Let me preface this one with these statements:
1. I'm not exactly sure where this one is going, but I know I am supposed to share.
2. It directly relates to the Lord working in me and speaking to me.
3. It eventually relates to this adoption.
So . . . how to start? My prayer in sharing this is that it somehow helps someone, and that my heart be heard clearly that I am not writing to complain or malign anyone, rather to show how the Lord has taken something ugly and made it incredibly beautiful. . . . The past few years of my life have been pretty difficult relating to my relationships with my parents. To make a REALLY LONG story reallyshort . . . both of my parents have struggled with substance abuse my whole life. They divorced about three years ago, and things got pretty messy. As a result, I have virtually no relationship with either of them. For the last three years I have wrestled with my role in this. I often asked myself, and my husband, "How can I set boundaries for healthy relationships and still show love, grace, and mercy?" I wrestled with how to help them yet not get dragged into the mess. . . . What I have recently learned is what I really wanted to know was, "How can I fix them?" Now, I KNOW the answer to that - I can't. Only God can. But admitting that and really KNOWING that is a different story!
So, here's the cool part. . . . As I was driving home from school one day a few months ago, feeling kind of sorry for myself, wanting my parents to be different, wondering what I could/should do differently . . . God began to speak to my heart. He showed me that it is not about me!!!!!! I can't fix them. I can't do anything differently. The state of things are not my fault. Then, a hard truth . . . I have been abandoned. (Please know that I don't say that to point a finger at my parents. Again, this is just to show what AWESOME things the Lord is speaking to me!) While that's a really hard thing to hear and accept, the Lord quickly let freedom wash over me! There is such freedom in knowing that I cannot change these circumstances! I can't "fix" or change anything! My role is simply to forgive and move on and rest in the Lord's hands. Though I have been abandoned by earthly parents, God, my Creator, has adopted me as his own daughter! My identity and worth rests in Him alone! Then, the really, REALLY cool part . . . the Lord let me see a small part of His master plan in my life . . . I am about to adopt two children who have been abandoned, and He has chosen me to be their mom! Though our reasons may be vastly different, there are thoughts, feelings, and emotions that they will experience to which I can directly relate! Not only has the Lord redeemed this situation for me by drawing me closer to Himself, again I am reminded that it is not just about me. He reaches even further to my future children. I believe that He ordained these things to draw them closer to Himself as well.
As if that weren't enough, in His awesome grace and mercy, He has also redeemed what a family looks like for me by giving me an AMAZING husband who loves me and pursues me and whose parents define a Godly marriage and family. They, too, have adopted me into their family. My grandmother is a pretty amazing woman who sees me and takes care of me as a daughter. Not to mention that my relationship with my brother has been restored and strengthened through this time. AND, I have been blessed with an AMAZING church family that loves me and shows me Jesus daily!
The sermon this past Sunday was on suffering and comfort. I've often heard the saying that "God never wastes a hurt." Burnie further defined this concept by saying something like: Sometimes we suffer so that the Lord can comfort us, and sometimes we suffer so that the Lord can comfort others through us. In this situation in my life, the Lord has definitely done both. I had been treasuring these things in my heart sharing only with a few people because I wasn't really sure what and how much to share, but through Burnie's message, the Holy Spirit made it clear that I was to share. . . . So, know that though everything should not be posted on this blog, I am an open book, and I would be happy to share any of this with you if the Lord can use it to bring comfort in your suffering. May God richly bless you as He has blessed me! :)
Waiting for you
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Stall . . . and Prophetic Words?
This summer we set a goal to have all of our paperwork done before school started. . . . OOPS! :) School started 6 weeks ago, so everything has been on hold as we try to find our feet with school and soccer in session! All of the paperwork is done except for getting a will, proof of Ginger's vaccinations, and paying the application fee. :) We will be having a yard sale very soon and silent auction in the months to come to start raising funds. (I'd love some creative ideas to add to our list of fund raisers!)
This stall in the process was very frustrating to me at first. I was (and am still) SWAMPED with school work in my own first grade classroom, then managing three children in two different schools is no easy task! :) One might think it would be a relief to postpone adding more children to this chaos! But, my heart LONGS for these children I don't yet know by name! Even in the midst of the craziness, I find myself counting my kids when we are out and about to see if they are all accounted for and feeling like someone is missing when the final count is 4. Around the table at dinner, as crazy and loud as it is, there are definitely two faces missing from the line up! But there are just not enough hours in the day to get to everything. . . As I pray through thoughts of disappointment and frustration, asking the Lord to show me how to get more done, speed up the process, just move on . . . He gently reminds me that His timing is perfect and that He has a good and perfect plan. . . .
