Waiting for the Lord...Part 2

So this is the "...to be continued..." post from the other day. Click here if you want to read post 1. My focus for the last week or so has been a very familiar verse. One that I have always looked to for encouragement and the strength to endure.

 But this time, when I looked to this verse, I found myself feeling much less than. And I wanted to know why. So, I asked God to show me. In the last post, I wrote about how he lead me to Hebrews 12:1-3 and that I needed to make sure that my eyes were focused on the right thing.

That's easy enough to say, but how do I do that? I can fix my eyes on Jesus in the midst of my quiet time, but just being honest here, that's if I get that far. Some days even that is such a struggle. But how can I make sure that my eyesight remains fixed on Him throughout my day, and ultimately, throughout my very uncomfortable waiting period?

Although it isn't always the case, sometimes God, in his mercy, gives us the step by step instructions that we so desperately need.

1. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. At the moment, I live on the other side of the world, in a very small town, 3 hours away from an airport and with only 1 restaurant that has something that resembles chicken strips and french fries. Currently, my husband, my two boys and myself are the only foreigners in town. If anyone is tempted to say, "Where is my cloud of witnesses?" I'd call dibs. But, the truth is that the love and unity from the Body of Christ, provided by the Holy Spirit, crosses oceans and the beautiful mess called the Internet makes almost anything possible. Wherever I am, whatever season of life I am in, whether I am in church or not, I have access to the body of believers. There are people that have gone before me, that have walked the roads I am now walking, and though the situations may not be identical, there is wisdom found in reaching out to others. 

Step 1: Ask for prayer. Don't be too proud to let others know that I am struggling. Seek out people that I can trust. People that have shown me their reliability in the past. Don't keep going back to people that make me feel unworthy. But also, don't take away someone else's opportunity to minister to me and to see God answer prayers in their own walk of faith, because I am too prideful to ask for prayer.

2. Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  Like many verses in the Bible, I've read this part many times. However, I have this uncanny ability to only want to focus on the parts that give me warm fuzzy feelings inside. Right?

As I meditated on this segment, I began to see sin in my life that was completely holding me captive. Things that weren't bad from the outside, but that were eating me away from the inside.

 Let's just get real here. 

Eating anything that I can get my hands on. At midnight. 

Scrolling through Facebook and reading the same posts for the 10th time because it's the middle of the night back home and no one is awake. Those aren't my kids screaming at each other in the other room. I need to click refresh one more time, just in case there is something new. 

Staying up way too late, because that's when people back home actually ARE awake. 

Constantly comparing my journey with someone else's journey. 

Getting frustrated when someone else advances to their next step...when it's THEIR TURN and it's due time!! 

Surely I can't be the only one? Maybe I am the only one, and if so, then the 2 people that are reading this can totally judge me. 

It's ok. I deserve it.

Um, Netflix. (I didn't really just say that, did I?) 

Basically, doing anything and everything to ease the monotony of waiting, but nothing of value.

This isn't an easy part. These are all things that make me feel better, so I think. But all of these things are simply a distraction. An attempt to fill my longings with something other than Jesus. 

In the end, He is the ONLY thing that satisfies. He is my portion. 

Step 2: Be humble enough to ask God to show me what is standing in my way of letting him renew my strength. And when he reveals it, THROW.IT.OFF. Like a sweatshirt that I put on that fall morning when it was 60 degrees, but now at noon it's 90 degrees again. THROW.IT.OFF. Like a cockroach that just landed on my arm when you opened the cabinet.
THROW.IT.OFF. Like the sin that it is, that trips me up, entangles me, traps me, and causes me to miss out on seeing God in my circumstance.

Ok, you get the picture.

*Please note: I am not saying that my sin is what is causing me to still wait. I am saying that my sin is what is getting in the way of feeling my strength being renewed. Instead, it leads me to feeling like my strength is being zapped, because my eyes are not fixed on the Lord.

3. Run with perseverance the race marked out for me. Do something. Pretty simple. God has plans for me. He has a schedule for me everyday. He has an itinerary for me. And it's exciting. But I have to show up. I have to put on a bra and get out the door. Brushing my teeth is greatly preferred, but really it's not a necessity. Not like a bra.

I have to make that phone call. I have to invite those friends over. I have to go the extra mile. 

Get out of my comfort zone. Live life. Walk humbly with my God.

But I'm already so busy! Re-evaluate what I'm busy with. Does it have eternal value? Is there anything I can set aside for now to make room for something God is really asking me to do?

