Today!

           I have this serious personality quirk, I am to the embarrassment of myself and perhaps others, extremely see through.  I can't help it, I just find so much freedom in being transparent and open about where I am and what is going on in my life.  Ask my husband and he will confirm that I have made him blush on multiple occasions (in front of people).  Often I open my mouth and 2 seconds later wish that both of my feet would have just jumped in before the words had a chance to escape.
            That being said, it has been the transparency of others that has so often been used by the Lord for my healing.  I can just start naming women who have at some point said out loud what I was too ashamed or even confused to let process in my heart.  Susan, Liz, Caroline, Jess (I call her Barth), Lindy, Barb, my mom, and my list could go on and on,  these are women that the Lord used to speak healing and restoration into my life on so many occasions.  Transparency-what a beautiful thing.
         All that to say, I will confess that I am all to often very emotional and I doubt, and then even pout  like a little child.  Only a few days ago, I allowed myself to get so discouraged;  I just wanted to curl up in a little ball and cry, alone.  So, I did.  I put myself under some covers and I guess I thought I could just stay there like that for the rest of forever.  HUMOR ME, it sounded good in my self absorbed moment of self pity.  I felt so smothered and detached from things that really matter.  Think about it, so much of what invades and often conquerors our days, doesn't even matter.  We spend endless moments in this routine chaos of pointless pursuit, gaining what..... stupid stuff that we end up putting in a give away box a few weeks or months down the road when the newest and best is now on our mind.  Our children are saturated with every modern convenience and to their detriment we lavish the hottest items on them, so that they what.....have an I phone and can get a hold of us if the earth does shake and the sky does start to fall.  I mean what is up with this mad race we are all running?  Well I think about crazy stuff a lot, really I do.  It all bothers me and then I start thinking-Lord, what am I doing?  I am suppose to be in Africa or somewhere sharing the greatness of your name.  I begin to question everything around me and if I can really love the least of these, and surrender my life as a slave to Jesus Christ.  Then I am so caught up in feeling like I need to do something more to help the suffering and couple that with trying to get the paperwork approved, so that we can be a forever family to orphans.....the result is me on a couch...under covers...in a ball....crying...feeling hopeless.  See I am really spiritual!  Todd, finally took me by the hand and said, "Jess please will you just trust the Lord with me, just take even the littlest grain of faith you can muster up and believe with me that God is going to do something incredible. Be free to just completely rely on God. He can provide me with a job and it will all be in His perfect timing."   In case you feel like you missed something, Todd has 3 jobs, well he needs to just have one-it looks better on paper, less variable.  :}  So, here I am again that annoying doubting girl!  Oh how I hate that I am always her.  How many times do I need to be reminded of the amazing hand of God, who has done so many incredible things in our lives already.  As Brother Billy says, "I digress.
A dear friend, Jenny, shared her heart with me today and the Lord just spoke to me through her words and I wanted to share them with you
  "Be present in each day. Be Christ to every person you are with TODAY. Be faithful with the work and the children and the relationships he has given you TODAY. Speak boldly today. Glorify him with your life today. He knows what tomorrow holds. He knows the future size of your family, what color your children will be, what people you will share Christ with and in what country. He has prepared of all that for you and because you are seeking him you will find it and you will finish it.  And he has prepared all of THIS for you. This is what he has given you today. This is what he prepared in advance for you to do today."

I don't know what you may be facing or what the Lord is doing in your life, but be present in each day!  Don't just be a winded flurry completing your days, engage in what the Lord is doing and show up for His presence in your life!

Leggo my Ego, actually you can have it

 I will admit the last blog caught me in a moment.  A moment of doubt, frustration, and extreme discouragement.  As those moments always do, it passed.  Not however, without the amazing encouragement of my wonderful husband.  It's funny to read that because in our eight years of marriage, I can with complete honesty say that the Lord has had to humble me quite a bit, so, that I could see the blessing my husband was to me.  :} I haven't always been able to look past my own arrogant ego.  I certainly haven't had an easy time surrendering my will and tendency to do things my way either.  All that to say......Todd has been such a strong arm of faith in my weariness.  This morning he said, "God knew this child before the foundations of the earth, and God is no respecter of persons.  Jess, this hold up could be the hand of God, setting up the time frame.  God knows how old this child is, when and if he has been born, and when he is going to need his family.  This is all part of God's purposes".  Wow, what a thought and I had been so busy struggling with my frustrations, when I very well should have been thanking the Lord for working out each tiny detail.  If all else fails we are just going to move to Uganda and fill our house with orphans. :}  Really, why not.  I am learning that most often my questions are why or how, when they should be WHY NOT. 

When the impossible is all you can see.....