During our Bible story time a few weeks ago, our 5 year old was praying, listing all of our names, and then he added, "and thank you for my brothers, or sisters, or brother and sister in Africa. God, thank you that you already know who they are, even though they're not with us, and even though they might not be born yet." I have felt for some time that we were to adopt an older child, and as much as I love babies, I have already had 4! I had sort of put it out of my mind that we might have another infant in our home. Yet, both Chann and I LOVE the baby stage, and our children, especially Evy, are somewhat obsessed with babies! So, after Asher's prayer, I wondered, "Could this stall in the process be part of God's plan? Part of Him working out the timing so that we are ready at exactly the right time?" Perhaps one of our future children is not born yet, but the Lord already knows his or her name, the exact time and place of his or her birth, and exactly how he plans to bring our children home to us! Praise the Lord, for He is good! He is faithful, gracious, and merciful, even in my impatience, frustration, disappointment, and stubbornness! God, keep reminding me that You are in control!
This stall in the process was very frustrating to me at first. I was (and am still) SWAMPED with school work in my own first grade classroom, then managing three children in two different schools is no easy task! :) One might think it would be a relief to postpone adding more children to this chaos! But, my heart LONGS for these children I don't yet know by name! Even in the midst of the craziness, I find myself counting my kids when we are out and about to see if they are all accounted for and feeling like someone is missing when the final count is 4. Around the table at dinner, as crazy and loud as it is, there are definitely two faces missing from the line up! But there are just not enough hours in the day to get to everything. . . As I pray through thoughts of disappointment and frustration, asking the Lord to show me how to get more done, speed up the process, just move on . . . He gently reminds me that His timing is perfect and that He has a good and perfect plan. . . .
During our Bible story time a few weeks ago, our 5 year old was praying, listing all of our names, and then he added, "and thank you for my brothers, or sisters, or brother and sister in Africa. God, thank you that you already know who they are, even though they're not with us, and even though they might not be born yet." I have felt for some time that we were to adopt an older child, and as much as I love babies, I have already had 4! I had sort of put it out of my mind that we might have another infant in our home. Yet, both Chann and I LOVE the baby stage, and our children, especially Evy, are somewhat obsessed with babies! So, after Asher's prayer, I wondered, "Could this stall in the process be part of God's plan? Part of Him working out the timing so that we are ready at exactly the right time?" Perhaps one of our future children is not born yet, but the Lord already knows his or her name, the exact time and place of his or her birth, and exactly how he plans to bring our children home to us! Praise the Lord, for He is good! He is faithful, gracious, and merciful, even in my impatience, frustration, disappointment, and stubbornness! God, keep reminding me that You are in control!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Part 2 . . .
Continued from the last REALLY long post . . . That night I journaled for about an hour, just pouring out my heart to the Lord, and asking Him to both test and try me in my steadfastness in this decision and to confirm it at the same time! Word to the wise: be really careful about this request! :) The Lord is faithful, and He both hears and ANSWERS our prayers. Thankfully, though, with EVERY test and trial, there has been confirmation. Here are just a few:
The night before the conference, we had a really bad storm, and three trees fell in our backyard. Chann was left at home with 4 kids without power for 2 1/2 of those 4 days. So, on my home, I was preparing how I should tell and persuade him that I thought it was time to pursue adoption and how God had spoken this so clearly to me. I thought of all the arguements that he might have for this not being the right time. . . . So, I get home around 6 pm. He and the kids have all been in the yard all day long chopping the fallen trees and clearing debris. They were filthy and exhausted! We ate dinner, got kids clean and to bed, and finally sat down on the couch around 10:00. Chann leaned back and closed his eyes, and said, "Tell me about the conference." Knowing he was exhausted, I told him we could just go to bed and talk about it later. He said he knew that I was dying to tell him things, so to just go ahead. Again, I hesitated, telling him there was so much, I didn't really know where to start, and that there was so much, I could talk for days, and I just knew he was too tired. Really, I thought, "I can't tell him now. He's too tired, and he's going to say no!" But instead I started telling him about some of the adoption stories I had heard. He could tell there was more, so I just blurted it all out, that we were supposed to adopt now, and not just one, but two! . . . His response was, "Ok." I was a little in shock! There was no protest, no list of reasons why I was crazy, just ok! God had been speaking to his heart as well.
