Life Update

It is hard to believe that 6 months have gone by since I have taken time to write my thoughts here!  I have missed it but also know that I just do not have a lot of consistant free time to pull togather coherent thoughts.  Sparadic is the best I can hope for but I will try to do better than once every six months.  Alot of things going on in our family life so I thought I would give everyone an update.

On September 13, 2011 I wrote a blog updating everyone on the proccess of fostering and adopting that we were in.  Almost 7 months later I am happy to report that we are only weeks away from finalizing!  The files were sent to our lawyer last week and we should have a court date for finalization this next week.  It has been 16 months since we brought this little amazing gift into our home.   In some ways the proccess takes so long and is so fustrating and yet how quickly these months have flown by. I can't wait to post pictures of our littlest gift!

In March, we moved from our home of 18 years to a house three times the size in the town where my husbands business is located.  We now are just five blocks from his work.  We are loving the space and loving the community.  It was very emotional for us to leave the our home but I am hopefully, that this will become the home of all of our hearts and am very thankful that our dear oldest daughter was here to participate in the move and is able to live in the new house for several months. I wanted this to feel like her home, not the home her family moved to!

Dreams Coming True

Dear friends are close to being able to finalize the adoption of two children who have been in their home for over a year! It is an amazing, wonderful thing to watch and experience as God knits a family together out of brokenness into a place of joy. In many ways we have walked through our journey of adoptions together. There have been numerous text messages and phone calls with every up and down of the process. We understand that even "good" news is emotionally difficult to process. The reality that we live with is that our joy is the result of another family disintegrating to the point that their legal rights are terminated. We learned from another friend last night that after almost 2 years of being in process there will be termination hearings this month. Their journey has had many stops, starts, and changes in direction but they will hopefully be adopting the three little ones that they have grown to love.

It is not an easy journey. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a journey that is close to God's own heart and it has made all of our faith deeper and stronger. "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. I have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ I have been set into the family of God. I have been adopted and made a child of God (John 1:12). I am an heir in grace (Romans 8:17) . I am a fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household Ephesians 2:19). When we pursue adoption we are mirroring to the world God's plan for mankind, to adopt each of us into HIS family.

An Update On Our Adoption

Almost nine months ago, I had the incredible experience of driving to the hospital with my husband and an empty car seat, only to return home with a newborn baby girl we call Lilly. We have poured our souls into this precious child and wondered at the future. Will she stay or will she be able to be reunited with her birth parents? From day to day, my emotions rock me. I can't imagine her not being here and being part of our family.

It is important to know the truth because it is the truth that anchors our faith. I have to remind myself, sometimes hourly, that as much as I love this child, she is loved infinitely more by her heavenly father. He has a plan for her life. She is not being tossed to and fro on man made waves. I also have to believe that although that plan may not include us in the future it has included and blessed us greatly in the last nine months. To be honest this has been an incredible struggle for me and while I type these words with complete faith today, I may very well be on my knees tomorrow wanting my own desires to be met.

There was an initial permanency hearing where termination was requested for one parent but an extension was given for the other parent. The social worker did not even have the courtesy to call and tell us what he had planned. Despite reassurances from the GAL offices just the week before that they would be requesting termination. A new permanency hearing was scheduled for four months later. Many things can change in four months. In our case the parent who was granted the extension went to jail. Unfortunately the wheels of bureaucracy turn slow and while they are now going to request termination from both parents they are not changing the court date. This will push the adoption finalization into sometime next summer. It seems so far away and the months between now and finalization filled with uncertainty. We are trusting God each day to finish the work that he has begun in our lives and in her life.

"Adoption is Redemption"

“My friends, adoption is redemption. It’s costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can’t even really appreciate or comprehend it.” From Praying through adoption by Michele C. Scott.


I can testify to the truth of this statement on several levels. First as a redeemed sinner for whom Christ died. The magnitude of the sacrifice He made for me is unfathomable. Because of his sacrifice I have been adopted into the family of God. Secondly as an adoptive mother. The process has been and is costly. It has cost us time as we deal with many doctors, social services, visits with birth parents, therapists, court appearances and constantly fluxing and changing schedules. It has cost us sleep as we stayed up well into the night praying over children who had severe nightmares and traumas that took months to work through. It has cost us relationships and activities. It has been exhausting physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It has been expensive and it has been outrageous at times. The process is filled with uncertainty and no guarantees. Every day it seems there are highs and lows as we ride the roller coaster. We are now in the process of our third adoption and the hills remain steep. We are trusting God for his will to be done, his glory to be shown and his timing to be the perfect timing even when we can not see how it will be accomplished.

