Still Waiting...

Isn't that a movie title? A movie I haven't seen... I was talking to a friend recently and described our current adoption situation with our precious second girl as "limbo". She came back with the answer that limbo was only fun with a fruity drink in your hand in a conga line! I found that to be the comedic relief that I needed at that moment.

I won't go into detail on this blog about the who's, what's, where's and why's of this adoption and why we don't have a baby here in our arms like we thought we were supposed to. Things don't always happen like you are told, or like we think they are going to. God has the whole picture in front of him...in fact I can let you in on a little secret...He designed it.

We continue to trust Him. I will not lie to you, it's hard. I have worn out the caseworker in the city where our sweet girl is. She gets text messages from me more times than I am sure she desires...but she has to know that this is a life that two people are praying for and have longed to parent. We always knew we wanted several children and God blessed us with the miracle of Katerbug and He has abundantly blessed our lives in more ways than we can count by allowing us to be on the story of her life...oh the stories we've been blessed to be a part of. Tough ones, sweet ones, sad ones...any of the stories that involve her eyebrows....too funny for words.

Now to be a part of this next miracle would be truly miraculous, however, we know that whether or not it happens...we are still in His hand. Protected. Shielded. Loved. We want His plan.

We are waiting, we are praying....still.

The 1:27 Call/ Foster Care Christmas Party

Last night was perhaps one of the most incredible nights I've had in awhile. It was one of those times where you are so busy and yet so at peace at the exact same time...weird, huh?

I haven't blogged about this yet but I am now. I am blessed to be a part of a non-profit orphan ministry called The 1:27 Call. We are dedicated to the cause of the orphan: locally and internationally. Locally, we support foster care and our children's home. It is also our desire to implement orphan ministries within churches to reach more children. To learn more about our ministry you can go to http://www.the127call.org.

Last night we held a Christmas party for all of the foster care children in our area. A great deal of planning went into this ordeal. Many organizations donated their services, food and the party went off very well. What was so absolutely incredible was seeing the children light up when Santa walked into the room...it was precious! They got so excited! We also arranged for the children to have their picture professionally taken with Santa in this little area that we had specially decorated for them...some of these children had never had their picture taken with Santa before. As they took their picture with Santa we asked their foster parent how old they were and we got the appropriate age and sex gift item and handed it to Santa and it was wrapped with a bow and the child would light up like a little Christmas tree! It truly made my heart happy! For one night these children didn't have to think about anything but fun games, presents, good food and being loved on...

On the website you will see we have a few statistics that will tell you that if 7% of the 2 million christian families would take just one orphan....their would be no orphans. Staggering to think it could all be stopped...

It was a wonderful night, a night I truly will treasure...faces of children permanently in my memory. Thank you Lord for the gift of working in this ministry.

Waiting is the hardest part...

Most of our friends and family know that we were called almost three weeks ago and told that we had been chosen as the adoptive parents of a beautiful baby girl. This news was beyond joyful! We have a beautiful and miraculous child who fills our life with so much love and laughter...so to be blessed with another little girl...that is just absolutely delightful.

Many of you know that we had a failed adoption at the beginning of the year and that was pure heartache, but we know that it was not God's will, not His timing nor was it the child that was meant to be ours. I have come to realize many things through my journey through life thus far...but the one thing that means the most to me is the fact that I do not want to have anything, gain anything or be anything that isn't in His plan, His script...His road-map for my life. Our struggles, battles, hills and valleys with Katerbugs health have been torturous at times, but they have caused me to fall on my face in complete surrender to God. There is nowhere to go besides the Lord when you are facing storms that have to do with your child.

So here we are...news that is amazing and wonderful...but there are bumps...big and small. However, God knows what is right for our family and He knows what this precious miracle needs. Regardless of how much we already love her...He loves her infinitely more than we do. We have to trust in His mighty plan and wait. Waiting is the hardest part. Wait for no. Wait for yes. Whatever His plan is...trusting it is the key. God doesn't have a plan of calamity for us, He knows the desires of my heart and He knows what is best for this precious little girl we hope will be our daughter.

Whatever His plan is...we are trusting Him, praising Him and waiting.

Coffee

Sometimes there are days when you just don't understand the reasons that things are the way that they are.  Yesterday morning I woke up feeling just that way.  I woke up with a knot in my throat, the feeling like I was about to cry...all day.  I couldn't get it to go away.  It was there all day...lurking around just waiting for the opportune time to peak it's head in and make me bawl like a baby.  

It was raining, my daughters second therapy session was cancelled so she only had her first session which meant I was getting us both around for a 45 minute session to drive in the rain and get out in the rain...which leads on further to my next rant....my cars automatic clicker does not work currently so I am having to unlock my door and walk around to put Katerbug in the car...which today meant getting drenched.  While driving to said therapy session, my windshield wipers in the back decided to not work.  I called my husband and he said that with both of those problems along with our heat in the car working intermittently, we were having electrical problems with the car and we needed to take it in....hmmmmph.

So, a Starbucks run helped a little.  Not completely.  Sad that I admitted that coffee is one of my guilty pleasures.  But it is.  It helps...but I do it low fat, so that does help.  It just seemed that every little thing kept raking on me.  Kate has a neurology appointment today and I knew that...so we had to work getting our car around that and she has therapy on Thursday and Friday and this is our only vehicle with a backseat...and then I got so frazzled about that and her having IS I was crying and had to stop and pray and ask God to calm me down.........

