Life as we know it

We've been in Texas for almost 2 months! Here are some pictures highlighting our lives here so far.

Trip to Disney. Cole was a little excited about meeting Buzz Lightyear.

Lucy is taking horse back riding lessons

Our attempt at an Easter photo

It didn't work...

The boys and I make lots of trips to the playground at Chick-fil-a or Burger King to pass the time and play. This was on my 34th birthday.

San Antonio Missions baseball game fun

Cole's first "face" paint on his arm...Batman

Beautiful girl

The Danger of Hope

Hope can be a dangerous virtue...when it is misplaced, of course. When we put our hope in the wrong things, it can turn into discontentment, bitterness, regret, worry and all other kinds of consuming sin.

I recently had the opportunity to speak about a lesson I learned about misplaced hope, mostly regarding the trials we endured after Cole came home and how the Lord used that to reveal my own shortcomings to myself. Little did I know, I would need those words from Him once again. I have a feeling it is a lesson I will endure many times in my life.

We have been in Texas for about a month. We are very, very blessed. The Lord has been good and faithful to us. He provides. He is here.

And yet, I have allowed myself to focus on the have-nots instead of the haves. I have fallen into a pattern of seeing the glass half-empty instead of half-full or even pouring over the edges. I have lost perspective of the big picture and have thus, misplaced my hope.

Romans 5:5 tells us that hope does not disappoint. Yet I have hoped and hoped and have been nothing but disappointed. Obviously, my hope has been in the wrong things. In earthly things, in circumstances, in the temporary. So what is this hope that doesn't disappoint?

In desperation, I search the Word to be reminded and find it in 1 Corinthians 1:9-10. "Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and He will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope." Our hope is eternal, in The Eternal, in salvation that comes only from Him and through Him. He is the only One who can save us from so great a peril of death and He alone is worthy of my hope. His purposes are much, much bigger than my circumstances and His expectations of me are not lessened because I am uncomfortable, sad or disappointed. The thing about God is that He is always worthy, always good, always holy. And as a new creature, as a believer in Him and a servant to His Spirit, I am without excuse. I must not put my hope anywhere else but in Him.

I should have picked a different word...

Just reading back to my first and only post of 2011 and pondering my choice to focus on contentment. I should have known that the Lord would use that to stretch and challenge me in a new, unexpected way.
We just found out late last week that we are moving. Back to Texas. Mark got a wonderful job at an amazing company and we will have the opportunity to be close to his parents. So close in fact they are letting our zoo invade their wonderful home until our house sells.
I should have chosen the word bittersweet. It is a sweet opportunity before us, to give our kids time with their grandparents, for Mark to take more seminary classes, for us to take advantage of the Texas economy and save, save, save.
It is bitter because we are leaving our home. Yes, we have only lived here 3 1/2 years but the depth of our time and experiences go way beyond that. We were richly blessed with an amazing church, the best of friends and a thousand opportunities to serve the kingdom. It is hard to say goodbye to that, no matter how sweet the other end will be. Very, very hard.
In the short time I've had to let this sink in, I'm reminded that no matter how wonderful our lives were here, they're nothing like they will be in heaven. This life is temporary with a capital T, we are vapors in the wind. Our eyes should continually be on the eternal, the promised home of heaven.
So my lesson in contentment is to not get too content. To not hold too tightly to things and comforts that will pass away. The relationships we've made will go with us and I hope, hope, hope, we will be able to continue to nourish and grow those friendships despite the distance. And no matter what, the Lord is good and He goes with us.
Looking again to Psalm 16:9, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."

Content

Content. My word for 2011. From dictionary.com, it is defined as "satisfied with what one is or has, not wanting more or anything else."

Is that a New Year's challenge or what? :)


I want to be content with my family. We have decided not to pursue foster adoption this year after all but still have the desire in our hearts. It was very disappointing to come to this decision but He is faithful to bring peace when we were willing to accept. So now, contentment will be 1)trusting God's timing for our family through it all and 2) being satisfied with where we are now and not worrying about where we might be someday.


