coming holiday season.  But I am released, free to celebrate our family traditions, free to dance with my children, free to relish making Christmas cookies, and free to be Thankful for the blessed life I have as we gather around a table in a few weeks!  Free to fully feel joy and peace despite a missing piece!

And that my friends, is the peace that passes all understanding that only a God who knows the pain of losing His own Son for MY sins can bring!  I owe Him my life!

Stable and Fixed

I have been a bit quiet on here lately.  Mostly because I haven't had a lot of thoughts that I could really put into words or what I could was not really suitable for a public forum.  It's been a hard few weeks!  God is teaching me much and continuing to draw me closer to Him and for that I am thankful.  But the biggest lesson He is teaching me is the lesson of remaining stable and fixed.

Its funny how scriptures that I have read before, or even memorized, now have new meaning when I think of them through this lesson!  Scriptures like Isaiah 40:31 that says "those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." 

I texted a friend who I felt could relate the other day and described this season of life in this way.  I feel as though I am standing on a board with one foot on each end, spread eagle so to speak.  But the middle of the board is on a stability ball.  The slightest pressure on one foot or the other and I will bite the dust!  It seems as if just about the time I get my balance, we get a call about in issue with Paizley, a friend says something that brings the hurt in my heart to the surface, I see a baby about Peighton's age, and the pressure is applied to one side or the other and the balance is gone.  My arms go to flailing, my knees go to rocking all in an effort to recover the balance.  I don't like the flailing stage!  And what God keeps showing me is how much energy I waist flailing when He intends for me to be so in tune with Him that I can walk through any circumstances and never lose my balance. 

Please understand, I am not saying stuff feelings or ignore hurts.  I am not saying be a door mat to those who want to trample you.  In fact, its quite the opposite.  Stuffing the feelings only adds weight to my shoulders as I try to maintain that balance with one foot on each side of the teetering board.  What God is saying is to roll my cares on Him!  Truly trust Him with my feelings and the outcome of the situation...whether its Peighton's safety or paying the bills next month, He is teaching me to fully and completely release my cares and worries to Him!

A little over a year ago, when I literally thought I was losing my mind, God gave me Isaiah 26:3, "You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You."  I would speak that out loud until the peace would come back!  It was the scripture God gave me to "reset" so to speak my balance.  And as I have walked the past few weeks, it has been my life line! 

When something comes along that knocks me off balance, or I just start to get that restless or anxious feeling rising up in me, I know my focus is off!  I go to scripture in order to regain the balance and to remain hidden in the Secret Place, "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].  He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge." Psalm 91:1,4 

No matter what my circumstances say, there is a Secret Place where I can remain stable and fixed!  God literally hides us from the enemy when we remain in that place.  We are untouchable!  It doesn't mean bad things can't happen to us...it only means when bad things do happen, they don't send us flailing!  Just like Isaiah 40:31 says, we will soar...we will rise above our circumstances and walk through these trials with out them taking over our emotions and wrecking our balance.  Kind of like the three Bendagos as they were thrown in the fire but came out not even smelling like smoke after Jesus appeared in the fire with them!  Jesus is teaching me to recognize Him standing with me in the fire and know that as long as I look into His face and let Him dictate the steps I take, the battles I fight, the battles I lay down, I will walk out of these fires not even smelling like smoke! 

My Baby Girl

A new friend at our new church blessed Paizley with a free newborn shoot for Peighton.  I am so thankful for these shots since they may be all I ever have of my granddaughter.  It's a bit painful to look at them right now.  My heart feels like it might just break in two completely a I wonder about where this precious baby is right now and what her future may hold.  But I know God put her in our life so that we would cover her in prayer during this time!  I may not can physically rescue her, we have done all that we can at this point.  But I can pray angels around her! The past two days have been so hard as I think about Peighton.  In the book I am reading by Liberty Savard, Shattering Your Stongholds, She talks about denial as being one of our coping mechanisms.  Like shock to the physical body that keeps you from dieing in physical trauma, denial does the same for the heart and mind in emotional trauma.  Over the past few years, I have gone from someone who faces emotions straight on and deals with them to a person who lives in denial.....a lot!  Especially when it comes to hurts from those around me.  But God is revealing more and more that denial is not going to allow me to live in the freedom He has for me.  He is teaching me to recognize the hurt and pain, and then let it go to Him!  Regardless of the situation, God is teaching me to let Him handle it.  Trust Him with it!  There's that word again...trust.  If you have been reading my blog for long, you know God has had me in a place of learning to trust again since Eden did not come home...and something tells me I will be on this journey until I see God face to face!

So this morning, you are part of my therapy!  :)  I am getting the pictures off the disc.  I am stopping the denial that I have a granddaughter that I don't know when I will hold again. I am stopping the denial that it hurts.  I am embracing the truth that God loves her more than I could ever love her and I am choosing to trust Him with her future.  I am rolling my grief onto Him and asking Him to heal my heart.

I have to.  So WHEN my girls return home, my heart will be ready to receive them!

When you have done all else....STAND

We are one week and 6 days into life without our oldest daughter.  Honestly, I'm not sure even still what life should look like.  John and I talked about it last night.  We have to face the heart wrenching possibility that she will never reconcile to our family.  We only had her a year and a half.  She may decide to find her "family" somewhere else.  Circumstances right now would say that is the case.  Where she has chosen to place herself is a toxic environment - physically, emotionally and most of all spiritually.  Family and friends ask us, "What now?"