You thought that this was just going to be a ramble about my bad morning, huh?  The point of the entire morning is that I never even thought about God until half way through my day when I had let my day get to the point of me crying over something I have peace about but let other regular day to day things and just a rainy morning take hold of me.  I also didn't start my morning out in scripture spending time with the Lord.  It's amazing to me how quickly that I let coffee try to fix me instead of going to God.  Starbucks is good, but it isn't that good.  

Christmas

Those of you who know me well know that I am most likely the one person in your life who loves Christmas the most.  I am the only one who begins listening to Christmas music at the end of September, the only one who gets giddy when stores put out the Christmas displays and ornaments when others get annoyed that they put it out earlier and earlier every year, I am the only person in your life who puts their tree up the day after Halloween…and I am probably one of the people in your life who hums too much Christmas music. 

I have no excuses, no hidden reasons, no childhood drama that explains away the reasoning.  My mother loves Christmas…she made Christmas magical with her decorating, her baking of cookies, the smell of fudge and homemade goodies.  My dad was always the one selecting the music that we decorated the tree by and I can remember from year to year the exact songs we listened to growing up.  My brother and I would decorate with my mom and dad would only help with the tinsel.  I had the most amazing childhood, the most incredible set of parents and brother you could ask for.  

Christmas has always been made to be about Jesus in my house.  We always read the Christmas story.  I always knew that Christ was to be the center of all the celebrating.  It wasn’t about the gifts…and it still isn’t.  I love the spirit of Christmas.  The music, the lights, the car rides to go look at lights, the Christmas Eve service at our church, snuggling by the fire with my husband and looking at our tree, watching my daughter look at the splendor of Christmas and seeing the magic for herself and experience things for herself.  

Christmas for me is truly magical, it allows me the ability to celebrate the Savior that came to save me on that holy night.  I am so thankful for the season of Christmas…although I carry it with me all year around, I get to celebrate it with all the beautiful things of Christmas.

Half-full or Half-empty

Every once in awhile I will get asked the question, "Are you a glass half-empty or glass half-full kind of person?"  I will sit for a moment, ponder the question and look back at them and say, "glass half-full."  This scenario crossed my mind the other day and I asked myself the question.  The fact is that to say I am half-full is quite sad, wouldn't you say?  I believe that there is so much more to that question than one would think...what the person is really asking you is... "Do you see the world as a negative, God-less and sad place half of the time or do you see the world as a positive, God-breathed and hopeful place half of the time?"

Some of you might think I am reading more into that question than I should, but I just feel like if you have Jesus in your heart you have a full glass.  There is no need to say that you see the world as half-full.  It is a way to share your faith with the world.  A way to shine your light to a dark world.

It doesn't matter what your circumstances are, where you've been, what you've done-He'll meet you where you are.  If it's anger in your heart because of the things that you have faced in your life, He sees it and knows it.  He longs to help you get rid of it and to bring you to a place of renewal.  There is a great deal of pain in this world-pain of loosing those we love, pain of fighting sickness of our own, pain of our children being ill and the anger that we have of not being able to heal them--God knows and He sees it--but what we have to remember is God does not cause these things, but He loves us and wants to comfort us and meet us where we are.

So is your glass half-empty or half-full?  I know that Jesus can make it a full-glass.

Frame of Mind

Can I even begin to put into words my current state of mind?  Can I even begin to tell you where my heart is right now?  Can I even start to explain what I think about all day long?  

I don't think that is something that I am capable of doing.  My current frame of mind is something that changes daily.  Most days you will see me being alive and optimistic and other days I am struggling to make it through...but most people will only see the smile and the "everything is going to be okay" face.  How can I be anything but faithful?  How can I be anything but godly and trustworthy?  How do I praise Him in the storm?  How do I see that even though my child is literally being taken away from me several times a day--God is there?

Friday night my Kate began having a seizure at about 4:45 this seizure kept going and she began having a headache and she began furrowing her eyebrows and crying in pain, so we did the usual routine of tylenol and holding her for comfort. Twenty-five minutes into the seizure she was still restless and upset so we ran a bath and I got in to hold her because this generally calms her down...as Stephen was about to hand her to me she fell backwards, lifeless into his arms and stopped breathing I got out of the tub and ran to her--this happened four times, the fifth and sixth time her face turned blue as it had in the hospital and these times were the longer times where she was non-responsive and completely lifeless.  When she gasped for air the sixth time she came to for a few second and began breathing normally and went into a deep sleep for about 2 hours.  

This scenario is likely to happen again, we have medicines to stop it before it does hopefully.  This is a scary scene and we were overwhelmed-yet calm-because we had witnessed it before...although I do not know that one can ever truly be calm when your child stops breathing in your arms.

I talked to a friend over the weekend and she reminded me to always go back to the truth.  The truth of who God is.  The truth that God is my comfort, He is our Healer, He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Protector, our All.  Throughout everything that we continue to go through with Kate I don't understand it all, and I look up at heaven sometimes and I say out loud to God, "I do not understand your plan."  I have to trust that He doesn't have a plan of calamity for our child or for us (also His children).  I have to trust that He sees the end at the beginning.  I have to remind myself that "God is God and I am not and I can only see a part of the picture He's painting" (SCC).  It's okay for me to kick and scream and cry and be messy with my emotions...I'm only human.  That is an okay frame of mind to be in once in awhile...as long as at the end of the day I know that Jesus Christ is on His throne and He has it all, because He is our ALL.