Sisters

Sisters

Friday, March 29, 2013

Who shall I fear?



The Lord is my light and my salvation who shall I fear? 
The Lord is the stronghold of my life-
of whom shall I be afraid?  Psalm 27:1

        I promised myself when I began this journal it would not be about me, or my family it would be about My Father.  In part it is to keep you informed of our journey through adoption, but I hope it is so much more.  I hope every word brings my Heavenly Father glory.  I hope each word is written in a way that brings you to understand just how powerful my God is in our life, just how important my God is to us, just how much I need Him every day, just how perfect He really is, and how perfect His will is for us.  Just how much comfort and love and peace He provides to me on a daily basis.  Just how much I cannot live each day without Him.  He is my all, He is my everything.
        Yesterday started out like a normal day.  We are wrapping up our home study and are in the final stretch.  We have one meeting left, and then we start the waiting process.  Waiting for immigration, waiting on Haiti to okay all our paperwork, waiting on a travel date, waiting on Haiti for more paperwork, waiting on another travel date…my head is spinning.  One piece of education that had to be completed was to read what the US Embassy says about Haiti.  Let me just say I wish that is one educational piece that would have been left out.  First of all, I don’t know that I really want to read most things our government says or puts out there lately, but much less something that directly affects me…and my family.  I know they just want to educate you on the country you will be visiting.  I know they want to make you aware of the nature of the country and what is going on.  I know that they mean well when they tell you in detail what all goes on and what happens in Haiti….I know all that.  I know that plenty of people have traveled and will continue to travel to Haiti and return home just fine.  I know all that.  However, in the last 24 hours I have  had a few mild panic attacks, I have already planned out my funeral, decided who Anna Lee’s new parents will be, decided who gets which dogs, decided what will be done with our house, figured out how Anna Lee can still be homeschooled….so on and so on.  That is why I am up at 4:06 writing a blog about how much lack of faith I have shown my Jesus, my Savior, my Creator, and my Sustainer with my pathetic lack of trust…in Him and in His will for this family.  I am a worrier by nature, although I don’t like to admit it.  My mom passed on many wonderful traits to me, but this is one my brother and I both obtained from her, yet we both deny we do it or have it.  After tossing and turning and having all these plans worked out for my demise, my Father gently reminded me there is another way to deal with this…His Word.  So after laying there for 30 more minutes thinking I will just say a quick prayer for my soul and fall back asleep, He gently nudged me again and said, “Get up and let’s deal with this.”  As I opened His word to the Psalms, which always sooths my heart and speaks to the deepest parts of my soul.  I came across my handwriting out to the side of Psalm 27:1. I had written in big purple letters, “What do you fear?”  Who knows how long ago I had already come across this verse, but the Lord impressed it on my heart then to mark this verse in my Bible and write my reflections for just this time in the future.  I then noticed that I had underlined certain words in the verse.  I had underlined stronghold and my life.  Let me show you what this verse looks like in my Bible.  “The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid?”  I had to remind myself that troubles may come, sufferings may come, trails may come, but I DO NOT HAV E TO LIVE IN FEAR! Where my God leads us, He will protect us…the more I know of Him, the less I need to fear. If you read down to verse 4 in Psalm 27 David asks one thing of the Lord, and it was, “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”  I also wrote in my Bible underneath this verse that David didn’t ask for salvation from fear or riches or any other earthly thing...he asked to dwell with the Lord, and to gaze upon His beauty.  My focus needed to be redirected this morning on this Good Friday. This day so many years ago My Savior who is alive and ministering to me this very morning, through His living word, was crucified and placed in a tomb.  He was beaten and bruised, His flesh was torn and His blood was spilled, all so that we could dwell with the Lord and gaze upon His beauty all the days of our life.  All we have to do is ask for His salvation.  I thank God for my salvation this Easter weekend.  I do not have to live in fear for I serve a God that is alive and living.  I will stand on the promises of God…all 66 books of them!    
        There was one thing that did stand out to me more than all the bad things that the Embassy wrote about Haiti.  There is not much assistance for the handicap in Haiti.  One sentence read that roads and sidewalks are not stable and will abruptly end, and that people in wheelchairs will not be able to get around very well.  It said that restaurants and places of business were not set up to accommodate the handicap and pretty much that if you were handicap you probably didn’t need to go.  There was no government assistance for the handicap either.  I might would have read over this part and not taken much notice with all the other mess I was reading, but one thing stopped me for a moment and one glimmer of hope sprung from that short paragraph.  It is a good possibility our little girl will never walk.  She has a joint disability that enables her legs to work properly.  When we first inquired about her we were told she would more than likely be in a wheel chair.  It hit me as I was reading about her country that her country is not set up to care for her, nor would her life there be easy.  Even with all the other junk that is going on, the most negative of all of it, was what I read concerning what her life would be like if we didn’t bring her home. 
        In the midst of my whining and complaining to the Lord over the past 24 hrs, He still showed me His love and compassion.  Some very dear friends from church gave us a donation towards bringing our daughter home.  They thought it was just a “little” donation in their words, but it was so much more.  It was the Lord continuing to push me through my fear straight towards His will, His Plan.  It was the Lord telling me He goes before me, He is a friend of mine, He is the God of Angel Armies, He will be by my Side…there is nothing to fear.  As I called this family to tell them thank you, I shared a little bit of what I had been going through, and He said one statement that was like God shouting from the Heavens through this man’s voice.  He said, “Don’t worry about all the other stuff going on, Your Daughter is in Haiti and that is where you go.”  He is right…my daughter is in Haiti and that is where we will go.  My God goes before and stays beside.  There is nothing to Fear. 
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.   Psalm 27:5