Step 3: Ask God to show me a direction, and then walk in it. No, run in it. It takes perseverance. But He has already set out the path for me. I just have to open my eyes to see it. Sometimes, all it takes is getting out the door, and He will show me! There are encounters to be had, people that need and want to hear what I have to say, prayers that need to be prayed, and necks that need to be hugged. This world is not lacking in need and most of the time it's harder to avoid the need than it is to do something about. I can speak that from experience. Avoidance is a tricky dance that strips me of every ounce of energy I have. Embrace the call God has on my life. Stop pushing him away.

It's a beautiful place inside the center of His will. 

Step 4: Remember that Jesus is the author and perfecter of my faith and it is his JOY. He is the one that wrote the story of my faith and He is the one that is continually fine tuning it and molding me into what He wants me to be. I am responsible for my actions and my choices, but God has written the story of my faith. Remember that. Marvel at Him. And trust Him with it. And feel the freedom of it. 

Step 5: Consider Him who endured such opposition...so that we do not grow weary and lose heart. I can always do myself some good when I take my attention and focus off of myself and look outward. Instantaneously, I am met with people and stories that have far greater trials than I could ever imagine. But no story outweighs the one of my Lord and Savior. The one who was kissed by his betrayer, abandoned by His closest friends who swore they would never leave him, mocked, beaten and killed, paying the price of sin for the arrogant people who hung him on that cross. The arrogant people like me. When I place myself in the correct posture of a crooked sinner in front of a Holy God, then and only then can I fix my eyes on Him and allow Him to renew my strength.

After breaking apart this scripture and let it turn me upside down, I went back to the original source of discomfort. Isaiah 40:31. I looked up some key words in the handy dandy interlinear app on Biblehub.com.

Those who WAIT on the Lord. To wait: to trust, hope, expect, look for, endure, remain. The root word in Hebrew refers to a twisting and stretching, the tension of enduring. It also means to be strong, as in a strand of rope. 

***Don't forget that a strand of rope is made up of several smaller strands. The more strands, the stronger the rope. Don't take my community for granted. Remember, reach out to others. We are made to walk this life in fellowship. Don't ever forget that.***

Will renew their strength. Renew: to change for the better. With all of that twisting and stretching caused by enduring as we wait, hope, trust and look for the Lord, we are bound to be changed. It's our choice if we are changed for the better or for the worse. Fix your eyes on Him. Remain in Him. Abide.

They will soar on wings like eagles. Think of a beautiful, graceful eagle that soars through the air, effortlessly. He doesn't flap his wings hysterically trying to keep himself up. He finds the thermal current of air and uses that to hold him up so that he can glide to the next thermal current. God holds me up during the entire flight of my life. I don't ever have to frantically flap my wings. I do have to do the things He asks me to, but all the while He is the wind beneath my wings. 

(You're singing it now, aren't you. You're welcome.)

I don't know if this is helpful to anyone else out there. I hope so. But if not, this is here as a reminder to me as I dive headfirst into my next waiting period. Our next step is to apply with the United States department of citizenship and immigration to grant a visa for Silas as our adopted son. This can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month or more. We received confirmation today that they have received our application and now we wait. This is one of the last and final BIG steps we have to take. And the outcome of this approval will dictate when we travel. So the temptation for me to fall apart at any moment during the next few weeks is strong, but I will keep these scripture nearby this time and I will remember what the Lord has taught me. Because I know that perseverance produces character, and character leads to hope and that hope does not disappoint. (Rm. 5) And I also know that my strength is being renewed, changed for the better, as I walk through each door of this process!

A couple of prayer points:

1. We would love to have USCIS approval by or around August 1. This would keep us inline with our goal of being able to come home in September. 

2. There are some variables in this step because we live overseas. There is a potential hold up as they might request more clarification, which will increase our time and so we are praying that, if necessary, this will be a quick hold up, or not a hold up at all.

If you are still reading this, first of all, you are an amazing friend. Really. And second of all, I know that there are people out there... strangers, very close friends and family that are waiting. Some of you are waiting for very big things. Life changing things. Things that, until you receive that which you are waiting for, you feel broken and confused and forgotten, even. I know that my waiting may not be equal to yours. I know that my situation probably seems like a walk in the park next to yours. I get that. I have been there when my world fell apart and it seemed like everyone around me was complaining about something petty. I'm promise that you are NOT forgotten. I see you and I remember you in my prayers constantly. If I don't know your situation and you would like someone to pray for you, please contact me. Reach out to someone who can walk this journey with you. If not me, then find someone. I love each and every one of you. And God does too, even if you don't feel it right now. He does.

