God is my salvation

I finally got the call. The call that I always wondered about. When it would come? Where I would be? What I would be doing?Who would be on the other end? What they would say?

My last blog I talked about adoption frenzy, well that frenzy had spread to rest of my life. I wanted to quit my job, and sell my house, then I wanted to remodel my house, and so on. I was itchy, restless, and losing sleep. I wanted answers what was next, what did God have for me?Then one night driving home from a fondue night the Lord spoke very clearly (why does He always talk to me in the car?) He said essentially wherever I send you, whatever I have for you, is good it always is. So just stop questiioning and enjoy it. I went home crashed and slept through the night. the next morning I was sitting in my classroom talking to a women who I work with (who was instumental in Matt and I taking this journey) and I was sharing with her what the Lord had told me, then my class phone rang and it was Matt which was unusual. He said "Do you remember Baby Boy?" My mind raced he was one that we had been submitted for a couple of months ago out of Houston. The next words out of his mouth were some of the sweetest I have ever heard "We were chosen." Screaming and crying, jumping and running ensued. I got a baby. I got MY baby.

The next week was a whirlwind the lawyer from Houston came to visit. We began to ready ourselves and the house and the children for our new addition.

To give you some backstory for this next part I am going to share something I haven't shared with many. The Lord told me a long time ago that He was going to give me an Afircan American boy and I would call him Isaiah. Matt knew this my family and my caseworkers and I think most of them thought I was a little crazy.

So we get to go to Houston to meet Baby Boy (his bio Mom did not name him before leaving him at the hospital). We get there we meet him he is perfect and beautiful and ours. We are sitting visiting with the caseworker. I said "I know he wasn't named but have the foster parents been calling him anything?" She said "Yes, Isaiah" My heart stopped " From the very begining like since he was in care?" I asked while laughing (Matt was behind me holding Isaiah crying) She looked at me strangely and said "Is everything allright?" I looked at her asked " Are you a believer?" She said "Yes" so I said "Well a long time ago the Lord said he would give me an African American baby boy and his name would be Isaiah". She looked at me and said "Well I guess he was right"

And isn't He always right? Along this journey there have been more times than I would like to say when I have been jealous of other peoples stories. When the get adotpive placements I am happy with just a twinge of jealousy. A little bit of when is it going to be my turn. But as my story continues to unfold I am humbled that I would ever doubt what my Father has for me. A friend sent me an email a couple of weeks ago that said "the waiting the longing it is all part of his best". This path has been so perfect so ordained so unbeliveable.


All honor and glory forever to God the author of my faith, my life, my path, and my destiny!


Isaiah means God is my salvation

Adoption Chaser

We were not chosen for the little girl. We have also not been chosen for the next five or so adoptions we were submitted for. This is a hard process. The foster children who are currently living with us have a strange and complicated case. We have no idea if the will possibly be up for adoption or not. This is a scary process. I long for a sure thing. This is an unsure process. But this is an amazing journey. One that has made me reevaluate what I say I believe and what I act like. I have learned so much in the last year about myself, the God I serve, the things I value, about my marriage, and about the people I have in my life. Awhile ago I blogged about a verse. The Lord gave me a verse when I first started fostering " Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer." For the longest time I thought this verse was about the hope of having an adoptive child, about being patient in the affliction of waiting through this fostering process. The Lord has been working on my heart about this verse and I came to the realization (in the shower where I do all my great thinking) that my hope is not adoption, or in having a permanent family, but in the Lord, which cannot be touched by frustration, fear, or anything else. The Lord also revealed to me that that being a foster parent is not an affliction but a gift and an honor. In the last three months or so I have been an adoption chaser frantic almost that I need an adoptive placement by April. I have felt the clock ticking down because if I have one by April (which is most likely when our current placements case will be resolved) then if my foster children go back home then it will be less painful but that is not true. Having an adoptive placement will not reduce my attachment to the children I have know, and I already have something to hold onto Jesus. So I am giving up my fear, the fear that these are not my children and that my children are not coming. So that's me growing, changing, and realizing things ever so slowly. Thank God He is patient with me, and faithful, and good and in control.

