Provision Follows Obedience

Do you know what I love? When you're in church and just know that God prepared the message just for you. I know that sounds a little self centered when you go to a church of 3,000+ people but I know that the Lord was speaking directly to me.

I won't go through every single detail of the sermon (you'll just have to come to Valley Creek Church if you want to hear it :)) but it was gooood. One of the things Pastor John said that spoke directly to me was "Provision follow obedience, miracles follow faith". EXACTLY what is happening in my life right now. The second Chris and I said "okay, God. We'll do this adoption thing you are calling us to do. We have not one single clue what we're doing so please, please guide us", He's done exactly that.

Friday I let my focus get off the miracle that He is doing in this and my mind started to fill with fear. What if the birth mom changes her mind? What if no one chooses us? What if it takes YEARS? How do we afford this PLUS all the things we'll need for a new baby? Is it tacky to do a fundraiser or ask people if they are interested in donating? Will the baby feel connected to us? And on and on and on. I seriously could make myself sick with worries. I know very few people who have adopted domestically and I'm unsure of exactly how this is all suppose to play out.

Today, our pastor talked about not needing to know what things are going to look like in the end. God is leading us one step at a time. It may not make sense at the time or we may not be able to see what the end looks like, just put one foot in front of the other with HIS directions. I'm praying that no matter how long or short this process may be, that we would be sensitive to His leading.

Saturday afternoon, Chris went out to get the mail. A letter came from a couple who go to our old church in St. Louis and who are good friends with my parents. They too went through a terrible battle with infertility and went on to have a sweet baby girl through the miracle of IVF. They know exactly what we are going through and have felt God's call to adopt. Inside the letter was a check to help us with the costs of the adoption process. Chris and I read the letter together and just cried. We stood in the middle of our kitchen with tears streaming down our face and thanked God for his goodness and provision in this situation. Provision follows obedience, miracles follow faith.

Continue to pray for us as we follow His steps. Pray for our future baby. If he/she is in utero right now, please pray for protection. Pray for his/her birth mom to know when they find us that we are the right fit for her child. Pray that God would continue to provide. So excited to see the "only God" story this is going to be!

Something Beautiful

Every morning on the way to school, I talk to my mom on the phone. We usually just chat about what we are doing that day or what happened the day before and my morning commute is just not the same without talking to her. Monday through Wednesday this week, she took a little "mini vacation" to the Lake of the Ozarks with my dad for her birthday. Although it was weird not talking to her, I took advantage of spending a few minutes with God each of those days while I drove. On Wednesday, I turned on the Christian radio station and a song that I heard a million times came on that touched me in a completely different way now that my mindset on adoption has changed. Here are the lyrics:

Hey now, this is my desire

Consume me like a fire

Cause I just want

Something beautiful

To touch me,

I know that I'm in reach

Cause I am down on my knees

Waiting for

Something Beautiful

As I drove to work, tears filled my eyes. The Lord really used this song to work in me. During our entire infertility journey, I prayed consistently to get pregnant. I told God what I thought He needed to do for me. I wasn't asking Him to consume me-I was telling Him what to do. You would think it would take me less than three years to figure it out but I guess I have the tendency to be a little stubborn. :)

It's amazing what He can do to your heart when you become vulnerable and let Him.

I guess within the last few months I stopped praying to get pregnant. I stopped telling God what I wanted Him to do. I stopped praying and praying and praying and started listening. I allowed myself to open my heart to Him and not be bitter and angry. I knelt before Him and told Him I was ready for His will. No longer would I be like Jonah and run from His calling. When I started listening to His call instead of telling Him what His call needed to be, it was way more beautiful than what I was asking Him to do. He's using this area of heartbreak and turning it into something beautiful. He's taking an unfortunate situation from a birth mom and turning it into the most beautiful gift we could imagine. He's taking average people and using them to bless us in a way that is more beautiful than I can describe. I just want something beautiful.

Please continue to be in prayer for us as we prepare for our workshop next Friday. We are very excited but we don't want our emotions to get in the way of important information that we will be receiving. Pray we keep our joy throughout this process and hear from the Lord before each step we take.

