2 Years and Counting.....

I have been doing some reflecting lately  since our 2 year mark is coming up in a few days, April 15 to be exact! What?!  2 years already!?  I can still remember the nervous excitement I felt on the day I dropped the Holt application into the mailbox!  Time has seemed to both fly and crawl at a snails pace all at the same time.  I never realized the amount of patience you have to have to go through this process and it seems like every time I think I can't possibly wait any longer God shows me differently.  It's amazing the strength he gives us and what we are truly capable of with his strength!

As we approach the two year mark on our adoption journey I have been thinking about where we were last year, or even two years ago.  When we started our journey we knew so little about the steps we were about to take, but we stepped out in faith knowing that God had a plan. We still firmly believe that today, and  I can see how important the waiting is.  It has been a time that God is molding and preparing us to  be ready to take on the responsibility of parenting an adopted child.  I feel so honored that God has called us to adoption and that he is allowing our family to grow in this way.  I feel like the luckiest mom in the world that  I am getting to experencie motherhood through a biological birth and a child that has grown in my heart through adoption!  As I have thought about the last year I realize we have endured many trials, but I know that we have grown stronger from it.

We have spent our time waiting by going between obsessing about every detail of the adoption to trying to have distractions, things to keep us busy so we don't obsess!  In the last two years we have had some good healthy distractions like planning fundraiser's, attending Winter Jam, spending time with family, and building our house.  Building can be stressful, but it kept our minds busy and helped pass the time.  Now we are fast approaching the one year mark of living in our new house, May to be exact.  We love our new home and I have spent the last year trying to decorate and furnish it.  It has been a slow process, especially when there's not a lot of extra money to do it with because everything has been going into our adoption fund.  I have learned to love a good thrift store deal and that is how I've gotten most of the stuff for our home.  Who knew we would spend all kinds of money building a new home just to furnish it with old stuff!  I love it and it reflects our taste exactly!  I love to find beauty in things that are old or not any good to someone else.  It reminds me of Gods love for us.  He sees past all the muck and grime and sees us for what we could be with his grace and love.  

As we draw nearer to the final part of our wait to bring Lauren home I find myself being distracted by things that are not good and positive.  The last few months have definitely been a trial for us.  We went from worrying about Jason's job, which turned out fine, to experiencing something that I never have before.  My best friend told lies about me to others.  I hate to say it so bluntly, but there's really no other way to say it.   I went from angry and confused to just sad.  I tried to have grace and not speak about it because I didn't want to add fuel to the fire, but then it just started feeling like people were believing what was being said.  It's very hard to not chase the fires and try to put them out.  If you've ever been through something like that you'll know what I'm talking about. Through these trials I've come to realize that when trying to stay in the will of God that Satan can and will attack where it hurts the most.  I have relied on the people closest to me, that love me, and they have given me tremendous support.  I only share this now because a few days ago Jason and I were talking about the negative turn things have taken the last few months and how we don't feel focused on the right things. It's crazy how you can take your eye off the things important for one second and the devil swoops in to try and destroy things.  It also hasn't helped that I just finished my fourth round of antibiotics for a sinus infection since January.  If I get sick again they will do a CT scan to check for a sinus blockage. I don't have time for a surgery right now so I am praying for complete healing!  Anyway, with all those negative things its been easy to get carried away in the wrong direction!  However, I have taken a hard look at things the last few days and realized this sort of distraction is not what God would want. I need to be focused on our adoption and preparing for our daughter to come home.  It's time to get rid of the baggage and negativity.

On  April 6th it will be 7 months since we received our referral.  We are entering the "first approval anytime" phase.  How exciting!  We are anxiously awaiting approval so we can go get Lauren!  I know this next bit may sound crazy, but when we got our referral and I found out Lauren's birthday is in July I started praying for God to allow us to travel in June or first of July.  I want to be with her for her 2nd birthday.  I know it's not looking good for that to be a reality considering the delays, but I still have unending faith that with God it is still possible.  Only time will tell what God's will is for us and in the mean time we will continue to focus on what's important, pray, and wait.

Blessings...

We had a guest speaker at our church right around the new year.  She shared something that her family does every year.  They have a jar and every time God blesses them they write it on a rock and put it in the jar and at the end of the year they pour them all out and reflect on how great God has been.  I am going to find a jar and the biggest rock that will fit and I am going to write on it....SAVED JASON'S JOB!  We were so relieved and happy to find out yesterday that he was not the one to be "displaced".  That is what they call it when they eliminate your job.  I want to write down this answered prayer and reflect on it months from now because I don't want to forget.  I don't want to forget how scary it can be to know that a situation is out of your hands but also to know the comfort that only God can provide.  I was so happy when Jason text me at work to tell me the good news.  I actually asked him twice if he was sure before it really sank in.  The worrying that I struggled with over the weekend was not just about money or jobs or our financial future but mostly what  losing a job would do to the future of our adoption and that is when the real pain surfaced.  All the years that Jason and I tried to have another baby and struggled with infertility satan would tell me that I wasn't a good enough mother to parent another child, I wasn't deserving of that blessing.  He would tell me that I failed Isaac because he didn't have siblings to play with like everyone else.  Needless to say I was so thankful to God for taking care of us as he always does.  I didn't care that I was at work, I found a closet to get in and got down on my knees and praised his name!  I am so thankful that I can share the goodness of God!

