I'm Believing God for Something Greater

Steven Furtick...he is one of my favorite preachers and authors.  He speaks in ways that speak to my heart.  My kids would say that he yells when he preaches, so I guess sometimes I need that.  I think he just has passion and is excited about what he's telling you.  :)

His newest book is called Greater.  It's subtitle is Dream Bigger.  Start Smaller.  Ignite God's Vision for Your Life.  The book is developed around the life of Elisha in the Old Testament.

It's a quick and great read to encourage you to keep believing God for big things.  One of the chapters is called Digging Ditches and it talks about how you have to do the work and then prepare for the rain.

Digging ditches…God has a downpour scheduled in your near future.  The deeper you dig, the greater the rainfall has the potential to be.

Sometimes as your faith is getting greater, your situation is getting worser.  Sometimes you pray in great faith, act in great obedience – and the miracle still doesn’t come.  The ditch stays dry.  You still have only one jar of oil.  Sometimes you’ve done everything you know to do and in the end you’re left with a sense of disappointment with God, even a sense that God has failed you.  And if you have never experienced a moment like that, well, quite honestly you haven’t lived long enough.  

Another chapter tells us that God doesn't waste our faith.

In not one of those instances did God misappropriate His children’s faith.  Not an ounce of it was wasted.  Even when it seemed as if He was deaf to their prayers, He was collecting their faith and making a plan to use it in a greater way.

God is working on our behalf even when our prayers don’t seem to be working at all.  Maybe one day we’ll see that the greatest setbacks in our lives were actually the greatest setups to see God’s glory in places we didn’t even know to look.

This book encouraged me to believe God for something greater.  It encouraged me not to be content with things as they are, but to keep praying for big things.  We are trying to instill that same desire in our children.  One is praying for more integrity, one is praying for more friends and one is praying for God to help him be more organized.  They are not happy with the status quo either....they want things to change.  They are believing God for something greater and Derek and I are as well.

Whenever you do what God has called you to do – in any situation, in any given moment – He will do something greater.

Green with Envy

I've read a few of Craig Groeschel's books and enjoyed them, so of course I ordered his newest book as soon as it became available.  I read it within a few weeks, but have delayed (for months) writing this post because it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

But in the spirit of authenticity, I'm going to share how this book spoke straight to my heart.  If you can't handle straight forward truth and brutal honesty, please don't read on.

It's called Soul Detox -- Clean Living in a Contaminated World.  It is broken into three parts -- Toxic Behaviors, Toxic Emotions and Toxic Influences.  The whole book was good, but there was one chapter that was shocking to me.  It was shocking because I never knew that this topic had such a stronghold in my life.

The title is Green with Envy: Scratching the Poison Ivy of Comparison.

"Envy is when you resent God's goodness in other people's lives and ignore God's goodness in your own life" Groeschel

It might be that you envy someone else's house, someone else's car, someone's teeny tiny figure, someone's financial status, someone's obedient children, someone's vacation, someone's _____________.  You fill in the blank.

For me, it was someone else's answered prayer. I felt like God was hearing everyone else and answering their prayers and ours continued to remain unanswered.  And I could give you a list of reasons why in my finite, selfish mind, God should answer our prayers.  We are serving in the church...I'm on church staff for crying out loud, we give money to missions and to the church, we go on mission trips, we sponsor a couple of children in a couple of countries, we pray for those who are sick, we reach out to those that are hurting and we buy a paper which benefits the homeless people in the Nashville community.  (My list could do on but you get the point.) I'm ashamed to admit that my list was all about what "we were doing and not doing".  God doesn't work like that.  He's probably not that interested in our check list of things we do or don't do, because that's not how His accounting system works.  He loves us whether we "do" or whether we "don't".

In all honesty, I feel like every possible facebook friend that I have that is waiting on an adoption referral has received a referral or has already brought the child home. We continue to wait.  I can rejoice with those who rejoice.  In some of these cases, I have been in the trenches of prayer with these families and I truly am happy.  But it is always a little bittersweet...there is a little sting.  Lord, why aren't you answering our prayer?  Why aren't we any closer to bringing our little boy home?  Did we hear you wrong?  Is there sin in my life?....  And the envy and comparison sets in.  And I wonder what God is doing because in my human mind none of this makes sense at all.  It doesn't seem fair.  And I find myself "resenting God's goodness in other people's lives and ignoring God's goodness in my own life". I quickly realized that I was fretting and despairing over what I didn't have and not even seeing the good that God has given.

I have a great husband.  I have three beautiful domestically adopted children that are amazing testimonies of God's faithfulness and that He does answer prayer.  I have a nice house and a great church.  Derek has a good job.  I have absolutely the best friends and family that are walking this incredibly long journey with us and continue to encourage us.  And I found that when I counted my blessings and praised God for His goodness...the envy subsided, the comparison went away because the path He has for us is not the path He has for another.  Their wait wasn't supposed to be as long as ours and their story is just that...their story.  

I have lots of favorite verses in the Bible and I continue to get more.  What is so very neat is that my friends consistently send me about the same 10 verses.  I have to believe that these are the verses that we are supposed to claim for our adoption journey.  This was a favorite of mine before we started this process and today I received it from a friend (this is the third friend to send it).  This is my hope today!

I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see Your goodness, O Lord in the land of the living.  I will hope in You and be of good courage, and You will strengthen my heart; YES, I will hope in You, O Lord.
Psalm 27:13-14

Don't think that I still don't have days when I struggle with envy and comparison.  I do.  But I now recognize it in my life and quickly realize that this emotion is toxic and it isn't from the Lord.  What unanswered prayer do you have?  What does someone else have that you want?  Stop and see the goodness in your own life.  Thank Him for all that He has given.  And hope in Him, because even if the answer never comes, He is enough.

