Friday News

Do you know what this means for our family?

Hint: Read the tagline on the shirt.

This post doesn't have to do with Ordinary Hero, but they have some incredible shirts available on their website

Sweet Kisses and Football

A personal struggle of mine is work/family balance. I love my work. I love my family. How do you balance the two?

So, last week I decided to stay home from the boys' football game because I had a conference call. Do you know what I missed? I missed Stephen scoring two touchdowns. I was so disappointed. I thought, "This may never happen again and I missed it!" Bummer!

I emailed my team and asked if we could move this week's meeting by 30 minutes. I would still miss about 15 minutes of their game, but I was determined to at least go this week. Our conference calls have been at 8 every week and I pushed this week's to 8:30. So there I sat at 8 pm tonight watching Stephen's game and he made a touchdown at 8 pm on the dot. Sweet kiss from God! I am thrilled that I got to see it with my own eyes and thankful for a mission team that's flexible.

It's times like these that the Lord reminds me that He does care even about the little things. I saw the sun today setting in the sky and I was reminded just how big God is. Then God let me see a touchdown at 8 pm right before I walked out the door and it reminded me how small I am compared to our great big God, but He loves me. Oh, how He loves me!

When God Hurts Your Feelings

Crazy title, I know. This post is written from a very raw spot that God is continuing to heal. I thought the wound had been healed, but over the last month, He has shown me that the complete healing hasn't come...maybe it never will.

I think about Joseph being thrown in jail, about Job losing everything, about John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ and then losing his life. These stories make me realize that my story doesn't even compare. But on some level, I think their feelings must've been hurt. They must've wondered why God's plan was unfolding the way that it was.

A couple of weeks ago the theme in our Bible study was "You have to move past your devastation with God". This surfaced all types of emotions, one being infertility. If one more person tells me that when people adopt, they end up getting pregnant, I just might cry. We've adopted three times and we're not pregnant. We've been "unprotected" for 15 years (okay, that's too much information...so sorry). God has chosen to create our family in a different way and deep down, I'm okay with that. Deep down, I believe in the sovereignty of God and I know that the three children living in our house were ordained as ours from the beginning of time. Their adoption stories are some of the best around and I love to share them with anyone that's willing to listen.

And so I'm okay until someone who doesn't even want to be pregnant gets pregnant and says, "We weren't even trying". Or I find out that a 14 year old girl is pregnant. Or when I read a verse in the Bible that says, God closed her womb. Honestly, that hurts my feelings. I don't understand why God closed my womb and continues to allow this place of infertility to be a wound that continually gets opened. I thought I was over this...honestly, I don't want to go back to the newborn stage...it was hard!!!! But sometimes I just wonder, why God? I cannot listen to the song Blessings by Laura Story and not cry. In many ways I guess our infertility is a disappointment in our lives. But yet that very disappointment gave us three wonderful and beautiful blessings!

And so...the healing begins again. For whatever reason, the Lord has allowed this place of deep hurt and longing to surface again. Seriously, I'll be 40 next year and Derek will be 45. We don't need a newborn and we're not praying for one. I am counting my blessings...naming them one by one, because I know they are straight from God's hands.

They didn't come easy and they didn't come cheap. They came with lots of paperwork and lots of anxiety. They came with tears as we tried to adjust to 3 children under 3 wondering if we had completely lost our minds and if maybe we were infertile for a reason. :) But "stinky Satan" as Elizabeth would say would like to steal my joy and make me focus on what others have and what I don't. It's jealousy and envy...it's sin! And I am determined not to linger in the sin or stay in the pit.

This is the life God chose for our family and it's a good life. Let the healing begin...again.

Philippians 3

¹⁰ I want to know Christ better. I want to know the power that raised him from the dead. I want to share in his sufferings. I want to become like him by sharing in his death. ¹¹ Then by God's grace I will rise from the dead. ¹² I have not yet received all of those things. I have not yet been made perfect. But I move on to take hold of what Christ Jesus took hold of me for.¹³ Brothers and sisters, I don't consider that I have taken hold of it yet. But here is the one thing I do. I forget what is behind me. I push hard toward what is ahead of me. ¹⁴ I move on toward the goal to win the prize. God has appointed me to win it. The heavenly prize is Christ Jesus himself.

Blessings

Have you heard the song Blessings by Laura Story? If you haven't, you need to. It's probably one of the best songs I've downloaded on itunes in awhile....

Here is my favorite section of the song

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

This is where God has me hanging out right now...dealing with some disappointments and trusting that His plan is perfect.

I'm reading a book called Honor's Reward by John Bevere and here's what jumped off the page, often God will send us what we need in a package we don't want.

Has that ever happened to you? I was just moving along through life and God grabbed my attention and said, "Hey Alicia, we have some things to deal with. You thought it was all good, but there's some cleaning up and healing in your life that needs to be done." I was not expecting that.

But oh the blessings that come on the other side of that. Really, I don't need to say it....she says it so well....

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

Blessings....sometimes they are prayers that get answered. Sometimes they are the prayers that don't get answered. Either way, blessings come, because He is faithful!

Three Rules of Obedience

1. Do what you're told.

2. Do it immediately.

3. Do it with a good attitude.

Thanks James MacDonald. We are implementing these in our house this week!

I wish I could say that it's only kids that struggle with this, but even as adults, we don't always want to do what we're told. Sometimes God has prompted me to do something and I've done it but I haven't had a good attitude or a happy heart and so it's not obedience...it's just compliance.

I still have much to learn....