making an effort

To be thankful.

To be honest, I am completely stressed out a lot of the time. I've probably been a pretty lousy person to be around lately. Besides the adoption, other things are weighing on my heart, and it's all starting to take a toll on me physically. My blood work showed everything is perfectly normal; stress is just manifesting itself on my body I guess. I like to be in control, and things are just not working out the way I want them to right now (picture me with crossed arms and a frustrated look on my face). Releasing complete control to God is really hard to do. Even when I feel that I am walking in His will for my life right now, I still want things to happen MY way. Yeah, that's not how it works and sometimes that is a really hard lesson to learn. Maybe I'll be a more relaxed person in general after this is all over, because more than one thing this past year has taught me who to put my trust in. A quote from my devotional book from today:

"This is a time in your life when you must learn to let go: of loved ones, of possessions, of control. In order to let go of something that is precious to you, you need to rest in My presence, where you are complete...As you relax more and more, your grasping hand gradually opens up, releasing your prized possessions into My care. You can feel secure, even in the midst of cataclysmic changes, through awareness of My continual presence."

Amen. From your lips straight to my heart God. THIS is how I want to live. He loves my daughter so much more than I do and He has her in his loving care. I have a feeling that these experiences right now are preparing me to let go of more things, bigger things, in the future.

Anyways, I got off track. The point of this post was to be thankful. Here are two things that I am very thankful for right now.

1. One of the two major hurdles separating us from our daughter right now has been removed. Praise God for that quickly answered prayer. Please be in prayer that the last hurdle will be removed soon!

2. The new Lifesong Orphan Ministry at our church. We are so thrilled to be among the "founding fathers" for this new ministry. There are several wonderful people who were instrumental in getting the ball rolling. It will make it's debut on Servant Sunday in April to be among the ministries the church is collecting money for this spring. It will serve a few different purposes: partnering with Lifesong to help provide funds for members in our church who are adopting, providing money to orphans associated with our existing missionaries, raising awareness for orphan care/adoption in various ways like participating in Orphan Sunday this fall. Our first meeting was last night and we are PUMPED about it! Jason and I have been praying and thinking about this possibility since last summer - what a huge answer to prayer! It is not super easy to get a new ministry approved and started at our large church but God is a defender of the orphan and He showed up in a big way here! For more information on Lifesong and if you are interested in getting this started at your church, click on the button on the right side of my blog.

One last thing. Jason and I are not superheroes nor do I believe that anyone thinks we are. BUT what we do hear a lot is "this is such a wonderful thing that you are doing adopting this baby". We so appreciate the support, we just want to make sure everyone knows that we want God to get the glory for this, definitely not us. We aren't extra great Christians for being obedient to the Bible and trying our best to really follow Jesus. Not just listen to what He says, but truly FOLLOW him. That is just an average Christian thing to do in my opinion, and in fact Jason and I are pretty pathetic humans a lot of the time. We are blessed to be on this journey. It's true, God does bless you when you follow Him. It's not always easy. In fact you should expect it to be hard. And the blessings aren't always easy to see, but they are there. They just maybe aren't what WE'RE looking for...God has so much more for us than what we're looking for. I just pray that my eyes are open so I won't miss a single one along the way.