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!