2012 reflections

I say this every year, but I can't believe it's already time for a new year! It seems crazy. 2012 was a year full of exciting news, new beginnings, lots of lessons, and enjoying God's favor in our lives. It was also a year of hard decisions, heartache, sadness and learning more and more about God. 2012 is not what we expected, but we have learned so much and we have seen God sustain us through this year.

We started off the year in a really dark season of our life. I know that may not be the most uplifting thing to here, but that's the honest truth. There were many nights we would just sit together and cry. Infertility was not at all something we ever expected we would go through. God was so gracious to us through it, but it was hard, and some days it still is. We learned to rely on Him and confess our dependence on Him. We also learned to ask Him the hard questions and then seek Him in His Word to find the answer.

By February and March we had begun to seriously consider domestic adoption and ultimately decided to begin that process. We are so thankful that God opened up our hearts to this opportunity. We began our home study, applied to CAC, made our profile book, presented to our first birth mother, planned for a fundraiser and I can't even remember what else! We learned a lot about walking by faith and trusting the Lord with our plans. We also saw the body of Christ in ways that we couldn't believe.

In April, we had another hard decision to make. Heath had been offered a job in his home town and we needed to make a decision. It was so hard because we loved everything about our life in West Lafayette. The problem was that Heath's job was not exactly ideal. We were so thankful of God's provision of that job and Heath loved his co-workers, but the job was stressful and he had kind of crazy hours. The job in his home town was pretty much ideal. It was exactly what he wanted to do long term. So late in April we made the decision to move. We grew in our understanding of the Lord's provision for us and His guiding and directing.

May started off with a bang. Heath quit his job, accepted his new job, we put our house on the market and had our adoption auction-that was all within the first 5 days of May! Ha! Our auction was unbelievable. The body of Christ really rallied around us and donated items, food, time, money and showed us the love of Christ in more ways than we could imagine. In the middle of May Heath left to start his new job and i stayed in West Lafayette to finish up my job. Again, we feel like we saw the love of Christ displayed to us in and through the body of Christ.

By June, I had moved to Columbus. June was a hard month for me personally as I continued to struggle believing God had the very best for us and that His timing was perfect. I continued to learn about surrendering to the Lord and trusting Him in all things.

In July, our house in West Lafayette sold! I spent a week there packing and saying goodbye to our friends. We closed at the end of July. Heath and I also celebrated our 3rd anniversary. I am beyond blessed to have been his wife for the last 3 years. Time really has flown! We saw the Lord provide for us in the selling of our home and we were able to celebrate the gift of marriage He gave us.

August brought us much joy as we found and closed on our new house. It is so evident that the Lord provided this house for us and we are so very thankful.

September came with more opportunities to present and more times of being told no. I am thankful (now) they all said no, but it was so hard at the time. God did something we are so thankful for in Sept.-He provided a church for us. We searched and searched for a church here and to be honest we were kind of discouraged. Nothing really seem to fit us and our vision. Then we went to Terrace Lake Community Church and we knew this is where God wanted us. We have been immensely blessed by being a part of this church body. Again, we continued to learn to trust the Lord and His timing and we thank Him for the provision of a body of Christ for us to be a part of.

My oh my how do I explain October! Our family had a scare when Jeb had a stroke and they found the hole in his heart. It was an emotionally draining few days as we waited to hear the results and then see what the next steps were. October was also the month we were told we were going to be parents. How do I even begin to describe that into words? We saw God answer a lot of prayers in a very short time. We were reminded of how He hears us and He is good.

November and December were spent traveling, getting ready for sweet Kaleigh and just enjoying our last few weeks as a family of 2. We also got showered by our friends here in Columbus. We are so grateful for how the Lord has provided sweet friends for us here. We were humbled and grateful for how they showered us. We got to see both of our families twice. We enjoyed celebrating Christmas. And we finished off the year celebrating Heath's birthday.

To sum it up, we are thankful for all the Lord has taught us and how He has proven His faithfulness to us. We are truly grateful to Him for all He has done this year. As we look forward to 2013 there is a lot to anticipate. We are so excited about Kaleigh joining us soon. We pray the Lord will continue to teach us and remind us of the gospel daily. Can't wait to see where this beautiful journey takes us in 2013!

Post-Christmas thoughts

I so meant to get this post up before Christmas, but it just didn't happen so it's a post- Christmas blog about Christmas! This year I really wanted to be focused on Jesus. I know that sounds so silly to have to really focus on Him, but to be honest I can go through the season and not really think about Jesus that much (sad but true). This year I did an Advent study through Good Morning Girls (www.goodmorninggirls.com) and it was really helpful to be able to study more about Jesus and everyday to have my mind focused in on Him.

