"I keep you from crying"

I cried after praying in front of the clinic today. You know why?  Because it's overwhelming in every way. More babies have been aborted here at this clinic than the amount that lives in my town. 

This clinic used to be open 6 days a week but praise God it is down to being open two days a week! 

My daughter asked, "why you cry, Mom?"  I told her again how we pray for the mamas, daddies, and the babies. 

Several minutes later after I pulled myself together, she spoke from her car seat. "I will keep you ever ever" "I keep you from crying"

Oh my!  And then she just makes me love her more. 

Being where God wants you to be

We had a little miracle this weekend. On Tuesday morning of this week, someone shared on one of our fb adoption pages that this "Called Together" conference had a open spot due a couple cancelling last minute. We had never even heard of this group before but I felt like it had our names written on it. We had to act fast if we wanted it because they were sharing it as quickly as possible. I wasn't able to get back them until I got babysitters and that wasn't until noon. 

And it was still open!!!  

Such a blessing!

So much thoughtfulness was put into this retreat... Even a bag full of love and a hand written personal welcome note was in our room. 

We were seriously struggling to find time for each other. I know we have only one child, but she will not tolerate being alone at all.  To say the least, after being married for 14 yrs without having children, I CRAVE time to talk without being interrupted during daylight hrs. Sure we can talk after she goes to bed at 10:30, but seriously, I'm just too tired. So this just seemed like a little miracle placed in our laps.  

And it was been a great blessing. 

One of my biggest struggles or "shame" is that I'm not good enough. I'm not a good enough of a mother, spouse, or Child of God. I'm just beyond imperfect. 

To be encouraged that "God is enough" is just priceless. 

Since we signed up so late, we didn't sign up for our afternoon session ahead of time. So we randomly picked and God plopped me into a class that I needed  more than anything else. It was on speaking life into your child. Affirming speech. Speak Jesus. 

We just loved the praise services!  Just beautiful to sing and worship together. 

And we loved laughing together....the "Love Doctors" came 3 different times and made us howl with their tackyness.  They give us all kinds of "marriage advice" to raise our romance level from "here to here" :)!  

Most of the sessions and meals, we were sat around 8 person tables. To some people, this was so excellent. To G and I, well..it was ok. We would normally sit at the emptiest table and then let people join us. After Saturday lunch, we both felt a little overwhelmed. It seemed as everyone wanted to talk about their college degrees and here we are simpletons with just a high school education.  Was everyone a teacher, upper management, social workers, youth directors, and pastors?? I would say more than 50% of the couple's lives were intertwined somehow. Someone told me that one church alone had 22 couples here. I WANT to visit this church!!  I want to see how God has filled this church with the passion of adoption!  How amazing!   

We went back to our room and just felt overwhelmed. G started to say that these people are living out their Christian lives more than we ever will. I shut him down. God can't call us all to the same thing. We can't all be called to youth pastoring or teachering. We ARE right were God placed us. God has allowed G to form relationships with his customers to the point that he can SPEAK God. God is teaching me things in parenting that no college degree could.  

Three messages that rang through loud and clear to me..

1. God is enough!

2. If I believe #1, it will Return me to Joy!

3. I am right where God called me to be. 

For our Saturday night dinner, God placed two beautiful couples at our table.  It was a great blessing to hear other couples stories of how God was and is faithfully working in their marriage and family. Even through the roller coaster of life. And listen and mourn their losses. Huge mountainous losses. 

But God is still enough!

Standing up for LIFE

I have been convicted to go pray outside our Hagerstown's abortion clinic. It has taken me a very long time to respond. It's one of those things that if you push it under the rug maybe I will not have to deal with the emotions. Maybe. Just maybe it's not as bad as they say it is. 

One out of every three women has had a abortion. Actually it's WORSE than we think it is. Seventy percent of abortions come from churched people. The fear of the sin of sex is greater than the murder. It makes my heart break!  

I went Thursday morning for the first time. I was there from 9-10 but didn't meet any of the woman or workers because they often will switch their hours around a little because of us sidewalk warriors as they must have this morning. But I learned a little more of what happens and still stayed and prayed for the evil to be exposed.

 "If the church is not present, then we are saying what's going on here is acceptable." "We need to be a outward sign to the workers, clients, and community that murder is wrong." 

We are not here only for the tiny tiny babies. We are here for the doctors, the clinic workers, the mothers, and the fathers too. Each life has the same value as the other. And we ALL need Jesus. 