Waiting for the Lord...Part 1

I have been chewing on this verse for a few days. Read my last post to see visuals about my feelings. 

I have been walking a journey of daily scripture writing. (Click here if you want to join me!) This month all of the verses just happen to be about patience and perseverance. Hmm. (God's pretty cool like that.) I love writing the verses because I notice things that I normally wouldn't. Especially in familiar verses like this one.

"But those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength."

This part caught me. During the 39 days while we waited on our approval, I haven't felt my strength necessarily being "renewed." I feel stressed, I feel panicked, I feel overwhelmed and emotional. I feel like I'm grasping for control but every ounce of control is just out of reach. I feel bombarded with the what ifs and the "if, thens." Renewed strength? No. Zapped strength...yes. I know that everything happens in the Lord's timing. I fully trust in his sovereignty and in his decision of what is best for my family. While I don't always like it, I trust Him. Fully. He has never led me astray. But I can't say that it's easy. And for some reason, this picture of waiting on the Lord renewing my strength isn't what I am experiencing. And then I add in the rest of the verse. "...They will soar on wings of eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint." Like I said earlier, I'm a hot mess compared to that soaring eagle, and I'm weary. I'm faint. What am I doing wrong? 

A couple of days later the verse was Hebrews 12:1-3. One of my very, very favorite verses. 

"...fixing our eyes on Jesus..."

Really, that's all I need to say. There was my answer. This was why I was feeling so defeated. 

My eyes were not on Jesus. 

My eyes were on WHAT I was waiting for. My eyes were on the PEOPLE that I was waiting on. My eyes were on how much I needed to get to the next step. My eyes were on the people around me, comparing my journey with theirs. My eyes were on everything surrounding me that seemed so big, instead of being on the One who is bigger than all of that!

I was reminded of a verse I had written at the beginning of the month. Psalm 130:5-6. 

More than the watchmen wait for the morning. Let that sink in.

I'm waiting on the Lord.

I'm not waiting on an approval, I'm not waiting on other people to give us approval.

I'm simply waiting for the Lord. 

"...Fixing our eyes on Jesus..."

We oftentimes want a formula. In a world of checklists and youtube videos of step by step instructions, we read God's word and see many things we should be doing, but we don't know how. Where are the step by step instructions.

Sometimes, the only "formula" is simply to abide. When we abide in Christ, our eyes will naturally be fixated on Him. 

Apart from Him, I can do nothing.

What are you waiting on today?

No...whatever just popped into your head...That's not it.

You are waiting on the Lord. Look at Him!

Click here for the rest of the story...Sometimes, God does give us step by step instructions! 

Approved!

Such a refreshing verse. Right? Such an encouragement when times are tough.

Just what we need when the wait seems like it will never end.

The words of Isaiah that offer such a beautiful picture of the support we have from our Father.

Cue the pretty piano music...

Normally, yes. Absolutely.

But lately, I have to be honest. Not so much.

Lately, I don't feel like that beautiful eagle, soaring with such beauty and grace. 

I feel a little more like this...

This beautiful thing called the adoption process, much like many other processes in life, most of the time feels like you are flapping your wings as hard as you possibly can while going absolutely no where.

But that's not true. Because then there is that one day that finally comes. The day that you have been agonizingly waiting for. When you finally see the email in your inbox that you have been refreshing over and over and over for the past 8 hours. You have reached the next step!! Yay!! Let's celebrate!!!

For 5 minutes.

And then your mind almost immediately jumps into thinking about what's next? 

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Why? 

Why does it have to be this way? Why can't I enjoy the good moments? The HUGE moments!

It's hard. There are still so many more steps, so many people to rely on before we can get to our boy. But while there is still so much to do, we have come SO far. And really, we are almost there!! And for now, I am choosing to celebrate. Because God has done great things!!

We are so excited to announce that today, we received the official letter of approval (LOA) from China saying that we can adopt our sweet Silas!!

Thank you Father!!

Click here to see Post 1 and Post 2 of what the Lord has been teaching me about waiting.

DTC!!!

The past couple of months have been a wild ride!! We have seen God answer so many prayers! We are so happy to announce that today we are officially DTC!! For those outside of the realm of adoption acronyms, this means that our Dossier has been sent To China! This is one of the biggest steps throughout the entire process. At this point everything is completely out of our hands for now and we wait mercilessly for the wonderful workers at the CCCWA offices in China to do their part. This is also often described as one of the hardest parts of the wait because you move from busy, busy busy with the never-ending paper chase to a screeching halt. But it doesn't matter if the wait is a breeze for you or agonizing, any person who has been through the process knows how much we wanted to jump up and down and scream for joy at seeing those 3 letters in our inbox this morning!!