God has given me Ephesians 6:13 twice in the last few days "and, having done all [the crisis demands], to stand [firmly in your place]."  That's what now!  We have just begun attending a new church - a post for a later time - and our new pastor's wife, Tonya, handed me a piece of paper with a couple of scriptures on it Sunday.  This was one of them.  And with it, she had written the Greek for withstand - "anthistemi - to cause to stand; suggests vigorously opposing, bravely resisting, standing face-to-face against an adversary, standing our ground...with the authority and spiritual weapons granted us we can withstand evil forces."  That is what now!  I will stand against the devil himself for my daughter!  I will fight for her until my last breath!  It's what a mother does!

Now before you put me on some sort of spiritual pedestal, understand that the last few days have not been all that great.  In fact, last night, I lost it and sobbed shaking the bed enough to wake the dead - aka John when he sleeps!  I haven't been able to spend as much time in the Word with school starting, so the lies of the enemy began creeping in.  My thoughts wondered to places that had me focusing on circumstances and not Truth.  I have had my moments of despair where I wondered if my heart could ever forgive someone who walked out on me and made the accusations she has made that caused us - and our other children - to walk through circumstances I would never in a million years have dreamed I would find myself.  But as God tends to do in my mothering of all my children, He keeps bringing the correlation between my daughter and myself to my God and me.

I meet with an amazing woman of God each week.  The Truth and wisdom she has been imparting to me over the last year is honestly the only reason I can stand under the weight of what is going on in my family right now at all.  She has taught me the Truth of the Secret Place in Psalm 91 and of how we soar on wings like eagles without growing weary or fainting.  She has taught me how to be hidden with Christ!  I am so thankful.  We started  a new book this week.  And it came with a disclaimer from Becky.  She warned us that we are entering enemy territory because we are about to upset his apple-cart with what we will learn in this book.  My answer....BRING IT ON!!!!  I couldn't even get past the intro without having to stop and process.  It is good stuff!  And it has made me reflect on the past year and a half with Paizley.

The book is Shattering Your Strongholds by Liberty Savard.  Here is one of the nuggets that got me to thinking: "The problem is this: even scripturally correct truth cannot always penetrate a soul that is filled with stronghold thinking....He does not change, bypass, or override our memories and beliefs; He just keeps offering His love and truth until we finally become willing to exchange our old beliefs and old ideas for them." Wow!  I don't think I could sum up the past year and a half with any better words.  In my weakness I take the rejection personally, but when I am standing in faith and trust in God, I see that this whole thing has little to do with me and a LOT to do with a battle over a soul!

God gave me some scriptures for Paizley over a year ago.  If I reacted the way my old self would have - like my old self of about 10 months ago - I would be shaking my finger at God and asking why?! But I am walking in a new lever of trust, faith and understanding of the character of my God!  I know that the path my daughter has chosen is not the path God would have chosen for her.  Just like I walk on paths at times that God would not choose for me.  The fact is, when we do that, we are outside God's perfect will.  His Word is clear that He will not force Himself nor His will on anyone!  We are free to choose!  Liberty Savard says it this way, "This partial verse [1 John 3:8 The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil has done] tells us that the reason the Son of God appeared on Earth was to destroy the devil's works - to loosen and dissolve them - and He will provide what we need to do the same thing. This is God's will, but your will has to make a choice to call your life on Earth into alignment and agreement with God's will in Heaven.  God will not force you to do so, but He will help you." (emphasis mine)

So many times Christians become disheartened, and I have done the same thing, because something God gave us to pray for didn't happen.  For me, this has always in the past put me on a downward spiral to doubt and unbelief.  But now I understand many times when the outcome is not favorable, it is because a free will was exerted.  It is important of me, and I think all of us, to understand this so that I don't become disappointed or disheartened with God over the outcomes of circumstances and situations that involve humans!

Now, God doesn't teach me lessons like this to sit in judgement!  He teaches me lessons like this to put the magnifying glass on myself!  You don't watch a child walk away from your family without lots of self-reflection!  At least, I don't see how you could.  As I watch my daughter walk away, I am challenged to ask what I have walked away from?  What has God wanted to teach me that I have turned a deaf ear and blind eye to?  What plan has God had for me that I let circumstances or feelings dictate the path I took instead of standing on Truth!

There are a couple of circumstances in my life right now that are threatened by feelings and sight to cause me to give up.  No one in their right mind would advise me to push forward if I laid out the pro/con list or spelled out the details.  But here's the deal, when we live according to Biblical prinicples, we are not in our "right mind" - we are in the "Mind of Christ"!  And that operates according to rules and order that we don't understand here on earth!  Doubt me?  Jesus was born to a virgin.  Jesus raised Lazerath from the dead and then raised himself from the dead.  Jesus fed 5,000+ with a few loaves and fish.  When society gave up on a woman, he went to the well to meet her one-on-one and spoke life.  Peter walked on water - at least until he took his eyes off Jesus.  Jonah was swallowed by a big fish and spit back up.  And I lived through a child walking out my door with my granddaughter!