He suggested that the next step was to take some time and be intentional about praying about from where we should adopt. He said that he felt like maybe we had just assumed we would adopt from China because I went there, but that we should ask for direction and see what the Lord had for us. At first, I was a little taken aback. My first step would be to DO something. God told me to adopt, I said, ok, so let's do it. Thank the Lord for a wise and Godly husband! While adopting from China would never be wrong, I definitely would have missed some of the blessings God had in store for us as we just sat and prayed and listened for Him.
The whole time we prayed about it, but we didn't talk about it much. Here and there, little things kept directing us to Africa. In that time I learned that a friend we hadn't had contact with in years was in the process of adopting her second son from Ethiopia! We also have sponsored a child from Ethiopia for the last 7 years and have often talked about how awesome it would be to go meet her. My friend was able to go meet her sponsored child on her first trip to meet her son! One night I was getting ready to tell this to Chann, not at all relating it to us. Just telling him that she was in Ethiopia and reading some of her blog to him, but before I did, I asked him what he had been thinking about where to adopt. He said, "Ethiopia has really been on my heart." I very excitedly told him about our friend. Then when we were talking later, we realized how during this time that we had been praying, both of us, separately had had conversations with people that led to Africa somehow, often not even relating to adoption. Then I remembered that at the conference I had gone to talk to a lady who had adopted two girls from China. In our conversation, she sor of flippantly said, "But, if you adopted from somewhere else, say Ethiopia . . . ." which at that point, I had totally dismissed. Now, it was another piece of rhema. We started to pray specifically about Ethiopia.
I decided to go ahead and look at a few agencies. The first agency I went to serves 11 countries! I was so overwhelmed! I thought, "Whoah! How can we just pick one?" So, I began to look at the requirements for every country. .. . Out of all 11, we only hands-down qualified for one! You can guess which one . . . Ethiopia!
A few nights later, we were having dinner, and our oldest son said he didn't feel well and asked to go lie on the couch. The television was off, and since it takes 3 remotes to turn all the components on, I didn't know he could do turn it on. He can! I went in to tell him to turn it off since the rest of us were still eating and to check what he was watching! He said, "Mom, please let me watch it, it's okay. It's just about them making a playground for their backyard." The other kids finished eating and joined him in the living room. We stayed at the table to enjoy the rare quiet moment! :) Then our oldest daugter said, "Mom, you gotta' see this! They're making their backyard like Animal Kingdom!" Chann and I go look, and the family whose yard is being redone has adopted 6 kids from . . .Ethiopia! That may seem like just a crazy coincidence, but we NEVER have the television on at that time of day, and we had just been praying for the Lord to confirm to us that Ethiopia was where we should adopt! Chann and I looked at each other and knew that our children would be waiting for us in Ethiopia!
My favorite confirmation so far, though has been this: I was driving home from a wedding rehearsal in the pouring rain, thinking through a lot of things that were going on with my parents. I was asking the Lord to show me how to handle the situation, specifically how I could help, and if I could help. I was saying, maybe we shouldn't be adopting now. There is so much going on. I wonder if we should use some of the money for adoption to help somehow. . . . My mind was racing in a million directions, and my heart was very heavy. I stopped and said, "God, just tell me what to do!" I looked up, and in red letters on the license plate of the van in front of me was ADOPTION. I almost didn't believe what I was seeing. I have VERY poor vision, especially at night, especially in the rain. I really shouldn't have even been able to SEE the license plate in front of me! I thought that I was making it up! So, I got a little closer. Yep - ADOPTION! I don't think it gets more clear than that!
After telling this story to my friend, she said, "Wow! God speaks to you through a megaphone!"
This is already super long, but there are still more stories of the Lord speaking His confirmation to us as we start this journey! And, I know that there are even more to come!