It continues to be costly, exhausting, expensive and outrageous as we learn to parent our two adopted children whose needs and issues from their earliest living situation have left them with scars that will need much time to heal. It continues to be all of those things as our three oldest children adjust and continue to adjust to having much younger siblings. Our family looks radically different than it did two years ago. Our home is radically different. Praise God! Without this experience, we would not have grown as deep in our walk with Christ. Our faith would be smaller than it is now. I am thankful everyday for the blessings that adding these three little lives to our home has brought to our family.

Waiting

We entered a season of waiting over a year ago and have watched as prayers have been answered and our lives so blessed by our two newest children. God has truly been Good to us! The waiting continues as we fall in love with a little sweet baby in our care and wait once more for God's plan to be unveiled to us. Waiting is hard. Harder still to know that God's plan may not be the plan that our hearts desire. He could very well ask us to let go of that which we have grown to love so much and in the dark of night we question, ponder, and wrestle in the spirit. We confess our fleshly weakness and pray for clean hearts, hearts that seek God more than our own will. Hearts willing to surrender to Him. What I liked about this poem is its reflection on my own experience. I have learned more about who God is in the last year than in the previous ten. While I still don't understand prayer, I prayer fervently and have felt the result of a deepening relationship. God uses everything, including and maybe especially waiting to His glory! Waiting On The Lord Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried. Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied. I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate, And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait!” “Wait?’, you say, wait!” my indignant relpy. “Lord, I need answers, I need to know why! Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard? By FAITH I have asked, and am claiming your word.” “ My future and all to which I can relate Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to WAIT? I’m needing a ‘yes,’ a go-ahead sign, Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.” “And Lord, you promised that if we believe We need but to ask, and we shall receive. And Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry: I’m weary of asking! I need a reply!” Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.” So, I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting. . . for what?” He seemed then to kneel and His eyes wept with mine, And he tenderly said, “I could give you a sign. I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun. I could raise the dead, and cause mountians to run. All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be. You would have what you want . . but, you wouldn’t know ME.” “You’d not know the depth of my love for each saint; You’d not know the power that I give to the faint; You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair; You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there; You’d not know the joy of resting in me When darkness and silence were all you could see. “You’d never experience that fulness of love As the peace of my Spirit descends like a dove; You’d know that I give and I save . . . (for a start), But you’d not know the depth of the beat of my heart.” “The glow of my comfort late into the night. The faith that I give when you walk without sight, The depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked Of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.” “You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee, What it means that ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ Yes, your dreams for your loves ones overnight would come true, But, oh, the loss! If I lost what I’m doing in you!” “So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see THAT THE GREATEST OF GIFTS IS TO GET TO KNOW ME, And though oft may my answers is still but to WAIT.” “And though oft’ My answers seem terribly late, My most precious answer of all is still, “Wait.” ~Russell Kelfer~

Adoption Day!

Yesterday was adoption day and here it is! My first official posting of our two newest children in a family photo on my blogspot! You can expect many cute photos of these two in the future!

We were so blessed by the attendance of our family and friends to watch the proceedings. We asked our older children if they would like to testify today and they were pretty sure that they would not. When we got to the court house our lawyer asked them and again they said no. But then he has asked our dmd again and she said yes. She gave the most beautiful testimony and looked so sweet and innocent on the stand! Then previously dys took the stand! He looked so handsome! The judge commented later that they had given the most wonderful testimony of any older children she had ever had testify in an adoption. Several of our friends stood up and testified and brought tears to our eyes. The judge commented on how many people came to support us and then commented on how impressively well behaved all the children were. She loved toddler girls dress and commented on how cute the kids looked. All of these positive comments were an answer to prayer! Many of our friends were able to join us for lunch afterwards at Fudruckers. We are planning a big bash at our church this weekend complete with a bounce house for the kids.

It is starting to sink in, but it is overwhelming. God has blessed us so much in the past year. We have received the desires of our heart. They are ours.

Funny side note: On our way home from the adoption we stopped at Target and previously dys bought his legal new brother a dart gun. Mr. joked that you know you are a redneck when you buy your kid a gun on adoption day!