So if you are facing a circumstance that seems insurmountable or God has called you to what appears to be the impossible, let me encourage you!  Another scripture that has come up multiple times in different ways this week is Matthew 17   "Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked privately, Why could we not drive it out? ²⁰ He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of ^[h]firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [^[i]that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."  NOTHING! That word does not leave room for argument - with faith, no thing is impossible for you!  And when you've done all else, stand!  Then watch the enemy run!  James 4:7  I pray you see your mountain start to shake today as you stand in faith and say to it MOVE!  I'm watching mine do the same!  

The Aftermath

It's been a week and two days since she left.  I have had to hold Ava twice while she cried because she misses her big sister and doesn't understand why she up and left without saying good bye.  Last night during bedtime prayer she just out and says, "Mom, I have a broken heart."  When I asked why, she answered, "Because Paizley left."  I am not really sure what to do with my emotions at times like that.  My own sadness wells up.  Then its followed by anger that she would hurt the other children like that.  Then it's followed by what John and I have decided is mourning.  It is as if there has been a death in the family.  We have to grieve what could have been.  We grieve what we thought once was.  We grieve the plans we had for her.  We grieve not getting to know our grand daughter.  But most of all we grieve that our daughter is walking outside the protection of God and know that is never a safe place.

I have never lost a loved one suddenly, but I have heard many say that the adrenaline gets you through the funeral.  It is the days after everyone has gone back home and you go back to life without that loved one that it is the hardest.  That describes this weekend.  Just about all the kids had some kind of outburst that we could trace back to just dealing with the emotions of what has happened in our home.

Today is the start of a new school year.  I guess there will be many days like today that are bitter sweet.  I won't let the grief of one rob me of the joy of 6 others, but there will always be that little twinge of sadness over the missing one...until the day she returns home.

If you are praying for Paizley, we are praying specifically that her eyes be opened to Truth. That she can see with spiritual eyes the consequences of the decisions she is making.  We are praying that she is keenly aware of God's presence in her life.  Thanks for praying!

The Journey: Some processing and a FAITHFUL God

Yesterday was  quite the day.  Spent all morning at the police station.  When a situation is so bad that John considers getting politically involved to change the process, you KNOW it's serious!  I want to change all injustice, so not such a big deal when I want to do that!  Well, after dealing with the Midland Police Department for the last year, John wants to get politically active!  You really can't make this stuff up - the stories we have about what the police have done and said!  It's crazy!

I was able to see and talk to Paizley for the first time since she left.  I assured her nothing she has done or can do will ever change the fact that she is my daughter.  I was able to look her in the eyes and tell her that I still have hope!  I was able to speak the truth of God for what could be one last time - even reminding her of the Words God has given her through other people as late as last Wednesday warning her about such a time as this.  I was able to kiss Peighton.  I cried.  I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest or just explode all together as I watched my girls walk away.  I cried out to God many times...right there in the detective's conference room..and out loud!  I am not playing around with spiritual battles!  I will take all that is mine through the authority I have in Christ.  I will leave nothing on the battle field for lack of walking in authority.  We had the favor of God in many instances.  We walked into a very hostile environment and walked out with the detective sympathizing with us and even telling Paizley no one will ever care for her or love her like we do - adopted or not.

But probably the brightest moment of today actually happened Sunday, I just didn't understand the significance until yesterday.  Sunday during church, one of our pastors stood up and talked about gifts and how we are called by God to use our gifts for His kingdom and purposes.  I kind of dismissed it because I totally get that and believe I am in a place where I am truly doing that in work and am getting involved in church.  But at some point during the talk, as clear as if God was sitting beside me, the Holy Spirit spoke.  "The enemy will use what is happening to steal what you are doing with adoption and children in state custody.  He will not prevail because I have uniquely designed and gifted you for exactly this work.  Your experiences and knowledge in the things of this work are invaluable to what I want to do."  When I heard it, I kind of was startled.  When we have struggled with Paizley at times in the past, I have cried out to God asking how I could ever ask other families to adopt children from the foster system knowing what might be about to happen to their family.  I have questioned if I really believe in what I am doing with the state adoption program.  But the training I took in San Antonio - sitting with other professionals in this area - really solidified for me that I am doing exactly what I need to be doing.  Because of my experience both professionally and personally, I can train and equip families for this process like few others who are doing it professionally can.  And also, I have an amazing daughter who I still believe will go mighty things for the kingdom some day because of waiting child adoption from the state!  So the thought that I would let even Paizley running away keep me from pursuing this work came as a shock to me.  But I took what God said and started analyzing how I felt asking God to reveal any hidden regrets or fears or doubt I had that would cause him to encourage me in that way.

Sitting in the detective's office yesterday, we learned some things about the process because of Paizley's misrepresentation of us and the events that surrounded her leaving.  The initial news of some of what will take place as the process plays out were potentially devastating and could have had me worrying about even being able to keep the agency open at all!  The detective stepped out for a minute and John and I talked some about what had been said so far.  I broke down.  Fear started to creep up.  Then God brought the words He had whispered into my ear on Sunday back to my remembrance, and I literally laughed out loud!  My God, my Faithful Father had already spoken peace and encouragement and victory over a situation that He knew was about to happen and had the potential to shake me up.  But because my hope is in Him, because He is my firm foundation, because He is my Deliverer and my Defender, I was not moved!  Fear left.  Worry stopped. Doubt fled.  Peace flooded me.