The beautiful part of this story is that God extends us forgiveness. We need to reach for it, and accept it. We are all sinners and deserve hell, but God has a redeeming plan!  It's just so beautiful. 

After Thursday and being there looking up at the building and windows, and knowing the death, I felt so overwhelmed by the evil. I didn't want to go back. Ever. It would be so easy to run. Following God is not always easy and certainly not popular. 

They say if you fall off your house, you need to hurry up and get back on. In other words, face your fears. 

So I headed back on Saturday morning. (This office has abortions on Thursday and Saturday.). And I took my army. Gary, little miss J, and my friend H that was visiting for the weekend and met more friends on the sidewalk. And then another friend driving by, saw us and stopped and brought coffee and stayed and prayed too.  I praise God for others joining me and boldly asking God to touch these precious lives. 

Satan has blinded their eyes and hearts to the murder. But God has the power to open their eyes to the evil and redeem them. Redeem them just like me. 

My friend agreed with me that we need training to effectively speak hope and Jesus into their lives. And then boom, she made it happen and it's going to be this Thursday and then the following Thursday.  So excited that God is raising up warriors. 

I would love for you to join me in prayer. Message/text me, come with me! Be a warrior. Please. 

I praise God that my daughter's birth mom chose life. When I'm out on that sidewalk, I feel in awe of how God protected her life. And that makes me want to fight for those precious babies. They are not just a clump of cells... They are little tiny babies just like my daughter. 

Celebrating 15 years

Mr G took us to Florida for the week. If you would have asked me a year ago if I would take my 3yr old along on our anniversary trip, I would have told you that you lost your mind. But we agreed, she had never seen the ocean that we know of, and just couldn't deny her of that. 

I will say that I never appreciated alone relaxing time with my husband in the past as much as I should have. You can in no way use the word relaxing to describe this week but it is worth it all to see the joy in her eyes of all the water and sand. She LOVES it!!  

Even when her lips are basically blue, she still doesn't want to go in. She wants to go from the pool to the ocean to the play set to the bathtub and repeat. Repeat. She informed us this morning... "I sad". "I no want to go home". 

I was actually dreading the traveling with her but she has done so much better than I expected. The airplane ride was a thrill to her and when seeing airplanes in the sky..says "Josie go too".  

She has NO fear of water and wants to go deeper into the water. She needs to learn how to swim sooner than later for safety reasons. She begs to take off her arm bands but demands to have her face mask on so she can have her head under water more than above. 

The joy of first time things are always so fun.. Even the laundry mat or getting a snack out of the vending machine, or ordering fries by the pool is sheer delight!  

Even sleeping has been good overall. Even with being on 1st floor and it is VERY noisy some nights. Mama has been very happy about this. I'll take 10:30 to 8.

I wondered how the sand would go. But I'm here to tell her... She doesn't even mind if she gets it in her eyes or mouth or hair. If she gets it in her mouth, she just chews on it. And my body shakes uncontrollably with the sound of it. 

She cracks us up so often. I painted her toes and she wanted to paint Baba's. I told her that boys don't do that. She looked at him and said with a serious face, "maybe sometime when you are a girl, you can". I was trying to get her to go to the bathroom before getting on the plane.. She said "I go poo out window". Oh my word. Hilarious. 

I just can't believe some of the conversations that we are explaining at age 3. 

Her lip is pretty much healed and this week all the stitches came out. We are to massage it three times a day for 30 seconds each time and she doesn't fight it. Although she still uses the excuses... Like here eat your carrots...she will look so sweetly at me and say "mom, No, it will bump lip". You can use this for aaaannnnyything you want to get out of doing. 

Two things I like about home.. I have a door on my bedroom. And I like the smell of my house. Oh ok, more than two. I love my not Mt. Everest pillow. I like being able to touch anything in my bathroom and still feel clean. I like my soap dispenser. Seriously. Best thing ever. It's worth the money. I liked that I could boil some eggs. I missed eggs. Can't believe I said that. Because I get soooo tired of fixing eggs for little miss, her first choice for breakfast. Did I mention that she has her own bedroom?  

And I was tired of sand. 

She explores everything. Especially in new surroundings. Like in the pool, the vents, or in the rooms, every nob or even texture differences in walls, or what every individual people is doing, or any thing driving by, or any sound. I have heard a million times a million times this week why or what's that. It may be a tad exhausting. But she's learning. A lot.

Hopefully we can have many more years together. Marriage is not always easy. And I have figured out that having children makes it even harder. But it's always worth it. Fight for it. 

