Psalm 10: 17-18

This morning I was praying and I felt like the Lord was directing me to read in Psalms. I came across this scripture.

Psalm 10: 17-18

"Lord, you know the hopes of the helpess.
Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them.
You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
so people can no longer terrify them."

I started reading two books this past week. They have similar titles, but are both so very different. I haven't finished either book yet, but they are vastly changing my perspective. One book is called 'One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are'. The other book is called 'A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman'.

Lately the Lord has been calling us to perservere. Adoption is not easy. All of the things that appealed to us about adopting specifically from the DRC are no longer there anymore. Things have changed. We are now required to travel(to the worst place on Earth). The cost has gone up. The wait time has increased. But for some reason, we are still here. Standing. Scared. Waiting. Perservering. Hoping. Praying. Remaining. We will not move. We want to run away, but we won't. I want there to be light in the midst of dissapointment. Someday.

In my 30 years of life, I have nothing to compare this to. I am thankful for the support of our adoption agency, as well as some amazing mom's that I have connected with from our agency. They remind me that we aren't alone on this journey.

In the midst of these two books that I am reading, I am reminded of two very important things. To be thankful for the small, and to be reminded of why we are perservering in this adoption. We aren't just adopting from this country. We are FIGHTING for this country. Even if right now, it's just through giving and prayer.

So, I am comforted by this scripture, again, and again.

Psalm 10: 17-18

"Lord, you know the hopes of the helpess.
Surely you will listen to their cries and comfort them.
You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
so people can no longer terrify them."

Beautiful Mess....

When will I eventually give up on trying to be perfect? I constantly have thoughts roaming through my head, that nothing good will come to me unless I rid myself of all of my sin and imperfection. Thoughts such as: I'm not ready to adopt until we are completely debt free and are the poster children for Dave Ramsey. I'm not ready to adopt until I lose more weight. I am not ready to adopt until I perfect my ability to homeschool. I am not ready to adopt until I learn how to keep my house spotless every day. I'm not ready to adopt until my quiet time with God isn't phased by my distractions. Those are just to name a few.

It's so difficult to find a balance between trying to be better for the Lord, and trying to attain perfectionism for myself. Do I deserve to have another child in the midst of my mess? Can I be a good mother to TWO children? Will I still be a good wife? Will I still find ample time to spend with the Lord? Or....will I just be a HOT MESS?!?

I have this idea in my head of what it looks like to be the perfect child of God, woman, wife, mother, and friend. And everyday, I wake up hearing the constant nagging in my brain that I need to be better.

Even though I didn't have the pleasure of going to see the Easter production of "Beautiful Mess", I keep coming back to those two words. Does God see me as a beautiful mess? I think so. He sees something that I don't. And for that, I am grateful. In the midst of my mess, he still sees me as beautiful.

Little moments of praise.....

Well, we have FINALLY finished our homestudy! Praise the Lord! Which means....we are officially on the waiting list for a little baby boy from the DRC! As of right now, we have no idea of the time frame for getting a referral. It could be tomorrow, or 12 months from now. Either way, we have a complete peace about this and are so excited to see what God is going to do!

It's a struggle to constantly hand over this adoption to the Lord. There are days when I am completely patient and filled with joy for what is ahead. Other days, I feel helpless and confused. Although this adoption process has been mostly an emotional roller coaster, I would do it all over again. As a matter of fact, we probably will! I can say with extreme confidence that we are doing what the Lord desires for our family. Taking care of orphans is at the center of God's heart. Therefore, it's at the center of our hearts as well.

In the meantime, we will keep moving forward and TRY to be patient. :) I ordered a magnet from Etsy that is hanging on our fridge right now. It's a blue magnet in the shape of Africa and it reads "Waiting (Im)patiently". The story of my life....

Waiting (Im)Patiently,
Holly

I'm still here....

Hey y'all! In case you were all wondering, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I haven't blogged in a while because, well, there wasn't much to blog about.

However, I thought there were a few things worth mentioning. Back in May of 2010, Alex and I decided to put the adoption process on hold for a season so that we could focus on getting our finances in order. Since then, we have paid off a considerable amount of debt, and feel a peace from the Lord to start moving forward with the adoption. We still don't have a "timeline", but as of now, things are starting to look more promising......I think? Anyone who has been through the process of adoption can tell you first hand that things don't always work out the way that they were originally planned.

Here is what I can tell you. Our homestudy is almost complete. We have all of our paperwork completed and one more home visit to finish which is scheduled for next week. After that, we will wait for our background checks to be sent back and then we will officially be ready for a referral.

Here is something else that I can tell you. God is faithful. God provides. God is trustworthy. He is already starting to provide for this adoption. And I know that He will continue this.

Waiting (im)patiently,

Holly