Shades of Grey

I have learned a lot this year about compassion and circumstance through foster care. On Sunday when we were driving to church the Lord broke my heart for my foster parents mother and the circumstances in her life that have lead her to this place. She has been used and abused and treated like trash her whole life. The Lord convicted my heart about praying for her with an urgency. I mean I have always prayed for her more out of obligation than anything. Because honestly I would love to adopt her children. But the flip side of that is that she would have to fail at getting her children back, and suffer the greatest loss a mother can suffer. As a Christian I should want reconciliation , redemption, and healing for her. I should want her to be justified by Christ and his love and death. I should cheer her on to victory of getting her kids back. So Monday I was reading one of my favorite blogs http://buildingtheblocks.blogspot.com/ and Amy (blog author) told a story about a mother she met at a homeless shelter that had had her children removed and had parental rights terminated by the state. This further impressed the children's mother on my heart. I am so thankful I have a God who truly loves us all right in the midst of our brokenness and teaches us to do the same!
‎"You are a sinner & I am a sinner. I know you are a sinner, you know I am a sinner, but we love each other anyway. When we stop loving each other, the whole thing breaks down." Homer F. Rogers

Update

Ok so here is a quick update. Matt and I still have the little girl and boy that were placed with us in January. We are also currently waiting to hear if we have been chosen to adopt a little girl who is 1 1/2. We have been waiting for 6 weeks and hopefully we will know something in the next two. If we get to adopt this little girl we will continue to foster the children we currently have. We are excited and hopeful about this adoption. Please join us in praying for God's will to be done and that we would be conformed to it.

Ego

Mine is getting dealt with here's how.....As I mentioned before we have recently started attending a different church. This has been hard for a lot of reasons one being vanity. I was someone at Lovers Lane. I was the outreach girl, I helped orchestrate big events that were creative and kind of amazing if I don't say so myself. I was good at this and many people knew this and told me this. First I was flattered, then maybe a little proud, then it turned to pride and even a little bit of self righteousness. I would get frustrated that more people weren't involved then I would think if I don't do this it wont get done ( uhhh not true Lovers Lane has a strong outreach program) then I started to resent it I was tired getting burned out but if I don't do this what will people think and I started doing in for the praise of the people. Yuck huh? Well we left Lovers Lane (not because of this we truly felt our season there was over and I do want to say our time there was amazing and fruitful and the staff and people there are truly amazing and have been an amazing support to us in some difficult times, but leave it to me to get it twisted right?) And I am no one at my new church. I don't mean they have not been welcomed or cared for I have. But on any given Sunday I am probably one of the least knowledgeable Christians at our church. Least experienced in missions and outreach. That is a good place to be in, because it is a place of learning. It is humbling I am learning to focus on God right now and what he is doing instead of what I am doing
I also feel that the Lord has specifically told me to step down from my summer position as Asssitant Director of HEROES camp. This has also been a source of pride in my life because it truly is an amazing camp, and some one who I truly respect in my profession thought enough of me (Josh Schilling) to ask me to help him run it. This is a hard position to leave because it has kinda been my baby the last couple of years and it has been exciting to grow it with the staff. But I truly feel like I am in a season in my life where I am to rest in the Lord and find my identity in Him and not how I perform.

The title of this blog...

When I started this blog I named it shekhinah falling. I first heard the word from a guy who floated in and out of our lifegroup for a very short season and I immediately fell in love with the word and then as I learned about it I fell even more in love with it. It is a word which means glory of the Lord or Spirit of the Lord. The Holy Spirit. The guy grew up penecostal and would talk about shekhinah falling or shekhinah glory in his church and speaking in tongues and people getting healed. And no matter what I think about that I do believe that when the spirit of the Lord comes into a person or a place things shift and the atmosphere changes. The thought of this makes me excited even though I have little or no experience with this. So I decided I was going to go on a Holy Spirit quest but then I was distracted by something shiny and I forgot, this was about a year and a half ago. Let me give you some background I was raised in a pretty conservative liturgical Episcopal church. I learned a lot about God and his character and the church and doctrine during that time. Then I went to college and got plugged into the Wesley Foundation and the Methodist church. Where I have spent roughly the last 10 year learning about Jesus and God and their character. Which brings me to today at Mercy Place. I am learning about the Holy Spirit. I feel like God has brought me here to teach me thing and stretch me in ways that I don't understand. I feel it deep in my gut and heart. Seasons are ending, winds are changing, the atmosphere in my life is shifting. I am being dealt with. It is time for Shekhinah Falling.

The face of Jesus

**Disclaimer- awkward rambling post but thats where I'm at!

Lots has happened recently...we have gotten our second placement a boy almost 4 and a girl almost 2. We have been busy trasitionaing into life as parents again. I asked the Lord to bring me children before Easter and they came the Thursday before! God is so good! The kids are great and this time has definately been an easier adjustment. We have also left our church and have been attending Mercy Place which is very different than Lovers Lane. This has been quit an adjustment. We have felt the call to leave Lovers Lane for quite some time now and have chosen comfort. But two months ago the Lord made it crystal clear that we were to go and we did. It was hard to do, we have been at Lovers Lane for five years and we have some wonderful relationships there. The transition has been uncomfortable because we were so close with Lovers Lane. We have been attending the Sunday service and a small group. It is good, this is a church after the heart of Jesus and I am being challenged in so many ways. But I am out of my comfort zone and still forming relationships and I feel a disconnect from my old friends and from my comfort zone and from God.... I am having a hard time abandoning myself and just worshipping and encountering God because I am too busy watching others and feeling self conscious. All that being said I have watched and experienced som amazing stuff in the last few weeks. This morning we were singing a worship song about seeing the face of God and the face of Jesus and I was praying and and asking to see his face to experince his glory and very quickly almost immediatly like a punch to the gut I saw the face of my foster son, then my foster daughter, then my brother, then the woman that works in my classroom, then Matt, and some of the guys from the shelter and you and you and him and her. And suddenly I didn't feel so disconnected amen....