See that is the faithful God I serve!  My amazing spiritual mentor, Becky, often reminds us of a quote that one of her past pastors said, "You prepare for battle in times of peace so that in times of war you are prepared."  God has been teaching me, equipping me, loving me, drawing me closer to Him over the past two 15 years, but in God boot camp for the past two.  I am in His Word and alone with Him almost daily without fail.  I have to be.  He is literally my very breath most days.

But let me tell you, being equipped, gaining knowledge, just storing up arsenal of a spiritual fight is not my motivation for getting in the Word and spending time with God.  He is my motivation!  The more I learn about Him, the more time I spend with Him.  It's just like friends we have in the natural.  When you meet someone, you might not make time to go have coffee or lunch.  But as you get to know someone and learn that when you are around them you feel alive and free for some reason.  When you leave them you feel refreshed, encouraged.  We all have friends like that, and when they call and say, "we need to do coffee", we find a time!  It's the same with God.  The more I get to know Him, the more I make time for Him because I want to know Him more!  I want to know more about who He is, about how He operates, about what He wants for me.

We live in a society and a culture that can be scary.  I know more than I ever wanted to know about a lot of our society and the true condition of what my children are growing up in over the past year.  I realize now that I lived in a glass bubble concerning the world that we truly live in.  Part of that is where we live.  And part of it was just the mere fact that I don't have opportunity to get outside our little world much into the culture that exists outside my home and our church.  But I have been thrown full force into it this year and much of it has even touched my very home through some decisions of my daughter.  It's has never been normal at our house for police to show up on your door step at 10 at night!  At times I have despaired over the condition of the world and wondered what my children will face.  But the closer I have drawn to God, the more excited I get.  You see the darker the world is, the brighter the light of Christ will shine!  If you have a flashlight on in the middle of the day, it doesn't really do much.  But you turn that same flashlight on at midnight, and you completely change your environment!  It's midnight people!  Our lights should be changing our environment!!!!  What a blessed time we live in!  What a time for God's people to offer hope to a country that needs it!  Yes, my kids will have battles I never did, but God is also equipping them for the time they live in!  My daughter sees angels - has seen them many times.  She has spiritual awareness that I long for and has had since she could speak...and probably before, she just couldn't tell us!  I can't wait to see the impact for the kingdom my children have on this dark world!  I don't fear for them, I am excited for them!  Side note - because of the world I know they will grow up in, I know I have a bigger responsibility than probably any generation before me to equip them with the Word and knowledge and wisdom of God's ways in order for them to fulfill their kingdom purpose - and if you are a Christian, you do to!

God took me to Haggai 2 about four months ago (you don't get to Haggai on accident!).  It says this, "In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.I will shake all nations."  As Becky says, we are living in a time when everything that can be shaken is being and will be shaken so that those things which can't be shaken - the things of God - will remain!  Praise God!  

I have never been more excited to know my God and be a Christ follower!  I know Him in a way I never have and I am madly in love!  Yes, I am in what has probably been the most devastating circumstances of my life - I am walking out something that I could never fathom - and frankly even in the middle of it can't quite get my head around it if I try to really think about it.  But here is the absolute truth, because I serve an all-powerful, totally sovereign, absolutely loving and so faithful Father, I will not be moved.  I will rise above my circumstances.  I will sore on wings like an eagle.  I will walk and not grow weary.  I will remain hidden in His secret place, protected, loved, peaceful.  I will remain stable and fixed with my eyes set on Him watching, waiting, listening for His voice telling me, "This is the way, walk in it!"

Oh!!! If I could just come through this screen and sit with any of you reading this and beg you to know Him!    Don't just know of Him, KNOW Him!  Don't just go to church on Sunday and call yourself a Christian.  Yes, if you have given your life to Christ, you are a Christian....but that is not the end...it is just the beginning!

He has great and wonderful things for you.....they are hidden in Him!  And as you peel back layer, by layer of His wonderful character, you will stand amazed!  And when life wants to beat you up, you will stand strong saying, bringing it on!  I know the truth!  We win in the end!  Thank you, God!

The Journey: My Heart is Broken

I am not even sure how to start what I have to say, so I'll just lay it out there...Paizley and Peighton are gone.  Paizley left with her Friday night while John and I were out of town.  We have called authorities and are trying to make sure Peighton is safe.  We have very serious concerns for Peighton on many levels.  I have to trust that God will protect her or I will lose my mind with worry and fear.  But God keeps steadfast him whose mind is set on Him (Isaiah 26:3).

There are really no words at this point to even describe how we feel.  Truly, I can't even get my mind around what has happened.  We cleaned out her room yesterday.  She has made her decision.  We have found over the last year that our culture, and most definitely the police department where we live, make it almost impossible for parents who wish to raise teenagers who understand the consequences of life long decisions.  It has been the number one frustration.  Laws are not enforced and parents rights and desires really don't matter.

I can't say that I have thought a lot about what has happened. I can't spend much time thinking about it or despair and anger and fear and doubt and unbelief threaten to creep in.  When those things start to invade my thoughts, I stop, cry out to God for mercy and strength and go on taking care of the 6 babies who remain under my roof.

