Foster / Adoption Update

Today we had our home visit. This is a really casual introduction between us and the agency we have chosen. I think they do it to make sure we aren't cooking meth or have rabid dogs or something. We actually had more questions for them than they had for us. We worked out our licensing and when our classes will start. They looked around our house to make sure we had room for a child or children. We will be licensed to take two children under the age of 6. We will finish our classes by the end of April and will probably be licensed by June. We may have a baby or babies in June! We are so excited and truly feel as though this is a specific calling on our lives. We are so touched about how supportive everyone has been and truly appreciate the kind words and prayers.

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.

My First and My Best

God deserves my first and my best. Period. He does not deserve my leftover, and my trash. Though that is often what he gets. He gets my leftover time, and money and energy. I had an experience this weekend that drove this home for me. Last week I ran at a crazy speed all week. Matt and I hardly saw each other. But we had a whole weekend free. We were going to have 48 hours of uninterrupted time together. By the time Friday came I was run down and sick. I was congested, feverish, and had a headache. I stayed this way for the next three days. Sick, sad, exhausted and demanding. I realized that this is how I often approach the throne of my Savior. Who like Matt is happy to have time with me any way he can get it, and who kindly nurses me back to health. But the fact is he deserves better. He deserves my first and my best. The rest of the world can have my leftover.

Purpose

On Fridays I take the train downtown to feed the homeless. For two hours I scoop out vegetables or rice and meat for people that live at the shelter. I don't make much of a difference there. They don't need me there they are not short on kitchen staff (which is made up completely by the residents). They get the meal served whether I am there are not. I try to form relationships with the people. But they are a tough crowd...it is not only a shelter but it is also a rehab most of the people that live there are trying to get clean or stay clean. The ones that are friendly disappear after a couple of weeks. We used to pick up 3 guys on Sunday for church and we all went to lunch Matt would sometimes play ball with them. We went on vacation this summer and when we went back to the shelter they had disappeared. So much so that no one at the shelter knew who they were by the time we got back. This broke my heart. I had nightmares about where they were what they were doing or what was being done to them. So I quit going. I dropped out. I reasoned it away by saying I was too busy, but the truth is that it just hurt to bad to love those people. They were too raw, they lied too much, and then they disappeared. So after about 6 months I went back I felt drawn back. Something in my chest just kept gnawing at me to go back. So I did 4 weeks ago. My friends are still gone there is a new crop of faces some who have already disappeared. I repeat I am of no use at this place . Most of the people don't want me there if they even notice I am there. They get frustrated at me if I do not serve fast enough or if I give them peas when they don't want them, if I give them too much or too little. It is not a warm fuzzy experience. But I am drawn there and I trust there is a reason. So I go every Friday and I wear a hairnet, serve greens, smile at people who hardly ever smile back and when there is a lull I look for my friends and feel torn between being worried and relieved they are not there. I worry about them being on the street and I am hopeful that they stayed clean and reconciled with their children and family. So I scoop greens and I choke back tears, and I have to believe that God has a purpose for me to be there to cry for his children and to pray. Because otherwise I am not much good there.

A long December...

Looking back over my life I can only remember one other year where at the end of it I looked back and couldn't think of a time when I wasn't holding my breath...the year my father almost died. It seems like for the last 12 months I have watched all that I knew crumble around me. Everytime I got my head above water something completely crushing would push me back under. It seemed like my family was falling apart. My marriage suffered some devastating blows. I hated my job. I was exhausted and beat down. I was scared, and heartbroken. I cried in my car every day to and from work. I would scream at the top of lungs. I drug my self to church every Sunday and cried during prayer request in Sunday as my cloud of witnesses loved me up enough to go back into the world and do it again for a week. Then I would go to service and cry as I sang praise songs. They were prayers rather screams for strength, for faith, for peace, for humilty, for the right words, the glue to put it all back together. He answered. No it is all not back together. My marriage is growing stronger, my family is what it is, I have a better job. Things are brighter. But He is good and if everything was still crumbling He would still be good. Because He simply is. Because he never left, he listened, loved, grew me in the midst of my hell. He took my feet and put them one in front of the other. He is my Father, my friend, the great healer, He is LOVE and I am loved...Amen

I know that the title is not profound or even original. The thing is I used to write a long time ago in another life.I am going to try this. I am sure most of you think I am to young to have another life but I am not trust....So this is gonna be about whatever I see fit to write about. I am just trying sort through the thing that is my life. Here are the things about me. I love the Lord, and I am trying my best to follow Him everyday. I have been married for six and a half years to Matt. I have a brother Paul and a niece and nephew Zoey and Caleb, and a sister in law Dawn. I teach kindergarteners with disabilties. Those things are kind of the pillars of who I am. A wife, sister, daughter aunt who has been washed clean by Christ.