6 years ago...

We said "I do!"

We took very seriously the vows we made to each other that day, and we strive every day to fulfill them:

"I, Melissa, take you, Ryan, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, in failure and in triumph.  I will be faithful to you and honest with you, cherish and respect you, laugh and grieve with you.  I am confident that God has chosen you to be my husband, that together we may grow in the likeness of Christ and our home be a praise to Him.  Forsaking all others, I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."

What a blessing the past six years have been!  Looking forward to many, many more!

looking back.

Today I've been looking back. Not in the sense of Lot's wife, who was unwilling to let go of a sin filled past and move forward with Christ (Genesis 19), but in watching the hand of God at work all throughout our journey.

A year ago today, we stepped out in faith with a different agency and country than we had planned and requested our official application.  God had it planned from the beginning of time.  How little we knew....

Sending off our FIRST agency application

A month prior, we were feverishly completing an application for an agency and country we had chosen.  You see, while God had called us to adopt, we thought the details were ours to decide.  Pros and cons, spreadsheets, and comparison charts guided us to our first agency and country decision.  And God promptly closed those doors.

I remember the day very clearly.  We were waiting on approval to begin working on compiling paperwork.  It had been a few weeks since we had mailed off the application, so I had sent an email inquiry about what to expect.  An email popped up from "our" agency.  Denied.  They felt that because of our income, we would not be a suitable match for not just the country we had applied to adopt from, but ANY country they worked with.  The end.

My head was spinning.  I was confused, broken.  Did this mean we wouldn't be able to adopt?  How would God call us to something we weren't able to do?  I furiously began researching agencies that worked with our second choice country.  I sent out a few inquiries, explaining our exact situation, asking if we qualified to adopt.  A yes came back.  I explained our situation again, asking if they were sure.  YES!  God opened the door for us at Gladney, and we stepped in, the very same day the door we had chosen for ourselves closed.

The next week was spent debating between two countries that we thought would be best for us.  We talked things through with Gladney, they told us all the information about each, and we considered.  And wavered.  Neither was what we really expected or hoped, but we chose one over the other.  We scheduled our orientation for that country program, and got ready for what we thought would be a 3 to 4 year wait to meet our little one.

The morning of our orientation, our caseworker was used by God to change our direction. She explained that while we could adopt from either of the two countries we were deciding between, she felt like our little one was in another country.  And we ended up here, somewhere we never expected, but better than we could have imagined.

Had we stayed with the agency we thought we wanted, we would never meet the little one waiting for us now.  Had we chosen the country that we selected, we would have missed the child that God has for our family.  While we don't know who they are, we would have missed a tremendous blessing.  I am thankful that God's hand is so obviously present every step of this journey, and wait expectantly to see how He moves next.  I will follow!

"Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand." -Proverbs 19:21

Another week in the garden!

My "smushed" thriving lantana next to the poor over watered one that's not going to make it :)

Lotsa growing!

Training the cucumbers to climb the fence

Any ideas what's wrong with my heirloom tomatoes?  They are flowering, but not pollinating! Help!

When your cilantro looks like this, what does that mean?

My first zucchini!

Check out some other awesome growing happening through the link-up at Smockity Frocks!

a waiting heart

My beautiful "waiting" necklace arrived and I have so enjoyed wearing it every day.  While life has been crazy and hectic and a whirlwind, I find myself often holding on to the necklace and praying for our little one.  Thankful for the little things...

restless.

I know many of you out there in adoption land can identify with me. I feel like I might be going slightly crazy, but I've been assured I'm completely normal. Not being able to do ANYTHING in this waiting time is about to make me batty.

For those of you who haven't been here, I'll try to explain. You rush and fight and compile and obsessively check every piece of paper for typos and correct signatures. You get certified checks and send off every piece of information about you. You check documents off lists as each one is completed and sent off. You send email after email checking on packages, making sure they have arrived and that everything is indeed there and correct. When you are blissfully entering the land of no more paperwork after working so hard, it's a welcome relief.

And then the silence is deafening as the wait seems to close in around you. We are at the point where I can literally do NOTHING. I have nothing to collect or write or send in. There is no checklist for this point in time, no progress I can make towards meeting our little one. It's quiet. And still. And unknown.

I find myself wanting to buy things. I want to make some steps toward our child. And yet, what CAN you buy at this point? We don't know the gender of our kid, their age, their size. Will we need a crib, or a toddler bed? Will they still be in diapers and need formula to give them nutrition they have been missing? What kind of toys would be age appropriate, when they could be 9 months or 3 years old? It's hard when you are fighting in your heart for a little one you've never met, but can't express that fight outwardly in any way.

And I did find a few things I could buy. First, for myself (click on the pictures for links if interested):

I found this beautiful necklace from Fingerprice on etsy to wear in honor of our brave little one that I am fighting for in my heart. I had the heart painted red. Rational or not, it helps me feel a little closer to them. :)

And then, a few books for our child. Because you can never have too many books!

 But most importantly, God spoke to me this morning about my heart being focused on the wrong things.  Letting the waiting time become an idol in my heart does no good. 

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." -Psalm 37:4

My heart must be delighted in Him and Him alone.  I'm working on allowing Him to be more than enough for me during the wait, rather than running ahead or wishing for more.  Would you join me?

