Fasting...

I was recently introduced to The Village Church  through my small group leader. I'm not super familiar with their church but I heard their Welcome Pastor preach on Gluttony. My thoughts (I guess I don't need to say this, because it is MY blog) are that the church doesn't focus enough attention on this issue. If you are at all interested in listening to this sermon follow this link. Defining Gluttony. It's actually a two part series. I highly recommend it!

Anyway, gluttony isn't really what's on my mind today. Fasting is. The verse that the speaker, Paul Matthies mentioned in his sermon was Matthew 6:17 "But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face" Notice the word here. When....not if, but when. When we fast! Ya'll (this is what we say in the south) can I just be honest. I have not been doing this. In fact the few times I have fasted, I've always treated it as a way to getting something, not at all as a time to show my reliance on Christ.

Since we are in this waiting time with our second adoption, I've started to feel this panicky feeling of what else can I do while I'm waiting. Anyone who's been through adoption, knows this feeling. All the paperwork is turned in, the agency is selected, you've told your family and friends and now you just sit and wait for that call or email. I remember this exact feeling with our first adoption. So what do I do during this time? Well, honestly I've filled my time with running, painting, spending time with friends, serving my neighbors, playing with Marlee, catching up on my favorite shows. All of this is fine and a great way to help the time go by. However I've realized that God wants me to be an active part of this waiting time specifically through fasting.

 Throughout the day I pray asking God to bless our situation and arrange the details of our next adoption. But once I've prayed then I check it off my list telling myself, "well I've done my part, the rest is up to God". This couldn't be further from the truth. My part is not over. I need to be down on my knees praying and fasting, proving to God (and myself) that I do indeed trust God and need Him.

I had a friend ask recently how she could support her friend who is also going through an adoption. Honestly, I didn't even mention fasting. With God's gentle reminder through this sermon,  fasting is the number one thing I would recommend. Set aside time where you can go without food, friends, tv, your phone, all the busyness and focus on God. Rely on God to fulfill you during this waiting time. Allow Him to transform you by showing you how much we do actually need to rely on Him. Adoption is a long, long journey and it becomes so much easier when we can show our reliance on Jesus. In fact, it allows you to be able to breath when the phone rings or you get a new email. It takes great trust in someone to allow them to work out the big and small details of adding someone to your family. Praise God this isn't solely up to us. We would be totally messed up, or at least I know I would.

Restless

I've often heard other adoptive mama's say that adoption is one of the hardest things they have ever been through. I've never given birth to a biological child, so I don't know the pains that come with that. However I am very familiar with the pain that comes with adoption. I've heard people use the phrase that some people grow babies in their bellies and with adoption you grow them in your heart. A biological childbirth brings forth physical pain, and adoptive childbirth brings forth emotional pain. I'm not at all saying that having biological children is not emotional, because I've been around some of you while you've been preggo, and let me tell you.. Praise Jesus that baby has been born. :) I also can't imagine the emotional tole that it must take on someones body to have another human being inside of you. I have a hard enough time taking care of my own body.

Adoption is painful people! It hurts! The unknown makes it nearly impossible to bear, but the end result is totally worth it. I'm sure some of you reading this, who are in the process are totally rolling your eyes at this point.. i know, I've been there. I'm telling you though, since I've been through one adoption, I'm able to believe that there is an end in sight. However, it's still tough.

Some of you may know that Eric and I are choosing to adopt for the second time. This time we are a lot more open to age and the possibly of a sibling group. We are also choosing to adopt through the US Foster Care System. This is a whole other beast of it's own. You literally search the web and look at hundreds of pictures of kids and base your decisions mostly based off of their looks and their one paragraph write up. It's heartbreaking. Each child that I click on, I try to imagine myself being their mama and loving them the way that I love my sweet Mar. After you inquire about a child this is where it gets really tough. You literally sit and wait for the social worker to contact you. Sometimes they call, sometimes they don't. Being a social worker, I feel that I need to explain from their point of view. They are literally getting hundreds of home-studies, and their job is to choose the perfect family from that large stack. Hello, pressure!