I want to be content with my circumstances. With no major life altering events immediately ahead (none that we can see, only God knows), I feel a calm about the next 12 months. And a desire to make each day count, to be a better steward of my day to day responsibilities and relationships. And if a major life altering event does show up, I feel ready to take it on.


I want to be content in serving others. I want to look for more behind the scenes service opportunities, satisfied in obedience, not wanting more in return.

Clinging to this verse as I strive for contentment: Proverbs 16:9 "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."

Going Forward

Merry Christmas! It's our first Christmas to stay home alone and we certainly have mixed feelings about that. So, trying to make some traditions for ourselves, we baked Christmas cookies a few weekends ago.

Our first batch of dough was too crumbly

Time to decorate

Looking for crumbs

Looking forward to 2011, we have decided to get licensed to potentially adopt from Missouri foster care. We just turned in our first application and will hopefully be chosen by an agency and then start classes in February. Trying to have a more laidback attitude this time, understanding it may or may not work out and trusting that God has a plan!

Hope everyone has a safe and blessed holiday!

Worthy of Praise

The Lord is so good. Things are really turning around here and hope is visible and even reachable. I am so undeserving. He is faithful to encourage, to lift up and to bless.

Cole started Therapeutic Listening Therapy a week ago. The first day he used a spoon all by himself. After a week, he has been adding new words to his vocabulary, been all around more pleasant and compliant (the time out chair must be wondering where he has been!), eating more foods and getting along better with others. Praise be to God.




Our Orphan Care Ministry had our enormous fundraiser this past weekend. The Holiday Gift Market was basically a craft show full of donations from friends and church members and stuff we had made. It was a huge success. More than we could have imagined or prayed for. $4650 huge. I would ask y'all to consider shopping online for Christmas but we are pretty much cleaned out of items!

We were so encouraged to see the Lord's faithfulness to bring people to the show and to bring people to help us in our efforts as ministry can sometimes be a very discouraging thing. Four of us stayed up until 4 am the night before (getting way too old for that kind of thing), got up at 6:30am and then worked the event until 3pm the next day. But it was fun. Good, hard working, ministry fun.

And now we have doubled our account at the church and have almost $10,000 available to offer financial assistance for adoption to families in our church . I've really been praying for families to come forward. But we are trusting in God for that. We are also looking at other ways to use the money - to support orphans locally and overseas. The greatest disservice would be for that money to sit in the bank when there are needs right and left.

Finally, we were so humbled to have a friend of a friend come to us and offer an incredible partnership. Caroline Nelson is an amazing photographer and has started a business to help save for a future adoption for her family. In the meantime, she has committed to donating to our ministry a portion of her income each month. Wow. Please check out her website here.

Looking forward to the holidays, time with family and friends and reflecting on all God has done and continues to do for us.

Gaining Perspective

Thanks for all your encouraging comments and emails. I feel a little silly for being so dramatic and woe-is-me but as I said, I write to get it out of my system. After several days to let everything sink in, to do research and to have a break (Mark's parents came for the weekend), I am looking at things with a wider angle, gaining perspective.
The fact is there are simple things we can do to change our routine and help Cole and in the big picture of life, those things are not that big a deal. I think so much of my problem was my misguided expectations of what adoption would look like in my family and how I thought things would be as time went on. I don't know if there was training or awareness for sensory issues before we brought Cole home, but even if there were, I'm sure I would have tuned it out, assuming it wouldn't be an issue for us.
I confess I have been a hypocrite for many months, advocating adoption, working hard to change attitudes about orphan awareness, and not living it out in my own home, my own family, with my own adopted child.
I was listening to the song below yesterday (the same song we used in our initial Orphan Care video at church last spring) and felt as though the first verse was not some generic orphan out there looking for a family, but my own child, Cole, asking me if I was willing to love him the way he is, even if that wouldn't change in the future. Begging forgiveness from the Lord, I hope now He can use me more effectively for His kingdom work in this area. I apologize to anyone I have misled or deceived up to this point.