Highlights of my week from our littlest man

I just love the stuff kids say! Our littlest man has quite a few things this week that I want to remember!

He was going to the bathroom so I was sitting on the floor by him holding the baby. He looked at me and said, "God made the baby." I repeated it to make sure I heard him right and I had! He then told me that God had made me and papa and his cousin Paige. Then he said, "God put my arm into my shoulder!" Wow!

We had to take his sister to the Dr. this week and as Mr. was at a show I took all the children with me! We were sitting in the exam room while she was being examined when he looked at me incredulously and said, "Mom, Emily is not even crying!" We hope this is a turning point for him! He cries and screams when we park at the Dr.'s office.

Today at lunch a huge FIRST! He looked at me and said, "I love papa. I love you to."

Adoption update

In June, a trial was held to determine the fate of the two children whom we had been caring for in our home. DHS and the states attorney recommended the termination of parental rights. Several months later the court affirmed their opinion and ordered the termination. The next step in the process was for the parents to appeal to the appellate court who had 90 days to make a decision. The appellate court issues opinions every two weeks so we have been watching on line, looking for our case. In December the dads termination was affirmed but we had no sign of a decision on the mom's appeal. When a decision had still not been issued this month we decided to call the states attorney and find out where things stood. Come to find out the mother had filed a notice to appeal but had not filed an actual appeal therefor the termination was complete. The legal review called a precido was already done and there were no other legal issues that needed to be resolved. The kids are legally ours as soon as we are able to sign the papers. You will know as soon as this happens because I will be free to post pictures of these most adorable little ones!

God has been so good to us!

Guess what we have at our house

Its a baby girl!

Life Changes Part Two

I like to dress nice on a daily basis. Even if I am working around the house, you will find me in a skirt, hair done and make up on. It was not always so. When the children were little I lived in a fuzzy green jogging suit. It was functional, warm and washed well. Then one day my calm and unopinionated husband informed me that he did not like the jogging suite. So, it was an odd day that found me unshowered, hair in a pony tail, dressed in workout Capri's and a stained shirt. When the phone rang, I answered it despite the toll free number. I had started answering toll free calls because the foster care agency calls came from a toll free number. Better to hang up on a telemarketer than miss a call I had decided. They identified themselves and asked if I would be interested in taking a sibling pair, giving me ages and sex. I said that we would and the worker said that the children's social worker would be contacting me. I hung up not expected a call back for several hours or possibly days which was how the other calls we had received for possible placements had proceeded. In this case however, I had barely disconnected from the call when the phone rang and found myself on talking with a social worker who was looking for a long term pre adoptive home for a sibling set. When I told him we were interested in asked how long it would take me to get there. In total shock, we agreed to a reasonable time frame. I called Mr. right away making arrangements for him to meet me and then ran through the house screaming for DMS. His response to my news was to yell PRAISE GOD at the top of his lungs. I called a friend trying to make arrangements for DMS and found that she had two car seats that we could borrow. Dropped DMS off at friends house and raced to pick up car seats. When my friend saw me she laughed because of how I was dressed, shocked to see me looking unkept and in pants. She helped me to install the car seats as I related what details I had and off I went to meet up with Mr. It was a little bit of a drive to the town where we were supposed to pick up the children and we were so uncertain what would happen once we got there. We met the children, loaded their things in the car, signed some papers, and were off in under a half an hour. I kept turning around in my seat looking at them and I said to Mr, "I can't believe they just gave us these children!" We arrived back at the house in a state of shock and began the task of settling the children in. The next three months would prove to be a bumpy ride.



I have since decided that there really is not a good way to prepare for the experience of foster care. The classes scare you to death and scare off any faint of heart. The real life experience is vastly different in practicalities from what is described at class. Both babies were terribly sick with colds and Baby 2 had a fever. Baby 1 was traumatized and would spend the next three months waking up once an hour screaming and unconsolable. The babies lacked even the most rudumentary training for their ages. Boundaries was and is a huge issue for Baby 1 who had never had any limits up until this point. Safety was a major concern as Baby 1 did not respond to the concept of stop or the name which Baby 1 is called. There were numerous difficult behaviors between the two children. Baby 1 experienced anxiety issues. To top it all off, Baby 2 would end up in the hospital for seven days while Mr. and the older children would begin their spring travel season. Mercifully, God provided our DOD time at home and she saved the day by being able to watch baby1 while I was in the hospital with baby 2. My grandmother would pass away during this time and I would attend the funeral without my Mr. as we could not get permission for the babies to travel with us. It was during this time that I began to understand the phrase, God equips those he calls.