I have so many questions.  I have some doubts and regrets...any mother who has a child walk out and doesn't have any regrets would concern me!  But I also have some really strong assurances that we did the right thing in many of our crossroads over the past year and a half.

The most asked question is why would she not choose to stay where she had so many opportunities.....she had been given a job at a daycare that was letting her bring Peighton for free, we had agreed to support her and Peighton through the last year of high school and on into cosmetology school which was her dream?  I have my speculations about why, but the bottom line is....it was a choice.

I have thought a lot about my friends who this summer pursued the adoption of a teenage boy in an international adoption.  In this country, the child gets to say if he or she wants to be adopted.  This family had literally seen miracle after miracle to get them to the country before this child was unadoptable by laws in both the US and his home country.  They traveled all the way around the world, fully in love with their son!  It didn't matter that he wasn't legally theirs yet, he was their son!  But after two meetings, and even initially signing the statement that he wanted to be adopted, he chose to stay in an orphanage.  The more devastating part of this story is that this young man has a birth defect that in his home country will make him a total outcast and most likely leave him with no way to make a living for himself.  Once he is forced to leave the orphanage in two years, his life is grim.  This couple and the life - the home and family - they offered him was his only way out!  And he chose to remain behind.  The fact, he didn't have a clue what he was choosing!  He was told.  But ultimately no one in their right mind would choose the life he will live over the life he was offered!

When they returned home, my friend wrote a blog post through her broken mommy heart that was amazing.  But the part that touched me most was when she paralleled what had occurred with the choice we all have in Christ.  This young man was offered a free gift...a home with parents and siblings who loved and cherished him before they ever met him, a life of opportunity and success, but instead he chose to remain an orphan and live in bondage to a system that will ultimately turn its back on him.  So it is with Christ and his sacrifice on the cross to give us eternal life.  Anyone who walks away from that gift is walking into bondage and eternal separation from God - hell.

But God takes it a step farther - we don't have to wait for a physical death to reap the rewards of life in Christ.  He has a life of abundance for us right here on earth!  In the last week, God tried desperately to communicate that to Paizley.  She had a choice: obedience or disobedience.  God even singled her out in church Wednesday and our Pastor spoke directly to her about her circumstances and what God wanted to do in her life without knowing anything about what was going on (that's called the Holy Spirit!!!).  We are attending a new church - so our Pastor knows very little about any of us or our background.  When I would pray about the situations we were in with our daughter, God kept instructing me to make it about eternal kingdom things - not our family or our home.  I did that.  The bottom line is God cannot bless disobedience.  Read Deuteronomy 28.  It doesn't get any plainer than that.  And there are many more scriptures about the blessing of obedience and the pitfall of disobedience...and I'm not talking about obedience and disobedience of parents...I'm talking about doing what God says or walking away!

The enemy comes to still, kill and destroy.  Jesus came to give us life, not just any life, a life of abundance!  My heart is broken that my daughter did not heed the warnings given to her and will now have to learn the life lessons the hard way.  That is not what any parent wants for their children!  My heart is broken for what my granddaughter may have to endure.  But this I know.  My God is still on His throne!  As much as I love my two girls, He loves Paizley and Peighton more than my heart can even fathom!  My God will never leave me and never forsake me - or Paizley.

So I have a choice too. I can become angry and bitter, or I can release it to God and trust Him with every aspect of what is happening.  Yesterday was my first Sunday to be part of the worship team at our new church.  The old me, the me of probably even two years ago, would have never stood on a stage declaring my love for, admiration of, belief in or trust of a God who had just taken us through the year and a half we have walked!  But that is the beauty of a life hidden in Christ!  He has walked me each step...put amazing spiritual giants in my life to teach me about walking a life hidden under His wings so when times like this come, my faith and trust in God isn't shaken...it increases!  He didn't choose to walk out my door, Paizley did.  Did He allow it?  Yes!  Was it His desire?  No - and because of that, I choose trust!

This story is not over!  Even as I stood and worshiped  and truly offered a sacrifice of praise to my Heavenly Father, He wrapped me in His love.  There is a phrase in one of the songs we sing that says I called and He replied.  You send your kingdom and stand by my side....at that moment I could literally feel the presence of God - if I could have seen the spiritual realm, I am most certain there were more angels than I can fathom standing right there with me - by my side!  Later in worship, we sang another song that has a part where all we say is woah-woah-woah...real spiritual, right?  But the first time I heard this song, I got goose bumps because that part sounds like a war cry!  And if I know anything after the last 10 years, it is that we we are in a serious battle for the Kingdom right now!  During this part of the song yesterday, I belted those out in a way I don't think I have ever sung before, I and I knew that at my war cry for my daughter, God released a legion of angels that flew to her side and surrounded her!  I know there was a battle right then that was being waged in the spiritual realm for the life of my daughter!  Did she come back, no.  But I will not stop waging war for her until she does!  Not just to my family, but to her God! Because ultimately, that is the real thing that matters!

Paizley asked me one time, have you given up hope on me?  My answer, "No.  I will never give up hope on you as long as I have breath.  It's what a mother does."