Monday, March 4, 2013

My Rock and My Redeemer!



May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight,
O Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer.  Psalm 19:14

        I have just spent the weekend with my family doing what seems like an endless circle, and what seems like will never end…Fundraising!  A close friend, who is also adopting, and I have put our heads together and launched what feels like the never ending cycle of many fundraisers, to help bring our children home.  We have done and are still doing many craft shows, we have a 5K planned, yard sales, basically anything that will allow us to add a few extra dollars to our adoption accounts to bring Reece and Lily home.  It has been exhausting and a blessing!  The lord has provided in so many different ways I could sing His praises all day long.  Once again this weekend He showed up and showed out…but not in ways that I expected. 
        I know most people hear the word fundraiser and the $$ signs come to mind.  The work they take comes to mind.  The extra we have to give up to pull them off comes to mind.  Well let me share what fundraising meant to me this weekend…
        It started off with the sacrifice of my mother, who gave up an entire weekend of her time to travel two hours from home, stay in a camper with our family, our three dogs, and Anna Lee, and if that was all she did that would be enough said.  She got up early and stayed up late.  She shared stories about her new grandchild that will be joining the family.  She entertained Anna Lee and did just about anything I asked her to do.  As with any mother daughter relationship, you don’t always see eye to eye on everything, but I saw the heart of my mother.  The servants heart that she has passed on to me, and hopefully I will pass on to my daughters.  I saw her relationship with God growing as she got up early in the morning to sit and read her Bible before we left.  I saw her fire for the Lord has been revived after a very long long time of hardships and troubles.  Our relationship was strengthened this weekend, and my love for her grew.  She has always sacrificed so we could have more, and once again this weekend she did it again!
        I got to see the sweet heart of the man I married, who so effortlessly did whatever I asked him to do this weekend.  And he did it with such love and compassion, and a smile on his face.  Sometimes I am overwhelmed at how this adoption has given our marriage a deeper level of respect and adoration for each other.  I got to watch him talk about his new daughter and share our story.  I got to watch his love for people shine through.  I got to watch him get up at 6 in the morning and thaw out our water line that had frozen so we could get ready…on the one day he had to sleep in.  And he did it with a smile! Once again I realized how much he really was my hero!  Bath house showers are not my friend and especially at 24 degrees!  He sat with me for hours on end and laughed and talked and didn’t complain one time that he was at a craft show for women.  He soaked up every extra minute he could spend with his wife and daughter and even his mother in law.  I saw the Gift God has given me in this man this weekend.
        I saw my daughter turn into a sales woman and sell just about everything so she could bring her sister home.  It’s very hard to say no to a six year old who has a passion for her sister who isn’t even home yet!  She even told one lady something cost $400 dollars so we could be closer to getting her home!  She was also a trooper!  I often wonder if the sacrifice we ask her to make is fair.  But once again she shines through, and finds a way to bring life to the party that we need after hours and hours of craft shows!  She reminds me how much she loves her sister already, and how she is ready to walk this journey with us!  And to be six, she did very little complaining and was very well behaved!  That in itself was a small miracle from God this weekend!