This morning on the way to work I heard the song blessings by Laura Story and it touched my heart.  I have prayed for the very things she talks about in her song....blessings, peace, comfort for family and protection while we sleep, healing, for prosperity.  These next words are the ones that really pricked my heart this morning... We cry in anger when we cannot feel you near.  We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love as if every promise from your word is not enough and all the while you hear each desperate plea.... Those are the words that kept me in my car outside of school crying for forgiveness this morning from all the doubting and letting satan get the best of me over the weekend.  I am so thankful that God loves me and forgives me when I let him down.  Sunday night in church they were talking about Heaven and Isaac turned to me and said "mom I just can't wait to get to Heaven".  I thought about his words when I heard these words in this song.....the pain reminds us this is not our home.

Overcoming the Fear...

Jason and I have had a rough week....God started dealing with my heart yesterday to blog about it.  Honestly, up until this morning, I kept asking God why.  Why would he want me to blog when I don't know what positive or testimonial thing I would have to say right now?  I have spent most of the week in prayer and begging to feel God's presence.  I knew he was with us but I could not feel him.  Not until this morning...

I don't usually share such personal struggles and don't necessarily feel comfortable doing it now but it's what God has told me to do.  A week ago Thursday Jason found out for the third year in a row that due to restructuring of the Company he could possibly lose his job.  THREE YEARS IN A ROW!  With little information and a "good luck" from his boss we are left to wait.  The word WAIT has truly become a 4 letter word in our house.  We are quickly approaching 2 years into our adoption not counting the 7 years we tried to have another child after Isaac.  Then you add 3 years of fearing for your job...and well you get my point.  I am so over waiting!  The past couple of days I have completely been consumed with fear.  It's been an overwhelming paralyzing fear.  Jason has been at his job for 13 years but him losing his job has been one of my greatest fears.  When I was a teenager I still remember the day my mom picked me up from school and told me that my dad had lost his job.  A job that he had been at for a long time.  I watched what losing a job does to a man.   A man who was hard working and tried so hard to provide for his family.  I feel as though my dad never recovered from it and has never been the same as he was before.

The devil has done a number on me this week.  I fear for our financial future and what losing a job would do to Jason, where would he find another job, what if we lost our home, and most important what would it do to our adoption?  It's amazing how you can miss and love someone that you haven't even met.

 This morning I woke up very early with all these thoughts in my head.   I had finally had enough!  I prayed with authority for the devil to get behind me and I have finally felt God's presence today.  From the minute I got in the car and turned the radio on, to the worship songs at church, to Kelly's message, to turning the TV on after lunch and Facing the Giants was on.  God has given me so much reassurance that he is with us and he has a plan for our lives.   I told God today that I wanted his plan for our life and not my plan.  I will follow him wherever he leads us even if its down a road we don't want to go.  I told God that if it's his will for Jason to lose his job, for our adoption to be interrupted, or for us to lose everything I will still love him.   Jason and I know that we have done everything in our power that we can do and I've told God the rest is up to him.  But that is when God does his best work.  When we finally let go and stop thinking we can fix our problems and allow God the space to take care of our need.  In the words of Joyce Meyer...as long as we try to do everything ourselves, God will let us.  God won't do for you what you can do yourself.  You must do what you CAN do and then trust God to do what you can't.  Our job is to do the best we can and leave the results up to God.

I pray I have written the words that God wanted and I will leave you with our memory verse from church this morning...

Psalms 37:4-5

Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.  Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. 

Feels like time is standing still...

I haven't made a blog post in awhile because frankly there isn't much to talk about.  We are waiting and waiting and waiting.  I feel like it's been a very methodical and deliberate wait.  We are trying not to get impatient and trying not to dwell on the time we have left to wait.  I feel like we are at the starting line of a race and just waiting for the gun to sound so we can take off.  We have already gone through the months of training and are just ready to get on with it!  We are ready to start the rest of our lives as a family of 4. 

The Thai government did make a new requirement for families in process and we had to get a psychological evaluation.  I was a little nervous about having to do it.  I was afraid that we had come this far and they would tell me that I wasn't mentally stable enough to adopt a child.  I mean after 1 year and 9 months of waiting and paper work and saving money how sane can a person be!  Thankfully I was found worthy.  I think it would be a great idea for everyone to have to under go testing and back ground checks whether your adopting or having a biological child...I think it would be interesting.

