Faith- walking by it, when it hurts and when it's glorious....

We have had a few rough weeks.  We have some announcements.
      
The main thing we need to announce is that God has chosen to bless our family with a baby. 

The old fashion way.  Christa is pregnant, due December 30th.  

We have held off in announcing it for a couple of weeks while we waited for our home study agency and our placing agency to come to a decision on what this means for the adoption.

They told us yesterday.  It is their policy to not place a child until six months after the birth of new baby. So as of now we can't proceed with our adoption at this time.  We are crushed. our kids are crushed.  

It's amazing how much you can bond with children you have never even met.  Children we have been praying for for 2 years.  Children who don't even know we exist.  That we are crying for them.  That we have literally been so sad we can hardly eat or sleep. It's ironic really.  That two little children that the world would call discarded, forgotten and unimportant would matter so much to us.  

When we started this process orphans were a number, a statistic. 148 million in the world. 2.5 million in Uganda.  The Numbers swirled in our brains, we knew we desired and needed to act.  But the numbers didn't become ours until we saw them.  

We tried to hold back at first, we said they were tentatively ours. We prayed for them to find a family. Then our faith grew and we prayed for them to find OUR family.  We added names to their names.  Names that we chose for them.  We put their pictures on our wallpaper of our phones. They were in our bedtime prayers every night and again in the morning by name and face we lifted them before The God Who Sees. 

 We picked clothes out for them.
Our kids talked about where they would sleep, how they would share their toys with them, where everyone would sit in the car.  We wondered what their favorite color was, what their favorite candy would be.  Whether or not they would like to play rough or sit quietly.        

I think you get the picture. We made them our very own.

Things have never looked so good financially for the adoption.:
We had someone anonymously offer to pay our travel fees- $16k! 
All 7 of our passports came in the mail last week.  

All while we were quietly waiting and processing this news. 

It seems like God was opening doors and closing doors all at once.  It has been a whirlwind of confusion and emotions.  We honestly still are processing it all.

Our agency can't 'hold' our sweeties for us.  We wouldn't want them to really.  If a family comes along before we are able to start paper work up again that wants to bring them into their family, we would be thrilled.  Painfully thrilled. 

 We know God Has only our best and their best in mind.  

Of Course if they are still waiting when we are able to resume we would be thrilled to re-accept the referral.  

So here we sit.  The adoption busy-ness and hub bub at a quiet lull.  They told us we can continue to fund raise.  Who knows? Maybe by the time we can restart our paperwork we may have all the money we need!

Right now we are just resting.  We believe God is Good.  We know He loves Felix and Betty. We Know he loves us.  We KNOW he loves this little VERY unexpected surprise growing inside of Christa.  We know without a doubt HE IS THE GOD WHO SEES.  And we know he saw all of this from all time past. We know His plans are infinitely better than our plans.

We choose joy.
We choose faith. 
We refuse to accept doubt and fear and failure.

But b.e.l.i.e.v.e. me, it's a choice we are actively fighting for.
And yes it is 3:00 in the afternoon and I am in my PJ's! (just being real)

Please don't judge me, I'm not saying babies aren't a blessing.  I know I am blessed among women  to be a mother for the sixth time!  Its just an emotional roller coaster ride I didn't CHOOSE to get on.  But I am on all the same, and the ride is wild!  

About a week before all this came down I was telling a friend of mine how I feel like God has me in a place where I literally am being FORCED to walk by faith.  I told her "I see nothing by sight.... "

........If only I knew THAT day how much more I would be feeling that sensation soon. 
 I am literally blind right now as far as faith goes!

That same wonderful friend sent me this devotional: 
Its from the classic devotional Streams in the Dessert~

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Heb. 11:8

Abraham “did not know where he was going”--it simply was enough for him to know he went with God. He did not lean as much on the promises as he did on the Promiser. And he did not look at the difficulties of his circumstances but looked to His King---the eternal, limitless, invisible, wise, and only God---who had reached down from His throne to direct his path and who would certainly prove Himself.

O glorious faith! Your works and possibilities are these: contentment to set sail with the orders still sealed, due to unwavering confidence in the wisdom of the Lord High Admiral; and a willingness to get up, leave everything, and follow Christ, because of the joyful assurance that earth's best does not compare with heaven's least. (F.B. Meyer)

In no way is it enough to set out cheerfully with god on any venture of faith. You must also be willing to take your ideas of what the journey will be like and tear them into tiny pieces, for nothing on the itinerary will happen as you expect.

Your Guide will not keep to any beaten path. He will lead you through ways you would never have dreamed your eyes would see. He knows no fear, and He expects you to fear nothing while He is with you.

This pretty well sums up what is happening in our world right now.

• Pray for us friends!
• Pray for just the right family for Felix and Betty.
• Pray for our new precious one, for the plan God has for this little life.
• Pray for Christa's health. This pregnancy already has been full of the joys of morning all day sickness, and dizzy spells and other such fun.
• pray for our kids who have conflicted emotions, excitement about a baby mixed with sadness about the adoption, its a lot to process when your in your 30's, I can't even imagine being 7.
• pray for us, we truly desire for God to shape us, make us more like him and use our lives the way HE sees fit. pray for us to be shape-able. To become better parents, more fit to adopt, to parent any and all kids God see's fit to give us. To be people who make it our aim to be satisfied in and by Christ alone and to glorify Him through our lives.

Well that's about it! whew!