Where grace was needed, Grace has abounded. In settings and situations that I would not have thought possible I have been filled with the love of God and that love has passed to others. I have had compassion when I thought compassion would not be possible. And I have prayed as I have never prayed before for hours over these children. God provided meals through fellow believers for which I was so blessed. Another friend came one day just so that I could shower. Other friends phoned just to encourage me. A friend who is a nurse came just when I needed help despite being exhausted after her own 12 hour shift to help with a medicle situation that I was not equipped to deal with. I have been flexible when flexability is not at all my normal disposition. Schedules change randomly and frequently. Phone calls do not get returned and papers do not get signed when I feel that they should but they do learn to happen in God's timing, which I have learned to trust on a whole new level. Selfishness that might have gone unnoticed has been brought into the light and examined under the light. The result is change and growth as we have all had to die to self in areas that were previously unchallenged. Some areas were more painful then others!

Life Changes Part One

My friends have given a good deal of good natured ribbing lately. It seems I am not myself. I have been late to several recent events. I am not available for long phone conversations and am usually distracted while on a short phone conversation. Trying to get on my schedule requires a near Herculean effort. My house is dusty, my refrigerator is a science experiment, and the floors have entered uncharted sticky territory! I made a late house payment, the first in the 17 years of our home ownership. I have lost more items in the last two months than in all my previous years combined. If they give me information and I am not writing it down I claim no responsibility for it. If I write it down, there is only a 50 percent chance that I will be able to find the paper and understand what I wrote. My pantry is a disaster. There are bags under my eyes and I am exhausted by 5 PM. There is no longer a need to count sheep. All of my clothing has become stained and I frequently find myself disheveled. I can not remember if I put make up on or not and have left the house several times only to discover it was not. This is not the life I have carefully cultivated. It is stressful, wild, sometime out of control, and more wonderful than I ever thought possible. I sit down in a rocking chair with their little warm bodies cuddled in close to mine, feeling them fall asleep and I thank God for the opportunity to touch these little lives.


Some people have admired what we are doing and even gone so far as to say we are attempting to earn our sainthood. Others fall back on the special person clause. The same clause is used to cover home schooling and staying married and faithful. It is usually preceded by the comment that they could never do whatever it is you are doing. Neither would be true. I am not trying to earn sainthood. I can't earn my way to heaven because Christ has died for my sins. I am not a special person. I am an ordinary sinner, saved by grace who is trying to live her life out as a follower of Christ. The only thing special about me is that Christ lives in me!


Another friend asked me how I was protecting my heart in case the babies are returned to their parents. I am not. I have given them my whole heart, just as Christ gave his whole life, for them. If Christ could fill me with such love to share, then he will be with me through whatever he has in store for me. It is a soul searching thing to have what your heart has desired for so long, and then have to ask, what if. What if God is only giving them to me for a season. What if they have to go back. Can I give them back and still love God? Could my heart survive such pain and loss without bitterness at God taking root? I have to trust that if that is God's plan, he will walk with me through it. God and I are on a journey together.

The journey started 11 years ago when I accepted Christ and he changed me from a feminist working woman into a woman who loves her husband, her children and her home. I did not know at one point in my life that children were a blessing from a God and by the time I had discovered this truth we had already taken steps to ensure that we would not have any more. It has been eight years on this leg of the journey. We would discuss adoption, reversals, foster care off and on over the years but never seemed to be in the same place and at the same time. Finally last fall we were in agreement that we would pursue foster care and hopefully, adoption. We signed up to take the required classes. Ten weeks of three hour classes for a total of thirty hours. A home inspection and hours of one on one time with a social worker who would create our home study. By January we were licensed and waiting for the phone to ring.

I spent a lot of time waiting. Eight years waiting for the door to open for the opportunity. Thirty hours of class waiting to be licensed and now the wait would continue. The phone would ring, but not bear fruit for various reasons. Raising hopes, dashing hopes. Hours of prayer, waiting. I learned that I wanted God's will more than my own. And I waited.