Right now we are in the waiting stage. We have sent off probably 30 inquiries and heard back from about 5 social workers. We have no clue what time frame we are looking at.  All I can literally do is...wait.

If you are reading this I covet your prayers. We are so excited about the thought of adding onto our family through adoption. Please pray that I can sit back and chill and realize that God's got my back. He's my eyes, ears, hands, in completing this adoption. He has to be! There are too many things that could go wrong and too many opportunities for us to get looked over. So HE literally has to be in control.

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent" Exodus 14:14

"no shelly...get out of bed..."

This has happened a few times since we've started the adoption process, when I am completely exhausted and I fall asleep and start having happy dreams that are suddenly interrupted by this feeling that I need to get up and read my bible. It's so weird. Well, this happened to me this morning around 7:00am. I woke up  and just laid there for about 15 minutes trying to get back to sleep. I felt like God was saying, "no shelly... get out of bed and pick up my word. I have something to show you". So silly me, I thought I could hide from God trying to wake me up so I just shrugged it off as my lack of sleep, and didn't listen and instead laid in bed for another miserable 15 minutes staring at the ceiling. After laying there for a half hour total with no success of getting back to sleep, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my Bible. Right now I am studying John and that's what I was planning on reading. However, I opened my Bible and felt I needed to read Isaiah 60. I started reading and was amazed at how God's words just started jumping out of the page at me. I was amazed. Once again, God knew that I needed to hear that particular piece of His word more then I needed sleep. Silly me for not listening the first time. This is what I read:

Isaiah 60:1-5   "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you... the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light... “Lift up your eyes and look about you... your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip."

God knew that before I went to sleep last night I was fighting my own fears about adoption and the thought of how in the world a little white girl from NC was going to find her beautiful baby in this HUGE world. My mind was racing, trying to think of what I needed to do to make myself shine brighter then all the other thousands of adoptive parents out there. This verse touched me, telling me that my light is not cutting it. The light I need can only come from the Lord. God has shined His light on me (and Eric) allowing some brave mom to make her way through the thousands of options for her baby and choose the place where her child is meant to be.

Thank you Jesus for knowing me better then I know myself and for always being my light in the darkness! Please protect the birth mother of our future child as she slowly makes her way toward us. Protect her from Satan's deception and schemes and please, please keep that baby safe.

**So funny story. Another time God woke me up was when we lived in OH. I was in the process of finding a job and felt really down from not having any success so I was trying to hide the sadness with sleeping the day away. Well anyway around 12pm I woke up and tried for a long time to go back to sleep and I just couldn't. So I decided to get up and start my day.  I sat down to do my devotions and opened my Bible (no joke) to Proverbs 6:9-11 which read, "How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."  OUCH.. is all I can say to that!! :)

6 months +3 weeks update

So we've hit our 6 month +3 weeks (who's counting.. hehe) waiting mark so I decided to email our agency and get an update. :) Here is what they said:

"Hi Shelly, We are currently working with 4 birth mothers. Two have been matched and two are not quite ready to be matched. I would say that there has been several birth mothers interested in your family. We have even had a few that narrowed it down to you and one other family but ultimately, they chose the other family. Most recently that has been because they wanted a family very close by. We do have more families now who are open to any race. We typically only show 3 to 4 portfolios to any birth mother at one time. If we have even more families who meet her criteria, then we choose only the families based on the length of time they have been waiting. That way, the families who have been waiting longer are given priority. I hope that makes sense. I know the wait is always hard. I hope to have some good news for you soon!"

I was encouraged by this. At least there's interest. :) Happy Friday everyone!

Our Adoption Journey

Wow! Have I really not blogged since September of 2008! Sorry. No wonder people lost hope. Well, I've decided to take a different turn for my blog and I'm wanting to focus more on adoption. I thought about changing the title, but honestly learning to be content is a *H*U*G*E* part of adoption.

My blogs purpose:
1. Timeline for adoption process
2. A way to get information for prospecitve adoptive parents, or people who are just curious how adoption works.
3. A place for you to see a raw, unedited view of how adoption can be an eye opening and heart breaking experience.
4. Update my family and friends who are wondering where we're at and how we're doing.