Plans

Matt and I are in the process of filling out paperwork in order to become licensed to foster to adopt. This the the path that God has chosen for us to receive our baby. This is a desire that has been in my heart since I was a child. My mother remembers me telling her I adopted my baby dolls. I feel a lot of things about this process and I have been asked a lot of questions about why we are doing this. People have definitely brought up all of the risks we are taking. They are all good questions and good concerns. But at the end of the day when it is just God and I talking and I say "What if my heart breaks? What if it takes too long? What if my baby never comes? What if I am a bad parent? What if I am doing this for all of the wrong reasons? What if I am not ready?" He responds with peace and it washes over me and I remember that my God is not a god of devastation and if I follow Him he will honor that. We are fostering to adopt which means that the child that is placed with us will not be available for adoption immediately but we will act as foster parents and then if the child is unable to be reunified with their parents or family they would become available for adoption. This is a scary thought. The other night I was driving home thinking about all of this and the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart and said "This is the path to your child, and if along the way you get to love a child in crisis is that the worst thing that could happen." and I decided that would not be the worst thing that could happen and that I will trust Him because as the Good Book says....

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

AMEN!

A choice

Sometimes when I am up at night worrying I wonder how much faith I really have. Do I really believe what I claim to believe? Is it enough and what if I am wrong? All of the questions that I think that believers ask themselves at one point or another. But I realized the other day that faith comes down to a simple choice. I was praying the other day to be freed from a sin that has a particular stronghold in my life. Materialism. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide me and give me wisdom that would help me to find my worth in the source of my worth my Creator. So I prayed that prayer then opened my Bible to read and opened to Psalms so I decided to read. I read to Psalm 4 v. 6-8 which in the Message translation says

Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say. "More, more." I have God's more-than-enough, More joy in one ordinary day.

Than they get in all their shopping sprees. At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep, For you, God, have put my life back together.

My first gut reaction was "What a good word from Abba...for me!" I guess that faith means that the core of my core believes that opening to that passage was not a coincidence, but a good word from the Father in response to a earnest plea from one of his beloved. And on days when I don't feel it, when nothing in my life points to it I just choose it.