Life Changes

Three weeks ago I was having a down day. My heart was heavy and I wondered if we would ever have the opportunity to adopt or to care for children in foster care. All afternoon my heart was filled with prayers to God. I shed many tears begging God to create in me a desire for His will in my life over mine. That same afternoon we received a call about a possible placement. We did not receive those children or the child from the next phone call. Those calls and their timing were a clear signal to me that I was not forgotten by God and that He did indeed have a plan for us. I received peace that day. Two weeks ago Monday, our lives were forever changed by a phone call asking us if we were interested in a long term pre-adoptive placement for a sibling pair. Would we drive to a nearby town and pick up two little babies in need of our care? With one phone call God closed many doors and clearly directed our steps to the path He has chosen for us. I said yes and within a very short amount of time we were on the road to pick them up.

The last fourteen days have been intense. Neither baby sleeps all night. We have had to adjust and learn the children's habits and behaviors, likes and dislikes, and they have had to adjust to us. Then yesterday one of the babies was admitted to the hospital. We have definitely redefined what normal is for our family. We are tired yet exhilarated, exhausted yet filled with joy. We do not know how long these two will be with us but we are pouring love and teaching into them knowing it will not go to waste.

The timing is not ours. Mr. as well as DMD and DYS leave town on Tuesday for three weeks. I may be trying to care for a toddler with a baby in the hospital. Providentially, our DOD came home Friday night and will be around next week and is willing to help. I was on the Easter committee at church to decorate and serve Easter breakfast. Two of our children are participating in the Easter cantata this evening. DYS is playing Zachius. We were hosting Easter dinner at our house this afternoon and DYS was having his family birthday party. I could look at all of those things and think the timing is all wrong. We watched the Young Billy Graham Friday evening and I was particularly touched by the scene in which he is saved. The evangelist points at him and tells him that he was not sitting there on accident. That two thousand years ago God had planned for him to be sitting there. That is how I felt when I woke up this morning in the hospital with this little baby. I am here in this time and this place for this purpose.

Guess what came in the mail today.......

Pro Life Sunday

Every day 4,000 babies are murdered in the womb in this country. This is a statistic that every pro lifer is familiar with. Once upon a time it was difficult to prove that a fetus was a baby. The abortionist called the baby a blob of tissue. Today's technology has proven the inaccuracies of that concept. 3-D imaging, prenatal surgeries, and continuing technological care of preemie babies leaves little doubts that the "blob" of tissue is indeed a human being. The argument shifted away from the issue of viability to the issue of woman's rights. It is here that the pro life movement has fallen short.

The pro life movement has failed to acknowledge that for EVERY baby that is aborted there is a WOMAN. They yell at the culture about the life of a baby, bill boards proclaiming that its a baby not a choice. The pro life movement has succeeded in this area. No one doubts that it is a baby which makes that theory an argument that is seldom brought to the debate floor. However, the pro life movement continues to use this same tactic. What about the mother. Until we reach out to woman, those who have already suffered and been wounded by an abortion, those who would consider abortion as a viable alternative to their circumstance and those who love the woman in those circumstances we will not win the lives of babies or the hearts of their mothers!

For every baby that is killed there are grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, husbands, or boyfriends whom this act will forever define. The statistic is that 1 out 4 woman have had an abortion. The statistics run across the board and include woman sitting next to you in church. Multiply the number of people affected by that decision and every single day upwards of 40,000 people are affected by that "choice". For these people there is only three realities to living in the aftermath. They can harden themselves to the reality they know in their hearts and deny any wrong. They can admit the truth to themselves and live with the guilt and shame they feel which will keep them silent and unable to pass "judgement" on others by voicing their experience. Or, the final choice is to find forgiveness and healing in Christ. For these woman and their families the statistics do not matter because they are the statistics.

Our culture will never pass a law making abortion illegal. To do so would be to convict millions of people of murder. Those people are not going to vote for legislatures who are willing to attempt to pass such legislation. Knowing this is true many pro life advocates have decided that they should pursue a law that would make exceptions because they feel this has more opportunity to be passed. It has no hope of working and is hopelessly flawed. So how do we reach the millions of people affected by abortion in this culture and convince them to make the change. I would say, that we have to convince them that they have been wronged, lied to and damaged. We have to convince them the truth of forgiveness and help them heal. We have to get the truth to them and bring the abortion industry out of the dark, out hiding and into the light. We have to educate the culture on this multi million dollar industry, the health issues surrounding it, and the damage it has done to woman. The pro life movement needs to become the movement that loves woman!

Friends don't let friends have abortions.