My Week in Review

My friend Amy at Filled With Praise hosts this fabulous weekly link up each Friday-Sunday to help us stop and reflect on our week, and what we can learn (because there's always at least one little nugget of truth waiting for us!). Before you come join us in the fun, here's my high, low, and lesson learned from the week...

{High}

This past weekend, we held a DNOW weekend for our students.  As a part of the weekend, we helped the students with a mission project where we collected non-perishables for the food pantry that feeds many hungry families each week.  They collected over 720 items!  It was great seeing them put their faith in action!

{Low}

I've had a pretty great week, and it was hard to think of a low.  This one actually makes me laugh a little bit, but it's still a low... :)  If you remember back when I planted my garden, I planted four lantana plants in pots.  3 of the pots had self draining systems, while one was missing out.  We loaded up some rocks in the bottom of one to help the soil to drain, and planted away.  Fast forward to a few weeks later, and I have 3 dead lantana plants, and one that is thriving.  I'm guessing the self draining system doesn't work so well after all - my vote goes for the rocks next time!

Anyways, when the crazy storm system with the NC tornadoes blew through here, all we got was wind and hail.  The wind was so strong that it blew over our hard jeep top onto...you guessed it!  The one surviving lantana!  We repotted it after the storm, but I didn't have much hope.  Mom told me to give it some time, and the dead ones might even grow back...so I waited...and waited.. and watched those 3 pots for any signs of life, while the smashed one seemed to be doing just fine.  A week or two later, I spotted green in two out of the three, and watered (sparingly) to keep them alive.

Today, I discovered that only one of those lantanas were coming back to life.  I had been watering weeds that had grown right in the middle of the dead lantana!  Whoops!

{Lesson Learned}

Things aren't always as they seem!  I need to be sure my heart is focused on Christ, so that I can hear His voice clearly above the rest of the world, and not get distracted. 

"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." -Matthew 7:15

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." -John 10:27

FIVE!

(source)

Our dossier has been in the country with our child for FIVE months as of today!  And while it feels like things are crawling along five miles per hour since I have nothing to do to help, we know that the in-country team is working hard to find our child and match us together.  The average wait time at this point is 6-12 months, which means next month we are in the WAITING ZONE!  While it may still be a long wait, we wait in hope, knowing that God has our best, and our child's best, in mind!  Our job during this waiting time is to focus on Him, seek Him with our whole heart, and follow after Him!

"'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.'" 

-Jeremiah 29:11-13

weeds.

 (source)

These tree seeds look innocent.  Even a little fun and whimsical as they dance through the breeze.  I collected them by the handfuls as a child and watched them twirl to the ground as I threw them as high as I could.

I noticed them finding their way into my garden after we had first planted.  A few of them floated in.  Followed by hundreds more, resting on the top of my garden soil.  I asked my husband if I should take the time to pluck each individual seed out, and he told me not to worry about them.  And so they stayed.

And now I wish I had sat down by my garden that first day to remove each of these little things.  Because now, they are not just little seeds, but they have sprouted to tree seedlings, threatening to slowly suck the life out of my other thriving plants as they drink up all the water and hog all the nutrients in the soil.  They are taking over.

And so it is with my thoughts and attitudes.  The smallest grumble or moment of selfishness seem harmless enough.  But when I leave them unchecked and refuse to remove these attitudes at the very first notice, they grow.  And take root, produce some ugly weeds of sin in my life. They take my energy and efforts away from God's purpose for my life and focus on me. 

Instead of allowing my desires and attitudes to grow wild in my life, I'm trying to remove my sinful self, weed by weed, and allow Christ to shine through - the true beauty in my life.  I want to be open and available to bearing the fruit that Christ has called me to, not so overtaken by my desires and attitudes that I am a tangled mess of deadness, good for nothing.

While weeding can be dirty and hard work, it's necessary for the greater good of the garden.  So too in my life.  Coming face to face with my sin is ugly, and it's hard to remove it from the core, but it is so worth it to be available and ready for the work that God has for me!

"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing."

-John 15:5

How does your garden grow?

Back on March 19, here's where we started:

 And on May 3, here's where we are now:

 

 The first of the squash!

 Cucumber blossoms

 Zucchini blossoms

 The first of the Roma tomatoes

Not to mention the 15-20 strawberries we've already eaten, and the cup of sugar snap peas!  The peas are just about done I think- it's too hot for them to stick around much longer.  It's so exciting to find new things growing each day!

If you want to link up and share your garden progress, join me at Smockity Frocks for the fun!

The garden has been a wonderful distraction from the painfully slow wait.  I think it keeps me from driving myself crazy, because it gives me something else to focus on with a goal- since there is nothing I can currently do for the adoption to make it go any faster!

The latest word is that our most likely time frame for a referral is June-November.  Hearing November hurt a little.  We are really hoping to have the adoption finalized by Christmas of this year at the latest... but it's not about what we want.  We exist to bring God all the glory, and if that means waiting more than we originally planned to have our little one home with us, so be it.  I'm trying to keep my anxious heart focused on Him, the one who doesn't change, as opposed to circumstances that change daily.  While we wait, may I be found faithful to the One who has called us on this journey of a lifetime!

"I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait

And in His word do I hope" 

-Psalm 130:5