Paizley, wherever you are, your mommy loves you and she has not given up hope on you!

Gifted

Yes, I am gifted.  No, I am not conceited!  You are gifted too!  We all are!  God created us with a specific purpose...even before our very first day occurred He had all our days planned!  That's what it says in Psalm 139.  That means when He knit me in my mother's womb, He put me together exactly how He needed to in order for me to fulfill the role I play in this time for the Kingdom.  Now that gets my excited!  And if it doesn't light your fire, well as my Granddaddy would say, your woods wet!

I have been at a training the past two days for a class I will have to use to train prospective adoptive parents in our adoption program for children waiting in the Texas foster system who are legally available for adoption.  There are some really great people at the training...and then there are some really not so great ones also. But as I have listened to the conversations, I become keenly aware that I was made for this work!  My passion and personal experiences give me a perspective that no one else in the training has.  Now I know way better than to get a big head about this!  I know that I have nothing to boast about but Christ in me!  But I can boast about that! So I am!  I am so excited about the months to come at Addy's Hope!  I can't wait to see what God does!  We have so many needs to get us where it feels like we can even start to be effective in these programs, but God promises to abundantly supply all I need to do His work, so I am pressing ahead in faith with great expectation of how abundantly and amazingly He is going to meet each and every one of those needs so we can carry on His work of connecting His children with His loving families so that He will not leave them as orphans!  Everybody hang on!  I think this rides gonna be good!

I'll say it again...

I have said it here before, and I will say it again, GOD equips you for what He calls!  He will also keep you humble! I have had to travel for some training this work for the CPS contract for Addy's Hope.  We are now contracted to place waiting children in the Texas foster system in adoptive homes!  It has been MONTHS in the making!  The training I am at is for the course I have to use to train parents who want to adopt from the state.  As I headed out for the trip, I had to laugh at myself as I thought back to the beginning...when God called us to open an adoption agency.

I was a stay at home mom.  I had been a teacher before that.  The corporate/professional world scared me to death!  But I had to make a trip to Austin in order to even obtain the application to become a licensed agency with the state.  I set out hesitantly to get ready for the trip.  I needed to make my flight reservations.  I worked up the confidence to make the reservation.  I did it and was so proud.  I crawled into bed next to John and said, "I did it!  I will arrive in Houston in just enough time to get to the meeting."  As soon as it came out of my mouth, I wanted to scream!  I had made my flight to the WRONG CITY!!!  It was my first of many lessons on this journey in humility and  a reminder that I am totally and completely reliant on God for this job He has given me!

So today, when I arrived, on time, for my training...in the correct city, I was overjoyed!  Seriously, though, it was a reminder of how far I have come.  The professional world still intimidates me!  But I have learned to look to the One Who gave me this assignment to gain whatever I need to do whatever He asked!

I was reminded of this also as I cried my way out the door this morning leaving my kids behind.  I will be home in 4 days..I used to leave for Liberia for 2-3 weeks at a time multiple times a year!  This morning I wondered how in the world I did that!  God gently reminded me that He gives grace and strength for whatever season we are in!  And that is what he did back then.  And even today as I struggled with leaving, He gave me two examples in the days before I left of moms who have entered a working role after being dedicated stay at home moms and showed me how that pleased Him because it was what He called them to for now....like me.

So tonight I thank God that I know my life's calling.  I thank Him for allowing me to work in my passion and I thank Him for equipping me for each step!

I'll say it again...

My First Born

Callie turned 12 in January. She is an amazing young woman with so many gifts!  I can't wait to see what God does with her life! She is one of those that you get on your knees a lot to parent because she has giftings that you know you can't really parent without the immense assistance of the Holy Spirit!  She is as beautiful inside as she is out!  We took these pictures when we were on vacation in Fredericksburg several weeks ago!  Where did my baby girl go?

Some say we look alike!

I love this girl and she loves me back!

Callie and my Dad!  I will cherish this picture always!

Did I mention she is a bit goofy too?! 

Introducing Peighton Hope

I would like you to meet my granddaughter.  You have heard much about her, but here she is!  She is perfect.  She will be going home with us.  We are praying and trusting that all will be as needs to be for her to stay.  Paizley did an amazing job during labor and delivery.  It was fast, but she was a real trooper!  We laughed about the fact that this is one time she can be thankful she is adopted....she doesn't have my baby birthing genes! It was a great day, and I felt the prayers of many.  We were in a good place to have a wonderful day to remember when Peighton Hope entered the world!

My Gethsemane

I want to start with a disclaimer to this post....I am well aware that what I am suffering right now does not even compare to the cross.  John and I have a saying when things get tough and one of us wants to throw in the towel in a particular situation.  We always encourage each other by saying, "We have not suffered to the point of sweating blood yet, so we can press on and do this."  I have not suffered to the point of sweating blood on this journey I am sharing with you now, but I think God put the struggle of Jesus in scripture for us so we can know that even Jesus did not go to the cross without at least a slight pause and a request to opt out of the task.  It gives us freedom to without guilt or shame do the same.  We just must be careful that when we walk out of our Gethsemane we are at the same place Jesus was - totally and completely yielded to the will of God whatever that means!