Anyway,  there has been some excitement in the adoption world.  We are fortunate to be a part of a church that has several families who have or are currently adopting.  We welcomed one of those families, the Tucker's, home from China Friday night at the airport.  Their story is one of heartache and joy and the perfect example that our plan is not God's plan and that his plan is perfect.  They brought home not one but two precious babies!  Here is a link to their blog if you would like to read their story. http://homefullofgirls.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-else-can-you-say.html  There was also another family in our church that traveled at the same time to get their little girl in Ethiopia!  They had the same gotcha day!  What a blessing from God!!!

 We are so excited for both families but we can't help but yearn for our little girl to be home too.  It has made the waiting even harder seeing 3 kiddos come home and ours still so far away.   We took the Tucker's lunch Sunday after church and we got to visit with them and see the kids for a little bit.  Isaac was sitting on the floor and Reese (the Tucker's new daughter who is just 3 months older than Lauren) reached out her arms to Isaac.  He picked her up and she sat on his lap for quite awhile.  It was so sweet to watch Isaac with her and think about the kind of big brother he will be.  The wait must be getting to Isaac too because he came home and expressed his feeling through his legos and built this scene...

Us with our luggage on the way to the airport...

Us on the airplane...

Us meeting Lauren for the first time...

Us as a family of 4 with Lauren!

  Honestly there are days that I just feel frustrated and get tired of waiting but every night my heart is convicted when Isaac and I say our nightly prayers and Every Single Night he thanks God that we are one day closer to bringing Lauren home.  I thank God that he gave us Isaac and he is going to be a great big brother!

Growing so Fast...

We received a long awaited update on Lauren Thursday December 20th which happened to also be my brother's 30th birthday!!  I was so excited!!  I had been praying to get the update before Christmas and thankfully we did!  Lauren is healthy and doing well.  It was exciting to read about her routine and things she likes and dislikes.  I was hoping to see her smile but no luck in any of our new pictures.  They did say in the update that she won't smile when strangers are around, I was glad they addressed that and it made me feel better.  I told Jason that when we actually do see her smile it will be that much more special. :)

I have never been through something that has given me such conflicting emotions like adoption.  With each step there's happiness and sadness. I am excited that we got new pictures and information but when I saw how much Lauren has grown it made me sad to realize that she is growing up without us.  She needs to come home soon...

Band Together...

After writing my last post about letting God work I happened to read a Joyce Meyer article that articulated exactly what I was trying to say but of course much more eloquent than I could ever dream of.  I hope she doesn't mind but I am going to share a portion of  what she had to say...

Joyce Meyer-  But the humble get the help.  So if your way isn't working, why not try God's way?  All of us would be better off if we'd learn to lean on God and ask for his help.  But as long as we try to do everything ourselves, God will let us.  He won't take care of our problems and worries-our cares-until we turn loose of them and give them to Him.  Either we're going to do it or God's going to do it, but both of us aren't going to.  Now, casting your care doesn't mean you can be irresponsible.  God won't do for you what you can do yourself.  You must do what you can do, and then trust God to do what you can't.  When we humble ourselves and ask for his help, then he's able to release His power in our situations.  It's only then that we can really enjoy life.

This summed up my feelings exactly.  The underlined portions are what really touched me the most.  Especially the line that says you must do what you can do, and then trust God to do what you can't.  We had done all that we could do financially.  Finally, we just turned it all over to God and boy did he provide!  WOW!  He has worked in amazing ways in the last 7 days!

Friday night our friends from Lifepoint church planned and organized a fund raiser that we called Band Together for the Fatherless.  We invited worship bands from other local churches and basically had one huge worship service.  We had 5 bands total including Lifepoint's worship band.  It was the most amazing night of worship and adoption awareness!  In between bands we either showed an adoption video including our own or spoke about adoption.  The cool thing was the feedback from the worship bands.  They loved being able to have the chance to sit in the audience and worship while the other bands played.  Which is something they never get to do.  Also, the fact that 5 different churches could come together for one cause truly showed the unity of God's people.  We heard comments like "why haven't we done something like this before"  to "we should do this next year and get even more churches involved!".  It was such a blessing to hear such positive feedback!!! 

The church took up a love offering for us and they also sold raffle tickets before the concert started.  They collected over $3,800.00!!!!!  But that's not all!!!  My sister in-law Kayla and my brother Matt had secretly conducted a fund raiser.  They bought every bottle at Wal-Mart and passed them out for people to fill with change.  There were all kinds of bottles floating around at our school and I never once saw a single one!!!  They were very sneaky!  My brother's worship band played that night and while they were on stage they presented us with the money they raised.....it was over $2,000.00!!!  I was so overwhelmed to say the least.  There were a lot of tears that night, I'll just tell ya that!  :)

So, from last Friday at the Jason Crabb concert to this Friday at our fund raiser God blessed us with just shy of $8,000.00!!!!!!! 