The night before the conference, we had a really bad storm, and three trees fell in our backyard. Chann was left at home with 4 kids without power for 2 1/2 of those 4 days. So, on my home, I was preparing how I should tell and persuade him that I thought it was time to pursue adoption and how God had spoken this so clearly to me. I thought of all the arguements that he might have for this not being the right time. . . . So, I get home around 6 pm. He and the kids have all been in the yard all day long chopping the fallen trees and clearing debris. They were filthy and exhausted! We ate dinner, got kids clean and to bed, and finally sat down on the couch around 10:00. Chann leaned back and closed his eyes, and said, "Tell me about the conference." Knowing he was exhausted, I told him we could just go to bed and talk about it later. He said he knew that I was dying to tell him things, so to just go ahead. Again, I hesitated, telling him there was so much, I didn't really know where to start, and that there was so much, I could talk for days, and I just knew he was too tired. Really, I thought, "I can't tell him now. He's too tired, and he's going to say no!" But instead I started telling him about some of the adoption stories I had heard. He could tell there was more, so I just blurted it all out, that we were supposed to adopt now, and not just one, but two! . . . His response was, "Ok." I was a little in shock! There was no protest, no list of reasons why I was crazy, just ok! God had been speaking to his heart as well.
He suggested that the next step was to take some time and be intentional about praying about from where we should adopt. He said that he felt like maybe we had just assumed we would adopt from China because I went there, but that we should ask for direction and see what the Lord had for us. At first, I was a little taken aback. My first step would be to DO something. God told me to adopt, I said, ok, so let's do it. Thank the Lord for a wise and Godly husband! While adopting from China would never be wrong, I definitely would have missed some of the blessings God had in store for us as we just sat and prayed and listened for Him.
The whole time we prayed about it, but we didn't talk about it much. Here and there, little things kept directing us to Africa. In that time I learned that a friend we hadn't had contact with in years was in the process of adopting her second son from Ethiopia! We also have sponsored a child from Ethiopia for the last 7 years and have often talked about how awesome it would be to go meet her. My friend was able to go meet her sponsored child on her first trip to meet her son! One night I was getting ready to tell this to Chann, not at all relating it to us. Just telling him that she was in Ethiopia and reading some of her blog to him, but before I did, I asked him what he had been thinking about where to adopt. He said, "Ethiopia has really been on my heart." I very excitedly told him about our friend. Then when we were talking later, we realized how during this time that we had been praying, both of us, separately had had conversations with people that led to Africa somehow, often not even relating to adoption. Then I remembered that at the conference I had gone to talk to a lady who had adopted two girls from China. In our conversation, she sor of flippantly said, "But, if you adopted from somewhere else, say Ethiopia . . . ." which at that point, I had totally dismissed. Now, it was another piece of rhema. We started to pray specifically about Ethiopia.
I decided to go ahead and look at a few agencies. The first agency I went to serves 11 countries! I was so overwhelmed! I thought, "Whoah! How can we just pick one?" So, I began to look at the requirements for every country. .. . Out of all 11, we only hands-down qualified for one! You can guess which one . . . Ethiopia!
A few nights later, we were having dinner, and our oldest son said he didn't feel well and asked to go lie on the couch. The television was off, and since it takes 3 remotes to turn all the components on, I didn't know he could do turn it on. He can! I went in to tell him to turn it off since the rest of us were still eating and to check what he was watching! He said, "Mom, please let me watch it, it's okay. It's just about them making a playground for their backyard." The other kids finished eating and joined him in the living room. We stayed at the table to enjoy the rare quiet moment! :) Then our oldest daugter said, "Mom, you gotta' see this! They're making their backyard like Animal Kingdom!" Chann and I go look, and the family whose yard is being redone has adopted 6 kids from . . .Ethiopia! That may seem like just a crazy coincidence, but we NEVER have the television on at that time of day, and we had just been praying for the Lord to confirm to us that Ethiopia was where we should adopt! Chann and I looked at each other and knew that our children would be waiting for us in Ethiopia!
My favorite confirmation so far, though has been this: I was driving home from a wedding rehearsal in the pouring rain, thinking through a lot of things that were going on with my parents. I was asking the Lord to show me how to handle the situation, specifically how I could help, and if I could help. I was saying, maybe we shouldn't be adopting now. There is so much going on. I wonder if we should use some of the money for adoption to help somehow. . . . My mind was racing in a million directions, and my heart was very heavy. I stopped and said, "God, just tell me what to do!" I looked up, and in red letters on the license plate of the van in front of me was ADOPTION. I almost didn't believe what I was seeing. I have VERY poor vision, especially at night, especially in the rain. I really shouldn't have even been able to SEE the license plate in front of me! I thought that I was making it up! So, I got a little closer. Yep - ADOPTION! I don't think it gets more clear than that!