Paizley is set to deliver in a couple of days.  The reality that the last few months will end with a innocent life being born into this world has pressed in heavy on me the past few days.  I knew I had to deal with all that was going on in my heart.  I knew I had to get with God and allow Him to sift my heart like wheat.  I had to get in a place where I was ok with God and could walk wholly and fully into the days ahead whatever they might bring.

I haven't shared details to protect the privacy of our family.  But I know you know from what I have shared, this has been a rough 8 months!  I honestly have never suffered more intense heartache and personal injury in my life.  I have had heartache, but not as often and as concentrated as has occurred in the past few months.  God has miraculously brought me to a place of healing each time...a place of forgiveness and restoration where I could put the hurt behind me and move forward in the relationship with my daughter.  However, the past 4 weeks were the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.  Nothing happened that was big, and in comparison to some other events they seem trivial.  But for whatever reason, they were the hump I couldn't get over.  The hurt that welled up in me when I would think about Paizley giving birth and bringing the baby here to raise and all that meant for me emotionally and day to day was almost paralyzing.  Some days it was paralyzing.  Once I wrestled with the emotions, I was too drained to do much but make it to the end of the day so I could crawl in bed and pray sleep would come.

As the time has drawn closer for delivery, I knew I had to bring the hurt to the surface and deal with it.  I had to get on my face with God and find a way to face the coming days and months.  When I would think about the baby being born, I would feel like one of the Israelites at the Red Sea.  There were two options: bring the baby home or place with another family for adoption.  I shared from the beginning that it has been our desire and our goal for Paizley to parent this child.  But as the time drew closer and closer we were not sure that was going to be possible.  I felt like her bringing the baby home and parenting in our house was the Red Sea in front of me that would wash me away if I stepped in, and placing her with another family was the Egyptians in hot pursuit behind me.  And I heard myself grumbling much as the Israelites did.  "God, PLEASE take me back!  Take me back to days when life was easier, when I didn't have to think about being a grandmother or helping a wounded teen learn to parent. Take me back to a familiar place without the pain."  I am not saying I regretted Paizley or the life that she carries, don't hear that...I regretted the circumstances of our life.  I don't even know if regret is the right word.  I mourned the circumstance of our life. I mourned what I left behind in my Egypt and cried out in fear for the sea that lay in front of me.

In the last two weeks, I have found myself locked in my bathroom and falling to the floor completely overwhelmed with the tasks that lay ahead.  It was in these moments that I would remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and would pray Jesus' prayer many times on my bathroom floor.  I would cry out to God and ask Him if there was any other way to please remove me from this situation.  Take away all of it.  Rewind somehow or miraculously do something..I didn't even really know what I was asking.  For the first few times, I had to pray that several times before I could get to the next part...BUT no matter what, not my will, but GOD's be done!  I didn't really mean it the first couple of times I prayed it.  I guess you could say I prayed it in faith.  But I followed those prayers with surrendering my heart to God and asking Him to heal the wounds and bring me to a place where I could walk this out.  God is so faithful!  I even had an amazing friend who text me and said she was going to start her first ever fast - a fast from Dr. Pepper - to pray for us! I put it on Facebook which I don't normally do that we were not in a good place for Paizley to give birth and asked for everyone to pray.  I now it is cliche to say you "feel prayers" but in the places I have walked the past several years, I can say I have truly felt prayers...and this time was no different!  I began to feel the hurt lift.  I began to think of the baby coming...something I hadn't been able to do up to that point.  There was a mental and emotional block that wouldn't let my heart and mind go there.  It was like nothing I have ever experienced.  I began to experience the healing that only comes from the Holy Spirit cleaning house in your heart!

We sang a song yesterday in church about the power of God parting oceans.  I knew God was parting my Red Sea.  I wasn't totally sure what the "dry land" was going to look like that I would cross over, but I knew God was parting the waters of my heart.  I knew the prayers I had cried out on my knees for God's will to be done were unfolding as He was making  way for just that.

It all culminated in a very needed, healing and God ordained time between me and my daughter yesterday.  I kind of feel like the Israelites again in that there will be obstacles, famine, drought, wars, etc even after we walk across the Red Sea.  But I will have this time to look back and remember that God brought us through.  And He has taught me to rely on Him in a way I never had before and taught me even more about Himself and His character through this journey.  As I prayed with Paizley yesterday I was able to honestly and earnestly thank God for the lessons this time has brought.  When the drought or famine does come, and it will because we still have a LONG way to go, I will not run in fear but look to the heavens and wait for the manna and quail to fall that will sustain me for THAT day!  It's the biggest lesson I have learned from my Gethsemane - when God's will is not for the cup to pass, but for me to walk out the dying of myself, I will remember the cost of the cross and say YES - and God will then provide whatever I need daily to continue to walk out the road to my cross!  No more and no less than what I need for THAT day!  And on the other side, I will look a little more like Christ than I did when I started the trip.  And that is why I say YES!

Beauty From Ashes

Eight years ago today an event occurred that would radically change my life and the lives of many.  We wouldn't even learn of the event for two more days.  But when we did,  my world as I knew it was over.

Eight years ago today, Addy Joy Petree lost her battle with cholera and took her last breath on a road in Sierra Leone while riding to the hospital in an ambulance that was just too late.  We were three months into the adoption process.  She was three years old.  We only  have this one picture of her.