Just to think that we almost talked ourselves out of even trying to do a fund raiser!  We would have robbed ourselves of God's blessings!  Oh us of little faith was hoping optimistically to raise $2,000.00 maaaaaybe 3 if we were really lucky.  Once again we tried to limit the power of our Lord.  God has been so good to us and he has showed us how much he loves us in a huge way!  Also, there were so many people that showed us how much they care about us and adoption.  People who are friends, family and even strangers that have given because they have a heart for adoption.  They all will be forever a part of our story and the story that we will one day share with Lauren.  

Forever Grateful,
The Ledbetter's

The Good and the Bad...

Friday was  a day of mixed emotions, we went from starting the day hopeful to a deep disappointing low to a wonderful high.  We got our disappointing news Friday afternoon.  It was something that we have been praying for and if God would have allowed it to happen would of taken care of a lot of needs in our life, primarily financially.  Sometimes I don't understand how a door can open or an opportunity can arise and you think God had to open that door so you pray even harder and you think positively and then it's slammed shut in your face.  That's how we felt Friday afternoon.  I was to the point that I just wished the opportunity wouldn't have come up so we could have avoided the hurt and disappointment and the lack of understanding.  The "why's"  that you ask God when things don't make sense.   

We had planned all week to go to a Jason Crabb concert  Friday night.  His concert's are near and dear to our hearts because it was at one of them that the Lord spoke to me about adoption.  Every since we started the adoption process I had hoped that when the day came we received our referral I would be able to share our story with Jason Crabb.  I just wanted him to know the part that he played in the whole thing.  I had hoped that I would have the opportunity to tell him our story that night but after the bad news we got that afternoon I was fighting the urge to sit at home and pout.  It was hard not to be negative but I spent the afternoon praying for peace and reminding myself his ways are not my ways.

Once we got to the concert the opening band was still on stage singing and I saw Jason Crabb walk in the back by his merch table.  There were a few people that asked him for autographs and took pictures but not many people had seen him yet.  Jason and I talked about this being my chance if I wanted to have time to speak to him.  So, I gathered my courage grabbed the extra adoption video I burned just in case and my photo album of Lauren that I carry in my purse and headed down to talk to him.  I was able to tell him our story and the role that he played in it.  He was so nice and excited for us.  He told us he was thankful for sharing our story with him because it encourages them to hear those sorts of testimony's. I felt a weight had been lifted from my chest.  I felt as though I had accomplished what God wanted me to do.  I went back to my seat feeling a peace and calm in my soul.  When he took the stage and started singing I knew this was exactly where I needed to be.  Spending time worshiping the Lord even when we were so disappointed in the news we received today.  He sang for about 45 minutes and right before he took a break he promoted World Vision and mentioned us.  He said he was just told of a wonderful testimony about a family being led to adopt from an experience with  World Vision.  I was excited because I thought it could possibly speak to someone else about adopting.  He came back from break and finished his concert and at the very end he called for us to come up on stage.  He told the audience about us and asked me to tell them the story I told him.  I AM NOT A PUBLIC SPEAKER!!!  I couldn't believe what was happening but I had no choice!!!  It was so quiet as I walked to the microphone.  I could hear my heals echoing in my ears!!!  With every step I took I was praying to God.  I prayed for him to give me the words to say and I told him I was doing this for him and for adoption awareness.  I stepped up to the microphone and told our story.  God helped me through it without any mess ups or blunders.  I found it's quite easy to talk about something that you are passionate about.  He then asked for people give money to help fund the rest of our adoption expenses.  They put  a drum case on the edge of the stage to use as an offering bucket and while Jason Crabb was still speaking a little boy walked up and handed him 2 dollars.  It was so sweet!  He had us go down and stand by the offering bucket and asked people to come forward and give money.  It was so overwhelming and humbling!  A crowd of people came forward and dropped money in and we hugged and shook hands with everyone of them.  It was amazing to hear their words of encouragement.  There was a man who told us he had been adopted as a young child and people who said they would pray for us and asked us to pray for them.  There were so many nice things said to Isaac about always keeping his soft heart and how it all started with him and to never turn from the Lord when he grows up!  It was so touching and an experience that I will never ever forget.  We were so blessed Friday night.  Not only financially but spiritually.  We walked away with $1,121.77 that night which is huge for us but even more than that God showed us that he is right here with us.  God still has his hand on us and that gave me comfort and peace.  He allowed something to happen that was beyond anything we could have hoped for.  God is so good ALL the time!!!