Here's the song if you're interested:

Confirmation is a Beautiful Thing

I know I already told you here that we have decided to pursue adoption. The adoption journey is a long one and I just want to keep up to date on what is happening with that decision.

Let me just say confirmation is a beautiful thing.

The past couple of weeks have been trying. My brain is in a constant battle with my heart on how this whole adoption process will play out. I am SUCH a planner and not knowing the who's or what's is so difficult for me. My brain keeps telling me to just continue trying to conceive. It's natural, FREE (Lord knows I would love for this process to be free right about now!), and is how most couples go about starting their families. It just makes sense. My heart is telling me to seek God. To lean not on my own understanding. To line my will up with His. And you know what? When things are going good, that's exactly what I do. But when everyone around me is holding their pregnant bellies or their newborn babies, my brain wins. I start to try again on my own. I begin to plan. And it NEVER works out.

Friday night I went to be with a sweet friend of mine who just had a sweet baby girl. I got to be there with her as she told her birth story and nursed and loved on that precious child. I was able to love on her too. It was awesome. Then I got in my car and the bitterness started sink in. I was so envious of her. I wanted to hold my baby and tell my story. It's a terrible, terrible feeling. Why could I not just be happy for my friend? How could I be so selfish and greedy?

Saturday came. Chris has a friend who lives just outside San Francisco who called to talk baseball smack (Rangers/San Fran in the World Series if you're not a baseball fan). They tried for about 1 1/2 years to get pregnant and had their baby boy in August. Again, filled with envy. Why did she only struggle a year and a half and I have over 3 years of heartbreak under my belt? How come everyone else's time comes before mine? I was SO ugly to be around.

I drove to church Saturday night to work with 2nd grade girls and just cried. I prayed the whole drive that God would take away my sinful attitude and the ugly bitterness in my heart. I prayed that He would make Himself known in this situation and that it would be a praise story that glorified His name. I prayed that He would show me in a very real way that we were in His will. I definitely could not see Him working but I knew that He was. I knew His plan was better than my own and I again was choosing to trust.

Saturday night Chris and I came home and Chris checked the mail. In the mailbox was a card from our old small group leader that we haven't seen in about 6 months with words of encouragement on our adoption and a check to help us get started. Talk about God showing up in a real way. I cried all Sunday morning thinking about how God is using others to bless us to be a blessing to a baby. I can't even wrap my head around the God story this is going to be.

Today at church we talked about how the church needs the city and how the city needs the church. They gave everyone a card to write a name on and to pray three scriptures over so that God would be preparing their heart for whatever it is He had for them. When we got in the car, Chris' eyes filled with tears as he told me he doesn't know the person's name he is praying for because it's the birth mom of our future child. Again, God doing exactly as I prayed, showing up in a real way.

I'm just so encouraged with what God is doing right now. Today we shared our testimony with our small group and met with a couple who adopted 22 years ago where, again, God showed up in a big way. After this weekend, I can just FEEL that He has something so beautiful in store for us. His way, not our own.

And I'm going to add this just in case...if anyone knows someone considering giving their baby up for adoption or is pregnant and considering an abortion, would you PLEASE let me know? Right now we are beginning to go through an agency but would gladly go through a private adoption if one became available. If you hear anything, please consider us.

Let's Go Rangers (clap, clap, clap clap clap)

Last night, Chris and I were able to go to the Ranger's game and watched them beat out the Yankees for the ALCS championship. It was completely INSANE. I'm so excited for the Rangers to go to their first ever World Series. Texas is proud of their boys!

Here's some pictures from last night

It rained on us. Twice. Just thought I'd let you know why my makeup is washed away and I look like a drowned rat :)

Confetti EVERYWHERE

It doesn't get much better than that!

I never did get a good firework picture...I'm too slow!

Every time Alex Rodriguez came up to bat, the crowd chanted "He took steroids" (clap, clap, clap clap clap)

AWESOME NIGHT. Now I leave you with this-DO THE CLAW!