Today has been a rough day.  There are times in life when it seems all I can see are those things that seem impossible and it is then that I have to find my hope in and only in the Lord.  I am having one of those days.  We talked with our social worker today and the conversation left me feeling so hopeless and heart broken.  Todd on the other hand is much better at simply trusting and not giving a moment of worry.  Todd works 3 jobs and none of them are considered full time, so on paper it looks as though our income is really variable.  Having four kids already.......so our approval to be eligible to adopt is now being looked into further.  I wanted to just curl up in a ball and cry and I did just that for a short bit.  I felt like it was so hopeless and my heart was breaking for a child I long to call mine.  Gabriella started to cry and she was so disappointed, because you see the Lord laid it on her heart and she began praying that we would adopt months before we agreed to it.  I didn't really even know what to pray for.  Do I pray that Todd gets one full time job, do I pray that somehow we will be approved by immigration just the way we are, and part of me just wanted to give up.  "We just can't do this!  We are willing Lord, and we long to just trust and obey but this mountain is too high- They won't let us climb it!!"  That is what I wanted to scream.  Here is the problem, I am not suppose to strive to climb it.  The Lord will remove it.  Even a mountain can not hinder the Lord's purposes.  However, sometimes all that I can see are the impossibilities before me.  The hopelessness and longing to live completely surrendered and then the frustration and disappointment when it doesn't go as smoothly as I expected.  Today I am making a declaration:

"Lord I still trust you, when the money is gone, when the moment seems hopeless, when my heart is broken, and when you seem silent- I still trust you!  My hope is not in the comfort of this life, but my hope is in you and you alone!"

Sick to My Stomach......

Did you know that there are over 147 million orphans world wide.  How about that over 27 million people live in slavery today, in this day and time.  There are more slaves now than there have ever been in all of history.  Children are being sexually exploited right now.  Little girls and boys taken away from their families and raped by men.  The poor are taken advantage of in their desperation to provide for their families and forced to live in slavery to those with money.  They are treated cruelly and they have no way out, they don't know what else to do or where else to go.  They are suffering.  How many meals have I eaten and never given a thought to the millions of people who are going hungry.  How many bowls of rice have I consumed not even considering if a poor feeble man was forced to work in a rice mill, so that all of us rich westerners could have plenty.  I know that this blog is about adoption and it is assumed that I will write warm and wonderful things about our journey and all the amazing things that are happening in our hearts as we experience the miracle of adoption.  This is not warm and fuzzy but it is no less wonderful.  Why? Because the Lord is changing me, in deep ways.  There are children out there, not just faceless numbers who are suffering.  They have big eyes full of sorrow and a longing to be loved.  They are hurting and broken.  These children have names and they were created by God with purpose and destiny.  The Lord is breaking me to do something.  How can we just sit back and enjoy a life of comfort and plenty and do nothing to help them.  Can it really be said of us that we are "disciples" of Christ if we do nothing.  I don't want to do nothing any longer.  I want to be awakened to the suffering and hurting world. I wonder what we will say to the Lord on the day of judgement.  Will He accept that we had to modify His commands to fit into the trends of the modern church.  How is it that He clearly calls those who want to be His disciples to give it all away, to care for the orphan, the widow, the least of these and yet we can just brush it off as if we have to hear yet another more superior call from the Lord to do something that radical.  Is there anything superior to His word?   We are to live lives that are constantly aware and engaged with those who are suffering among us.  I am sickened by the many times I found a reason to not adopt these past 8 years.  I feel nauseous at the complacency I have had toward the millions of children who are hungry, abandoned, abused, and unloved.    In fact, I don't just want one orphan.... I want to help as many as I can.  Why not?  Why should we ever just be content to live a comfortable life in a big roomy house and raise our 1.5 children.  Giving them every luxury affordable.  I am sick to my stomach, because there was a time when we first came back from Africa that I just wanted a neighborhood and a garden in the back yard.  I just wanted to raise my kids and not wash my clothes by hand anymore.  I wanted to turn on a light switch and know that their would be electricity.  I wanted to drink water from the sink and not get sick, or go to a doctor and not worry about a needle infected with HIV.  I just wanted the American dream. However, the Lord in His infinite mercy and grace did not let me reside in that dream for long.  What I want now..... I want to be His.  I want Him.  I want Jesus.  I want to love the hurting and I want to give it all away.  This stuff that only distracts us and keeps us from having to rely on the Lord for our provision, it has just lost its luster.  You see I thought Todd and I were going to save a child, but it turns out that the Lord is already using this child/children to save us.   It is a warm and fuzzy story after all.  The Lord awakening hearts and opening eyes to see His purposes and to take part in His redemption.  You are not reading this blog by chance, I pray that the Lord will begin to shake your walls and the comfortable fort the enemy has encased you in will fall.  I know He can because the Lord is tearing down my walls.  I know and trust that the day I get to look into my sweet Ugandan child's face, I will have experienced and seen the mighty work of  God!