But this one picture, it was enough.  Enough to make me fall in love and know that she was mine.  I know that is hard to believe and just sounds dramatic, but for those who have adopted and have received a picture, you know what I mean!  You truly do fall in love with that little person on the other side of the picture!

The call came while we were in Midland, we lived in Garden City at the time, watching the Watoto Children's choir oddly enough!  We had just spent the entire evening dreaming about our twin girls half way around the world after watching a group of children from the same continent sing and dance in traditional African custom.  Callie and Noah were so excited as they watched these children and wondered if the girls would know how to dance like that.

When we got home there was a message from our adoption agency saying we needed to call as soon as possible.  We immediately knew it probably wasn't good as we had never received a call from them without us initiating the conversation!  John called her back as I was busy getting kids ready for bed.  We really didn't expect her to answer, but she did.  I could tell by John's side of the conversation it wasn't good, but I couldn't tell exactly what was happening.  Then he went on the back porch and literally locked me inside.  He put his foot on the door so that I couldn't come out and hear what was happening.  I knew then it just wasn't good, it had to be catastrophic!  When he was done with the phone call, he came back in.  Right there in our kitchen he delivered the news...Addy was dead.  It took a little while for the words to register.  The details were sketchy, but the one thing we knew for sure was that cholera was the reason.  I am ashamed to say before that moment I knew nothing about cholera even though it is among the top killers in third world countries.  I went to the computer and looked it up.  What I read lit a fire in me that hasn't been put out yet, and I pray never is!  All she needed was an antibiotic and an IV.  Basically, she died from dehydration due to the excessive vomiting and diarrhea caused by cholera.  My American brain could not wrap itself around the idea that my precious baby was gone because of a preventable illness!  I became angry.  I didn't even know who or what I was angry at, but I was angry.  That anger was fueled by the tears that flowed from Callie as I told her that night that we had lost Addy.  Even at 4 years old, Callie had a heart for the less fortunate of the world that set her apart.  That heart broke that day for her sister.  It has only been in the past three or four years that Callie doesn't get really upset with me when I don't add Eden and Addy to our "count" of children when people ask how many we have.  Watching her grieve Addy was the only thing harder than handling my own grief and questions left by her death.

Over the next few weeks, God would use Addy's life and untimely death to call John and I to a life committed to the orphans of this world.  That path has taken several twists over the last 8 years.  But it started with that call and continued two weeks later when we were standing in a laundry room in San Antonio folding laundry before packing up to head home from our family vacation.  John looked at me and said, "I think God is asking us to open an adoption agency."  My answer: "In about 18 years, that would be a fabulous idea!  When the kids are grown and I can go to work, I would love to do that."  Remember, I had a 4 and 3 year old at home and was still planning to bring Eden home which would make 2 three year olds and a four year old!  Not the ideal setting for starting up an adoption agency.  Plus, I was still at a stage in life where just cleaning house overwhelmed me! How would I EVER start any kind of business/ministry from scratch and keep it up?  But I also knew this had never been even a hint of a dream to John.  It was my dream!  But God knew that it would take speaking to John and putting it on his heart to convince me to give it a try.  I agreed to pray about it.  When we got home, I talked with our home study provider who was in the process of becoming a licensed agency.  The doors just began to open.  Each step was revealed as it needed to be done.  And the rest is history!  Addy's Hope has been in existence for 7 years.  God has placed 38 children from Liberia in Christian families here in the US.  We built two medical clinics, a school and an amazing children's home through those connected to Addy's Hope.  And now we are serving the children in our own backyard.  No, they may not die from cholera, but they are dying in our foster system.  Dying a spiritual death.  It's funny when I look back at what started us on this journey!  It makes me realize how immature I was at the time...but proof once again that God calls you
RIGHT
WHERE
YOU
ARE to accomplish the work He has for you!  I thought we were just saving lives, physical lives.  But what God would quickly show me is that we were saving their souls!  He was asking us to work on the behalf of children who left where they were might never know the saving grace of Jesus or live lives that had equipped them for all He had for them in His kingdom.

Often you hear that time heals all wounds.  Time has made it a little easier.  But it will still hit me at weird times.  I can see an African baby girl and be overcome with grief.  Often when I see twins, my heart breaks and the tears will come.  I was thinking about this not too many weeks ago when I was in the mall and something triggered the sadness again.  It seems to be a grief that doesn't really ever heal.  I mean I miss my Grammy so much it hurts sometimes, but even in those moments it is not a crippling grief.  There is a peace that she lived a long life and while we miss her, we appreciate the time we had with her.  Losing Addy has never had that peace.  I am assuming it is probably like that with all parents who lose children too soon in this earthly life.

I was sharing with another mom who lost a baby they were adopting through us in Liberia.  She has gone on to do amazing things in Ethiopia through her organization Because Every Mother Matters.  She is preventing orphans by supporting moms!  Truly amazing things!  Spurred on by the death of a little girl half a world away whom they loved through a picture.

But as I shared with my friend, I think our girls would be proud!  I think they would feel honored by the fires started by the sparks of their short lives.  So today even though tears will fall, all in all, I am blessed to have been a part of her short life.  And I am thankful that God turned the ashes from her death into the beauty of the ripples left from her.