Time for a Break

Just wanted to let everyone know so you didn't think I fell of the face of the earth (although you probably frequently think that due to the fact that my blog is always neglected), I'm taking a little "break". My blog will not suffer tremendously because my postings are so hit or miss but if you're my friend on Facebook, I'm taking a break from there too. Just a lot going on in my little head and being in everyone's business doesn't exactly help it. Thought I would let you know. Be praying for me friends :)

Stalling

Right now I am SUPPOSE to be working on my lesson plans but I'm doing everything I can to get out of it. I've put dinner in the crock pot, watched Julie and Julia, cleaned up, played on Facebook...pretty much everything you can think of BUT lesson plans. It's pretty weird because I'm a major dork and actually enjoy lesson planning but I'm just not in the mood-so I'll blog :)

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day at church. Our pastor made it public in July that he would be moving overseas with his wife and youngest daughter to minister to the people of China. It's always been evident that he had a heart for the people of China but I definitely was not expecting him to MOVE there. The church handled the news very well and waited patiently as the elders prayed and seeked God about the next step for Valley Creek. This weekend, they made the announcement that the associate pastor that we absolutely love will be the new senior pastor. We are thrilled. It makes this transition much smoother since it is a family who already knows and loves the church. We are excited to see the future of VCC.

We started a new small group a few weeks ago. Our old small group stopped meeting so we started shopping around and found a group we really like. The only downside-we're the only ones without kids. Chris shared a small part of our story during prayer on Sunday so people know what is going on but it often feels uncomfortable. We are taking turns sharing our testimonies the next several weeks so we'll be able to let everyone know exactly what our infertility journey has been like and how they can be praying for our future adoption situation. The kids stay at the church while we meet so we don't even see the kiddos but there's definitely a missing piece from me that I can't share with the other women. Finding a small group at our church without kids is nearly impossible. The church is full of young/middle aged couples with kids. I'm trusting that God has put us here for a reason and am excited to have a group praying for our adoption process.

On a COMPLETELY different note, yesterday was a very interesting afternoon. One of my students is Armenian and his church was having ArmenianFest. The little boy was dancing and his mom asked if I would come watch him. Chris and I headed that way after lunch and got there WAY before we expected so we drove down to an area with a bunch of little shops in Carrollton that we've been to a thousand times (near Babe's for you native Texans). When we got there they were having Sante Fe Days. There were a bunch of Native Americans dancing and selling crafts/jewelry. We shopped around a little bit and then headed to ArmenianFest. My little guy danced a traditional Armenian folk dance and it was SO interesting. I'm really hoping his family will come in to my class and share some of their culture with the kids. They would love it! I really loved celebrating all the different cultures. Here's a little picture from Sante Fe Days (taken with my iPhone so the quality is not great).

Happy Monday!

Thankful

First off, I really didn't realize how many people read this until I started getting really vulnerable. I'm excited to know that people are following along our journey, even though this blog is mostly kept for me. I don't even think my family reads it. I originally started it because I wanted to be able to look back at what the Lord had done with our infertility but I never thought I would still be writing about that very thing 3 years later. Now to think we're beginning the adoption process makes it SO crazy. I guess what they say is true, NEVER SAY NEVER. I never thought we'd be looking into adoption and now I can't stop thinking about the wonderful gift adoption is. Anyway...all that's just a side note :)

I was reading through a blog the other day and found something written about infertility. I read it and I hardly felt like I related anymore. I have spent YEARS reading infertility blogs and spilling tears over what others had written because I felt the same way. I've read blogs who had fertility issues and then watched them have children, again with tears falling only this time from envy. But something feels different now. I just feel peace. I feel like I'm in a waiting period but my waiting period actually has an end in sight. The end is just a tiny speck right now because it's so far away but it's definitely there. This thing I read on infertility didn't hurt like it use to. I could COMPLETELY relate but I didn't share that emotion with the writer anymore. I no longer look at myself as INFERTILE. I look at myself as WAITING. Waiting for a selfless birth mom to give us the child that God had always intended to be ours. Waiting to meet a child that was not created BY us but was created FOR us. Waiting to have a sweet family that the Lord planned from the start. Three years ago, He knew the end. He knew how hard my heart would break and exactly how He would mold it into something new. He knew I would become incredibly vulnerable and He would use it for His purpose. He planned this from the start and I'm so thankful He never took His eyes off me. I'm thankful that in the end, we will be in His will. Although this is not anywhere near what I thought my life would look like or how I would become a parent, the Lord always did. For that, I am thankful.