        And then there were others…There are the three new friends I met, that had a booth behind me.  Who, on the second day of the show came in sporting our adoption t-shirts they had bought the day before so others would see and support us too!  They invited friends from church to our booth.  After hearing our stories, one of them went home, grabbed some very cute crafts she had made and brought them to donate to us.  And every single one of her cute creations sold.  She had known us for 24 hours, and God moved her to such compassion to donate to our cause, and it helped.  That is the heart of God!  That reminds me of the early church that sold everything for the common good of all who was in need.  That is the body of Christ working together!  I was also inspired and moved by the story of one of my new friends little boy.  His name is Mitchell.  Mitchell was born with something wrong with his tibia.  Mitchell’s mom and dad were told to amputate his leg when he was very little.  They didn’t take that diagnosis and a new doctor and 4 surgeries later, I learned that Mitchell was a healthy little boy who did normal little boy things! Praise God!  My God is Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.  I will continue to pray for Mitchell that God strengthens him and gives him a story to share for His glory!
        Then there was the cute lady from Hoover that warmed my heart.  She heard of our booth and what we were doing.  She is a teacher, and had made some very cute stationary items.  Anna lee is a writer and loves to journal.  She had been by her booth a number of times and admired a very cute panda journal.  We have told her time and again we are there to raise money not to spend.  Then about midways through day two the cute lady from Hoover walks over and hands the panda journal to my daughter and gives it to her. She commented on how good she had been all weekend, knew that we probably didn’t have the money to buy and wanted to help us by giving Anna Lee the journal.  It was such a small act of kindness, but a huge lesson on grace!  Once again the body of Christ! Once again the compassion of a stranger overwhelmed my heart!
        Then there was Deborah.  Deborah was a very attractive African American woman who asked about some scripture I had posted.  She had the most beautiful curly hair, and all I wanted to do was ask her for tips on how I was going to style my daughters hair just like it, but God had other things for us to talk about.  She questioned me on the scripture and what it meant and God opened a door.  Before I knew it, Deborah and I were praying in the middle of a craft booth, in the middle of Decatur Alabama.  Deborah just needed God’s comfort and reminder of how Awesome He is and how in Control of everything He is.  Turns out…I needed that reminder too.  I will forever be praying for Deborah and will be reminded of how God used her to make me bolder!
        There was also a retired preacher who came through being drug by his wife and either her friend or her sister.  After hearing about sweet Lily and Reece he just parked and stayed with me for a while.  We talked of scripture, his grandchildren, his son who has fought in three wars so that I can have the freedom I have!  He shared who God was to him, and I got to share who He was to us.  He was encouraged to see a young couple’s fire for the Lord, and I was encouraged by him in too many ways to even write that will forever be special to me in my heart. 
        There was the woman who bought a $3 bag, handed me a twenty and kept walking.  There were kids who spent all their allowance in our booth to help us!  There were countless stories of adoptions and kids who were adopted and grown and in college.  That is very encouraging.  There were those that shed tears with us, those that prayed with us, those that said encouraging words to us. And then on top of all that, we raised the most money at this show, than we have ever raised at any of the others. It is as if the Lord poured blessings on us in so many ways I can’t even begin to count them.  And these are just a very few of the people and stories that have touched our life this weekend!
        Fundraising is not about the money…it’s about making us bolder in our faith, it’s about sharing our cause, it’s about giving a voice to the least of these, it’s about teaching our kids what’s important to us, it’s about family, it’s about the friends we make, it’s about seeing the heart of God in others, it’s about comforting others when the Holy Spirit prompts us, it’s about listening to those that just need to talk and learning when to be quiet yourself, it’s about forging friendships that last and encourage one another, it’s about sharing the Gospel and most of All proclaiming Who my God is…My Rock and My Redeemer!