I am not what I want to be.  But still, I am not what I used to be.  And by the grace of God, I am what I am.  John Newton

The Frustration of Sarah

Nothing has changed with our adoption....we just continue to wait and pray and wait some more and pray some more.

I often think about Abraham and Sarah.  How God promised them a son and it took so long for the fulfillment of that promise to come to pass.  They must have doubted and thought that maybe God meant something different.  Maybe they misunderstood.  That's exactly where I find myself some days.  Were we really supposed to walk down this path?  Did we hear God correctly?  Maybe we misunderstood.  This road of waiting is hard.

Sarah didn't respond the right way.  She was frustrated.  The wait was too long and she wasn't getting any younger.  She decided to take matters into her own hands and run ahead of God.  And her husband didn't say, "Let's wait on God".  He did what Sarah suggested and Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.  Sarah's stepson and Isaac (their promised son's) half brother.  You can read the entire account in Genesis if you're not familiar with the story.  But it all turned into a big mess....a mess that has lasted for generations.  All because Sarah didn't wait on God.

I am determined that we're not going to run ahead of God.  Some days I want to.  When I find out about a child that needs a home, I want to just say, "Okay, we have room, this will end all the agony of the wait".  But God has not called us to that.  He has called us to wait.  He has called us to wait on Him to act.  It would be disobedient at this point for us to open our home to another.

Our adoption is completely out of our control.  We still don't know if it'll work.  We do know that we are on the path that we are supposed to be on.  We have begged God to close the door if He has something different for us.  I have cried and pleaded and begged God to intervene one way or the other.

And friend after friend after friend continue to send me Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.

I know that so many have been praying for something for years and God isn't answering.  It seems that He isn't working or that He doesn't care, because nothing changes.  But you have to believe that God is good and that He is working even when we can't see it.

"The apparent lack of an answer does not mean God is not working.  It means we are not yet supposed to know what God has already ordained.  We cannot confuse silence with inactivity.  Priebe

Keep praying.  Keep believing.  Have hope.  Have peace.  During these times of waiting, we have to put our faith and trust in the promises of God that He is faithful and He is good.  He is sovereign and nothing can thwart His plans.  I know it's hard.  I know it hurts.  I know some days it just seems that the answer will never come.  But it's coming....never give up!

Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the LORD. Psalm 31:24

Elizabeth's Double Digit Birthday

Ten years ago at 11:30 am, a precious birthmother placed the sweetest baby girl in our arms.  Our Elizabeth Grace entered the world.  She would come home to a 2 1/2 yr. old brother and a 12 month old brother.  Our house was full of activity and diapers and all things baby....oh and very little sleep.  But we wouldn't trade it for anything this world has to offer.
She is one of the greatest gifts God has ever given us.  We are so thankful for her.  She has the sweetest and kindest spirit.  She is the most thankful and thoughtful of our children.  This is not because of anything we have done, but because God has given her the gift of encouragement.
We love the joy she brings to our family and so today we celebrate her!

1st Day of 7th, 5th and 4th

Oh my, they are growing so fast!  Where did my three little preschoolers go?

       

Happy 11th Matthew!

In the spring of 2001, we decided to pursue a second adoption.  We were living with my parents and building a house.  Why we decided to add the craziness of a home study to the craziness of building a house is beyond my understanding.  Everyone had to get medical physicals including my parents and my adult brother because we were all living in the same house.  Everyone got interviewed by the social worker and everyone was tested for HIV.  It amazes me all that you have to do to adopt, but it is worth every bit of paperwork and every medical visit and every paper chase that has to be done.

We had our paperwork in with two agencies.  An agency in Virginia that we used for the adoption of Stephen and also our agency in Michigan that was doing our home study.  Around June, we decided to pull our paperwork from our Michigan agency because we were paying fees to both agencies and decided to just focus on one agency.  Somehow our paperwork was never pulled, but we didn't know that until the fall of 2001.

On August 1, 2001, a very happy little boy was born on the other side of Michigan.  We wouldn't find out about him until late August/early September and he wouldn't be in our home until October, but God was working on our behalf.

 In October 2001, Matthew (his name means a gift from God) joined our family.  When we gave him that name, we knew he was a gift, but 11 years later, I know that he is a very precious gift.  Our house would not have as much laughter if it wasn't for him.  He thinks that nothing is impossible.  He is hot or cold, there is no lukewarm with Matthew.  He'll talk to anyone that will listen to him and he thinks that everyone wants to talk to him.  :)  His smile lights up a room....it did when he was a baby, it did when he was a preschooler and it does even now.

He is a reminder to me that God is faithful and that even when we can't see Him working, He is working on our behalf.  I am so thankful that God blessed us with such a faith filled son!  Truly, nothing is impossible with God!

Happy 11th Birthday Matthew!

Sowing in Tears

Here's a little adoption update which really isn't much of an update at all.  We have been praying for good news from Africa for the last 45 days.  On two separate days, we thought we were close to getting the good news, but both times we didn't get good news.  We didn't necessarily get a closed door, but for whatever reason, our case seems to be stuck.  We haven't been able to get that final breakthrough which would then put us into the next steps of the process.

My faith remains strong that we are on the right road, however, my heart hurts deeply.  I do not understand all this waiting.  It has been 16 months since we started this process.  I am ready for our little guy to be home.  I know the Lord wants to teach us in this "waiting period", but some days it is just so hard to yield to His plans and His timing.

I am thankful that His mercies are new each morning.  I need His strength to stay on this difficult journey.

Psalm 126:5 says that those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.  I am holding onto the truth that one day there will be some joyful shouting!

Thanks for walking this journey with us!