One verse really stuck out to me. Matthew 1:21 says "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” To set the scene, an angel has just appeared to Joseph  and this is what he is being told. It's unbelievable if you think about it. Here is this angel proclaiming to Jesus' earthly dad that He will save the people from their sins. It was the very purpose for His birth. God, in His goodness, sent His one and only Son to save us from our sins.

His birth was for His death. If Jesus had not come to save us from our sins then there would be no hope. If Jesus was born, lived a sinless life and then died of old age there would be no hope. See thinking about Christmas leads me to thinking about Easter. God sent His Son in human likeness so He could live a sinless life on my behalf. He was born so that He could go to the cross sinless and bear the wrath of God for my sin. Yes, He died a terrible death by crucifixion, but the worst part was that He faced the wrath of God on my behalf for my sin. And He knew that from the beginning yet still willingly "became flesh and dwelt among us."(Jn 1:14)

So this Christmas, I didn't want to do what is so easy in our society and that's to take Christ out of Christmas. To be honest, I didn't do it perfectly, but I feel like this year was a huge step forward for me mostly in my heart and mind. I'm so thankful that Christ was born and so thankful for the opportunity to celebrate Him.

On a similar but side note, it really bothers me how we dismiss Christ out of Christmas. We're not suppose to say "Merry Christmas" but "Happy Holidays." We can't have nativity scenes set up in public anymore because "that's offensive." We're not suppose to talk about Jesus because what if it offends someone. Well, to be blunt, Christmas is a Christian holiday and if you don't like it, then just don't celebrate it. Gasp! I know, how could I say something like that? Because it's true. There are plenty of holidays other world religions celebrate that are totally fine and no one says anything about, but make something about Jesus and all of a sudden it's offensive. I just don't get it. I'm not saying do away with gift giving or Christmas trees or anything like that, I'm just saying let's focus on what it's really about-Jesus.

Okay, sorry about my little rant. I just could not stop thinking about that this year. Pray for me that I will continually grow in my love for and understanding of Jesus and that I will make my life about Him.

Thankful this Christmas for the greatest gift of all-Jesus who saves His people from their sins.

Fear is a funny thing

Fear really is a funny thing. I remember before we started trying to get pregnant I was so scared we would have complications getting pregnant. Once we started having problems I was so scared they would tell us we would never get pregnant. When they told us we'd probably never get pregnant and we started the adoption process there was a whole new slew of things I was scared of: how are we going to pay for it, how long will it take, will we get chosen. Now that we are chosen I am so scared she will change her mind. And I know once we have her I will be so scared something will happen to her. Like I said, fear is a funny thing.

I thought when we got chosen by a birth mom my fear would go away, but it most certainly hasn't. I have found myself fearful of so many things. The biggest, of course, is the birth mother changing her mind. In FL, the birth mom has 48 hours to change her mind. We have no reason to think she'll change her mind-our agency says she is sure, the birth mom refers to the baby as "your baby," etc.-but the fear is still there. I am scared to death we will get there, meet this precious little one and then have to say goodbye. And that could happen.

Something I have realized as I have searched my heart over this continual fear-it just changes from being scared of one thing to being scared of another-is that it is the same heart issue: I don't trust God. I don't trust that He has the very best for us. I don't trust His plan for our lives and I want to control it. I don't trust that He is wise and good and faithful. So it brings me back to one word: surrender. Such an easy word to say, yet so hard to live out.

This past Sunday at church we sang the song "Surrender." Here are the lyrics:

I'm giving You my heart
All that is within
I lay it all down
For the sake of You my King
I'm giving You my dreams laying down my rights
I'm giving up my pride
For the promise of new life

And I Surrender
All to You, all to You

I'm singing You this song
I'm waiting at the Cross
All the world holds dear
I count it all as loss
For the sake of knowing You
For the glory of Your name
To know the lasting joy
Even sharing in Your pain

This is the prayer of my heart. I pray that I will constantly be surrendered to the Lord of the Universe. Surrender is not a one time thing to me, it is an every day, moment by moment thing. I am constantly needing to surrender the things I want for the things He wants (which is so much better than what I want anyway). And I really do want what is going to bring the most glory to Him and what is going to cause me to know Him better.

 I'm coming to realize there will probably always be something I am afraid of, but I can trust the One who holds our beautiful journey in His hands and know that He is working everything out for our good (Rom. 8:28)