Rest in You

Well we are back on the open placement list after a two month break. The two months off were spent grieving and processing the experience having then losing the girls. I wish that I could say that I used the time wisely but I mostly shopped and watched TV. This morning I woke up early this morning to spend time with God. I intend to do this many mornings but truly do not most mornings. I listened to some worship music and read and prayed and wrote in my journal. I listened to a Waterdeep song that I have heard many times but never made much of an impact. This morning the words really took root in my heart.

All of my fears and trials Lord All of my doubts All of my shouts All of my fears and trials Lord Rest in You All of my hopes and smiles Lord All of my songs All of my longings All of my hopes and smiles Lord Rest in You You’re loving You’re patient You’re strong and true All goodness All mercy are found in You All of the praises of the Earth Rest in You All of our worries and our shame All of our hiding All of our fighting All of our worries and our shame Rest in You All of our greatest victories Lord All of our passions All that we have Everything we hold back, Oh Lord We rest in You All Praise to the One who loves me All of the nations of the Earth All of our wills All of our idols All of the nations of the EarthThey Rest in You All of the times and seasons Lord All of our griefs All of our All of the times and seasons Lord

Then I read Psalm 27 and the end of it reads
I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

Then I rolled over and checked my phone and had a bout 12 missed calls from our caseworker between 10:45 and 11:00 pm and I knew that we had missed a placement. I was so sad and frustrated and angry. But those sweet word of reassurance that He gave me early this morning took the edge off of these feelings. I will wait in the Lord and for the Lord for He is faithful....

Faithful in Prayer

I am doing ok...most days I go along fine. I mean I am trying to be "joyful in hope, and patient in affliction" its the "faithful in prayer" thing that is getting me right now. I mean it is not that I am too angry to talk to God right now. I am not. It's just that when I talk to him I talk to him about the girls and how Panda always climbed in the dishwasher while I was loading it or how Abby could take her socks off with just her feet. Or the thousand other things I remember. Then when I think about those I start crying and I am afraid that I won't be able to stop. I am ready to be at a place where these memories bring joy instead of pain, but that is not where I am right now. So I guess I am asking that you all my amazing cloud of witnesses be faithful in prayer for me until I can be.

Promises

First off I want to thank everyone for the thoughts and prayer and messages. We have felt love and supported and taken care of. So thank you.....

So the girls left to go to a kinship placement. For those of you unfamiliar with foster care this is pretty typical, nothing went wrong. The state's goal is reunification and a kinship placement (placed with a relative) is closer to that than we are. The girls parents will continue to work services in hopes of regaining custody. We will not receive updates or have any contact with the girls our roles in their lives are over. We continue to pray that the Lord works a healing miracle in this family.

We are grieving this loss staying busy planning trips and we will take some time off but we will reopen our home for placement in late March. Many people have asked how we can continue to do this, or have said that they would just quit, some who love us dearly and hate to see us hurt have implored us to reconsider this path. And that is logical trust me my brain has questioned this many times why I am doing this if it will ultimately break me if i am strong enough and so on and so on....but at the end of all that my heart still knows that this is the path the Lord has set for me and it doesn't make sense in my mind but it does in my soul, and in my heart.

This morning I was reading Exodus and I was reading about how God was leading the Israelites out of bondage through the wilderness to the Promised Land. I read about how they were groaning and complaining and how God was providing for them. I thought that is nice.....then I was brushing my teeth and the Holy Spirit spoke right to my heart and he said you know I promised you a family and I called you to walk through this wilderness and I have been with you and I will continue to walk with you through this to my promise. Then my heart started pounding because We are the Israelites and we are walking through the wilderness , and our promised child or children is the Promised Land, and then my heart was pounding so loud as I remembered how He has given provision and grown us, I could hear it in my ears, because get this, God is ...... well He is still God. Isn't it funny that was my exciting revelation this morning God is God just like He always has been.

So you see friends under normal circumstances I would also quit. But the God of the universe has offered to walk with me through this then fulfill a promise to me at the end. So I can't quit because this is just to exciting, and my children are still coming.

Also on a closing note don't feel too sorry for us because we got five months with these amazing kids, and if you knew them you know that is something to envy not pity. They taught me so much, and in some way I will always be there mother.