This last few weeks, we have had a few more ups and downs. After we found out that we had been awarded the $4,000 grant, we emailed our agency and asked what was next. They had to first request the money. This organization likes to wait to send the money once the family is within 4 months or less of traveling. Since we weren't DTC yet, we weren't sure if we would be considered within that time frame yet. But since we needed this money in order to be DTC, our agency said they would go ahead and request it. Thankfully, they said that they would disburse the funds now, but that it could take up to 4 weeks for the money to arrive at the agency. Cue the sound of screeching tires in our minds. We were so close, and yet these few words once again put us on edge. The agency needed the money in their account in the next 8 days in order to be able to send our paperwork "as scheduled." Whatever that means, right?! So we did what we could do. We prayed.

Fast forward those 8 days. We woke up that morning feeling a little ho-hum because the deadline had arrived and we hadn't heard anything about the money arriving. We had been checking our email almost first thing every morning just hoping to see something, but for some reason, we didn't that morning. We went ahead and had breakfast and did our morning things. And then all of a sudden, Justin says "Whoa!! Do you see this?!" We had an email informing us that we had been awarded a $10,000 grant from another grant organization that we had applied to. We sat stunned for a few minutes, and let the fact sink in that this meant we were for the most part fully funded for the rest of our adoption! Then the first person to move was actually our son Stephen. He got up, jumped up and down, and said "we are getting this boy!" while I sat there crying.

I immediately emailed our agency and told them the news and they replied back saying that they had the check 2 days before but weren't allowed to say anything until we had been notified from the organization. All we could do was laugh. Because sometimes God is just hilarious in the way that He answers prayer!!!

This was on Wednesday, May 18. Then three days later on Saturday, we woke up to an email that said "Rejection at the Embassy" in the subject line. My heart sank as I read that the Chinese embassy was rejecting 3 of our documents. In order for them to authenticate that our documents were real and legitimate, they have to be notarized by a US notary. Well, because we live overseas, we don't have access to a US notary, except for the Consulate. So back in March we had taken the 7 hour trip to our US Consulate and paid $300 USD to notarize our documents by a US notary. But the new Chinese consulate in DC said that they would not accept any documents that originated in another country, even though they were notarized at the consulate. Yeah, don't ask. It's not even worth trying to explain sometimes. Fortunately, only 3 of our documents were affected by this and they were easily reproducible. I replied to her email and ask if we needed to make a new copy and send them to our Power of Attorney in the States in order for them to be notarized there and therefore become more "legit" than if we had signed the papers ourselves here. Ha! She replied back within a few hours and said that she had heard back from the CCCWA (Chinese Adoption Association) that they would accept the documents as is, notarized by the US Consulate, without being authenticated. YAY!

So here we are, today, May 25, with three big letters hovering in our minds, and for the first time in months we feel like we are finally able to completely exhale. And we celebrate. No matter what lies ahead, because we are sure that there are plenty of other bumps waiting to be jumped over, we are incredibly grateful for today. And this whole thing is finally beginning to seem real.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! I woke up this morning in a hotel because we are on our way to some meetings. In many ways, it's just another day for our family. But we also love to travel and so it's an exciting time when we get to go somewhere new. When I woke up this morning, we had a message on our phone from Justin's brother asking if we were awake. I happened to be the first and only one up. I don't sleep very well in hotels most of the time. So I replied to his message. He said that they were just so excited for us about the news! The only problem was that I had no earthly idea what the news was. We had a great friend that owns a restaurant in our hometown that had agreed to do a fundraiser for us at her restaurant and we were expecting to hear news about how that went, so that was the first thing that entered my mind. When I asked him what news? He said, are you being sarcastic or do you really not know? Now my curiosity was going crazy. I had just woken up, so I didn't know anything. Well, it turns out that they had received a letter to us from one of the grant organizations that we had applied for saying that they were pleased to inform us we had been awarded a $4,000 grant!!

Once again, I find myself humbled beyond compare before a God who sees and who cares. This is officially, the second best Mother's Day I've ever had. The first best was 7 years ago, the day that my husband and I decided to put Christ first in our lives and do whatever it took to bring healing and restoration to our family and our home. We are so thankful for His provision and how He has taken a situation that seemed like a mountain to us and has tossed it aside more like an anthill!!

