No news....

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated everyone on our progress.  I haven't posted because there is nothing to report.  There are delays in Thailand and the program is slowing down or grinding to a halt...I don't think that's true but it's how I feel.  I have read on numerous blogs that waiting for first approval was the hardest part of the wait and after experiencing it, I agree.

We have tried to keep ourselves busy this summer and so far we have accomplished that and had fun doing it!  We have spent a lot of time with Isaac and his baseball team.   I have come to truly value the friendships we have made with the parents on the team.  We also have been swimming although Isaac keeps having a reaction to the chemicals in the pool so he hasn't had the most fun with that.  I feel terrible for him!  He had a Dr. visit today and hopefully we have the problem figured out and it won't happen again.  We have gone to Silver Dollar City a couple of times, we love riding the rollar coasters!  And we plan on going to White Water this Saturday with my family!

Along with all our summer activities Jason has had the opportunity to purchase his own distributorship.  It was a hard decision to make because Jason has been at his job for 13 years but it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up!  So, this Friday is Jason's last day at his job and then he begins a new chapter in his career!  Wow, this was a hard one for me.  From the very first thought of adopting I have had complete faith that God would take care of us financially and in every other aspect pertaining to the adoption because I was positively sure that it is the path he wanted us to take.  Since we started the adoption process over 2 years ago I have come to realize that I was letting God have control of the adoption but in my mind I was still hanging onto everything else.  Rationally I know that I cannot control anything that will or is happening in our lives but on some level in my controlling mind I hadn't given over everything to God.  When Jason was presented the opportunity to step out and be self employed I was scared to death but we prayed about it and I realized this was my time to truly give everything over to God.  Not only to walk in faith with our adoption but to also step out in faith with the rest of our lives.  What a freeing feeling it has been to let God lead!

I will admit there are some days when I feel like I don't have the strength to wait one more day to see Lauren's face and I grow weary of the 2 plus year process, but there's always that still small voice that tells me I DO have the strength to go on because The Lord renews my strength every day, every hour, every minute.  I CAN wait on Gods perfect timing because his timing is perfect.  I love The Lord my God with all my strength, with all my soul, and with all my mind.  I am walking in faith and he will see me through.

Crazy Busy....With Baseball.

We have gotten crazy busy in the last couple of weeks, which is a good thing to help pass the time while we wait for first approval.  Isaac's baseball team has practiced 3 times a week all winter.  It got kinda rocky for them for awhile.  The facility they were using caught on fire and burned down.  They lost most all of the baseball equipment including a brand new batting cage! It was so disappointing and they had to scramble to find a new facility to practice in.  Thankfully they did and were up and running just a few weeks later.  Their team name is Smokin' Aces because they wanted everyone to know that a fire wouldn't keep them down!  After 3 weeks of rain outs in the Spring league the games finally started last week and this past weekend we were in Branson for a tournament.  The boys played great!  They won the Championship and went undefeated all weekend!  It was good to see their hard work all winter paid off.

There's nothing like watching your child succeed along with all his friends!  After they received their trophies and we took a million pictures we all went to celebrate with dinner and ice cream.  The boys ate outside and us old folks stayed inside.  I didn't think I could be anymore proud of our boys that day until Jason hit me on the shoulder to look outside, and this is what we saw.....

the boys had their heads bowed in prayer.  Thanking God for the good baseball they had played and for their food.  I scrambled as quickly as I could to grab my camera and get a picture before they finished.  I stood inside the restaurant fighting tears and said my own prayer of thanks.

As a side note the boys found out that USSSA has ranked them as a AAA team!!!!!

We are so ready for Lauren to come home so she can spend the summer watching her big brother play baseball!  We already have a Smokin' Aces shirt hanging in her closet and now she has some bling to wear with it!  Aunt Kayla had this bow custom made!!  Don't you just love it!!!!

Care Packages...

I just mailed off care package number 4 today after school, hopefully it will be the last one we send.  I'm hoping that we'll be traveling to bring her home by the next time we can send one.  I realize that I haven't kept up with posting pictures of the rest of the packages we've sent except for the first one.  So, I will give a quick recap.....

Care package #2...I had to take the book out because it weighed too much, we sent a new photo book that had Aunts, Uncles and cousins and more of us, 2 outfits, a shlumpie and a camera...

 Care package #3...we sent a recordable book.  We each took turns reading a page...

Care package #4...they have cracked down on the amount of gift items we can send.  It's only supposed to be one, but who can send a little purse with nothing in it?!  I snuck  a package of stickers and some little plastic bracelets inside  her purse! If they take them out that's ok but I had to try.  I also wrote a note to Lauren to tell her how ready we are to meet her and how much we love her and of course another camera...

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!