Snowed in

I somehow managed not to gain weight over the holidays which was a miracle of itself because of all the boxes of chocolate covered cherries but all bets are off in this snow storm. I feel like a bear getting ready to hibernate. And I may be going a bit stir crazy. 

I finished off a box of nerds. I noticed on the box that it advertised that there was "no artificial flavors". You can blame it on the snow storm but seriously who cares. For instance, if you were buying nerds and eating them, you are eating straight up sugar. Sugar is amazing but doing so is going to give you diabetes. And then add the dye to color them.. Well that is going to give you cancer or something. By this time you should NOT care if it's real flavors or not. But that's just me. 

So we have made creme brûlée. And ate snow ice cream twice. And laid around and took a nap and ate more and then ate chips. A lot of them. And then trying to keep J from jumping, bumping, picking and everything else one could do to a fresh from surgery lip. That my friend is a never look away job. And will take a act of God to protect it. 

She had a lip revision to take a bump off of it yesterday. She couldn't eat or drink after 7am until her surgery at 11:30. She was so brave and seriously didn't cry the whole day. Even being put to sleep nor when waking up. She basically woke up running. Oh my word. Please. Just. Make. It. Stop. And SIT. Wait, I forgot she did cry once yesterday when we took her towel away in the bathroom because out of habit when she dried her hands, she would wipe her mouth. Apparently it's a crime to take a towel away. She has only twice complained of pain and has been sucking noodles last night and today like nobody's business. 

I was strong all day for her and not even worrying about her nor the snow heading our way. Untillll... We got home from the 1 1/2 hr drive and saw that she had somehow wiggled a stitch loose already. I just broke emotionally. I just felt like we had God's job of watching over her every second to keep it from happening again and I knew that we were going to fail. Thankfully people pray. I felt it. Thankful for NoNo's too (keep her from reaching her face). God kept us through the night. 

And we woke to boat loads of snow. 24inches. Plus drifting. 

This was J's first snow with us. We made it outside for 5 mins. Maybe 10?!! She loved it, although a bit tough to walk in for a little child. She face planted 3x's... But that was softer than face planting into anything else, I guess. 

We didn't even shovel our way out yet. We did clear out around our heat pump as we really really don't want to lose heat. 

Break us, Lord

My word is Grace

I am choosing grace for my word of the year. Why?  Because I find that giving it is easier than to accept it for myself.  And I need it.  

The answered prayer this past year is... Josie

The biggest blessing...Josie

The hardest thing this year...Josie. 

But this parenting stuff is kicking my hiney. So let me start by telling this mess I am. 

I am reading Jen Hatmaker's book For The Love. Not only is she funny but she is jerking my soul out. 

Every

Single

Page

is what my heart is needing. What my heart is longing. 

We adults need encouraging words probably even more than the little ones do, because our hearts are so heavy. 

Jen H. spoke into me about being real. And truthful. Just tell the truth. 

Ohh, we get our big girls in knots with our fears of what others will say or think if only we were honest. 

If I'm honest and say I just weep in a puddle of a mess sometimes, will my critics suggest what meds I should go on? What will my always smiling, always got it together friends say? What will they say if I admit I struggle?  Better yet, if I admit that I struggle with being a mom, and that Satan attacks me just about daily. 

"You aren't good enough, you are too firm with parenting, you should be doing this way! You know that adoptive kids never turn out, right? You are the reason that she can't sleep at night. She would be better with other parents. You are so weak, you aren't strong enough, you are too impatient. You skipped your devotions, I'm going to win today. You aren't even strong enough to lift up your friends. Everyone's got it all together besides you. Don't you see their kids are free to run, you are such a mean person. She going to hate you. See their marriage, they are still in honeymoon stage, even after 15years. 

you are a FAILURE."

Just this morning, I may have or may not have said in a loud voice "stop crying, today is Mommy's day to cry" and then promptly bursted into tears. #mommahugefail. 

But if I hear other moms doing this, I would cheer them on. In fact, I'm clapping.  

I would give them grace.

They deserve it. 

But I just can't seem to accept that grace for me. 

God said that He removes it. Our sins, our failures, our mistakes. 

As far as the east to the west. 

Why can't I wrap my heart around that?

 

Why is it so easy to accept others faults as ok, because well, everyone makes mistakes. But then we hold ourselves up to a higher standard. Our mistakes are not allowed. So not acceptable. 

Period. 

I want to draw close to God this year and feel that unmeasurable Grace poured out on my soul. That when I fail... That I still feel His love pulling me up and accept His gift. Yes, undeserved, but still given. 

Given to me. 

Given to you.