Humbled and Grateful

Just an update for our family's sake and anyone who is actually interested in the process that wants to read our journey, give some details about what it looked like to get here.

We began this journey, as most families do, with a timeline in front of them and high hopes that ours would actually be smooth, unlike most other families that seem to hit huge bumps in the road. HA. First mistake. Actually, we knew that obstacles and hurdles were going to come up, and we have had our bumps. Our wiggle room is getting smaller and our next steps are feeling farther and farther away. We spent the majority of the month of March feverishly applying for grants. We applied for a total of 10 grants. To the unsuspecting eye, that may not seem like a big deal. It's just an application. In one sense, yes, that is true. But the truth is, these applications are almost just as involved, if not more on some levels, as the initial application to begin the adoption process. And while each organization asks the same general questions about finances, testimony, calling, parenting and lifestyle, the questions are worded just differently enough that you have to write your answers differently for each one. While we did copy and paste a lot, it was still a difficult task. But we got them done. We had to step out of our comfort zones and ask for even more references, often having to burden the same people again and again to fill out a reference form. Oh and it needs to be turned in like now. :/ But fortunately, we have some great friends and leaders who went above and beyond to help us out.

The next task was fundraising. The month of April we poured ourselves out completely asking anyone and everyone that we knew and even those that we didn't know if they would be willing to donate an item or service to an online auction that we were hosting. It was a TON of work, but in the end we ended up collecting over 100 items and we were able to raise about $3,500. We also sold T-shirts, which astonishingly brought in almost $900. We are overwhelmed at the generosity of friends and complete strangers!! During this time of fundraising, I think we pushed half of our Facebook followers away and I'm sure we were deleted several times. But that's ok. We also saw God provide in really big ways through people that we didn't even expect and we are so incredibly thankful!

When we started the process, we really didn't think that we would be able to fund raise money successfully. First of all, we lived overseas and so "traditional" fundraisers were obviously out of the question. And second of all, we have spent the last 3 years raising money for ministry and our circle of influence are already so incredibly generous to give to what we do. But we did fundraise and were pleasantly surprised with the success. We could not have done it without the help of our friends and family, mainly our brother and sister in law, who were themselves in the process of adopting. The biggest fee that we have had to date was certainly our agency fee of $6,000, which had to be paid before our agency would begin work on compiling our Dossier packet. This seemed almost insurmountable to us, but through our fundraising efforts, very generous donations, personal savings and an organization that awarded us a $1,000 grant, we will be able to turn that in within the next week! (During our fundraising, we also received our USCIS approval, which was so exciting!!)

The next financial hurdle is a fee of $3,100 that covers the document preparation, registration and authentication. This amount had to be turned in before our agency could actually send the paperwork to China. We had been hoping that this was an amount that they could bill to our family, as they had several fees in the past. But we found out that it in fact had to be paid before they could mail the papers. This is honestly disheartening for us. We have worked so hard for two solid months, and we are flat worn out on fund raising. We know that God is the only one that can make this happen, because He is the only one that has made any of it happen so far. And deep down we know we can trust in His timing, whatever that might be. But if we are honest, we are discouraged because we feel like this just meant more waiting. More time before we could be with our son and he could be with us. We want so badly to be able to send him a message and say Mommy and Daddy are coming! But from where we were standing, already more than a month behind our timeline goal, we just know that we have to surrender our desires to God's sovereignty. We have sent out one last plea to our friends and family, and put on our best face. We are choosing to keep the faith. We still have a couple of weeks. And we know from experience that a lot can happen in a couple of weeks!

One Less

Gotcha Day. It's such a weird word for me. It doesn't settle right for some reason, but it's the word that we use. That day when all of your waiting and all of the paperwork and all of the mystery comes together and you get to meet your child and he or she officially becomes a member of your family, even though their picture has been plastered all over your house for months now. But now, it's official. On paper, not only with your signature, but with your thumbprints too. It's a big deal.

There is not a single time that I look at pictures of Gotcha days that I don't wipe away tears. Today was one of those days. I am sitting in the living room of a friends apartment, literally just a few meters away from a family that welcomed a precious little girl into their family today. I'm looking at her pictures on Facebook and just praising the Lord through tears of gratitude.

One less.

It's so easy during this process to get caught up in the paper chase, the money, the waiting, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All of that is necessary, but all of that aside, this is what it's about. One less child spending another day without a family. One less child who will never know the love of a mother. One less human being who doesn't understand what it feels like to belong to something, to be loved or to be wanted.

One less. Hallelujah, today, there is one less orphan.