After telling this story to my friend, she said, "Wow! God speaks to you through a megaphone!"
This is already super long, but there are still more stories of the Lord speaking His confirmation to us as we start this journey! And, I know that there are even more to come!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Rhema through a Megaphone! (Part 1)
When people hear that we are adopting, the first question, after "Really?!," is "From where?" The answer: Ethiopia. Then, "Why did you choose Ethiopia?" Then I get to say, "We didn't choose, God told us." This is SO cool, for SO many reasons!!!! The most obvious being that I get to share what the Lord is doing in our family, and I get to share His heart for the orphan and His plan of adoption. But, it goes even further than that. I get to share how the Living God, Creator of the Universe, cares enough to speak to ME! And, he doesn't just speak to me, He speaks to me so I can tell other people so that He can speak to them, too!
So, if you read the last post, you know that we knew we would adopt at the "right" time, but that was supposed to be in the distant future, when we had more money and our other kids were older . . . . Well, God has other, better, perfect plans. While I was content to wait, the Lord kept at me by building a community of adoption around me. A few of my friends started an Orphan Care Ministry Team, and since I had no time to join it (yep, that's sarcasm), my good friend kept me updated on all that they were doing. She went to a conference, learned a lot, had fun, met some neat people, heard John Piper preach, began hearing the Lord speak to her very specifically about her role in caring for orphans . . . It was all great, and I was loving being a part of it by praying for her and thinking through all these things with her. When it was time for the next conference (this past May), our other friend couldn't go. The conference was for 4 days in Louisville, Kentucky, and she was planning to drive. I sort of flippantly said, "I'll go!" To me, it made perfect sense: we'd have a fun road trip together, I'm interested in orphan care and plan to adopt one day, and I will have some much needed time away! (All very selfish reasons for going, I admit.) Then when I started to really think about it, I knew I needed to talk to my husband, make sure I could get off work, arrange childcare, oh, and pay for it. I told her I could only go if everything except my meals was covered, and that it would be totally okay if she needed to find someone else, most definitely thinking I would not be going. She asked another girl . . . came back to me later and told me that everything was paid for (conference fee, hotel, gas, even my food!), could I go? God was preparing the way! Obviously, I went!
The Orphan Summit VII was amazing!!!! I could write for days about all the great things the Lord is doing around the world! I learned so much, and met some really great people! But, more importantly, this is when I really started to hear the Lord speak very clearly about the "right" time for us to adopt. There were many moments during the conference when I was emotional, and the stories tugged my heartstrings, but this was more than that. Up until the very last sermon of the conference, I was still in my "one day" mode - constantly thinking, "Oh, I'll have to remember that when it's time for us to adopt," etc.... The last sermon was about our culture being a "Snuggie culture." The pastor was speaking from John 21 - the third time in a month I had heard a sermon from this passage! (I knew I really needed to get it this time!) I wish I could recount the sermon in it's entirity; there were so many great truths! However, the one the Lord really wanted me to hear was this, in our comfort-seeking (i.e."Snuggie") culture, we have tranferred our need for comfort to God. We claim to know that we are in God's will when things line up, make sense, and are easy. (In His goodness and grace, He often does that for us.) However, in John 21, Jesus first affirms Peter's sense of belonging by recreating the scene where he denied Jesus three times and gives him the opportunity to proclaim his love for Jesus three times, then He tells Peter that he will go to places he does not want to go. The pastor talked about how Jesus told Peter He would build His church upon him, yet he would be led to places he did not want to go. (He was ultimately referring to Peter following Him in death by crucifixion.) How can we, the church, expect anything different? 1 Corinithians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God." The rest of that chapter and chapter 2 are all about how different man's wisdom is from God's wisdom. Likewise, man's will and God's will are not always the same, and God's will often does not make sense to men. So, the challenge from this pastor was for us to consider if perhaps, being in God's will often is difficult, even something we don't really want to do, and defintely something that doesn't make sense. WHOAH! In that moment, I heard the Lord speak directly to my heart about how I was waiting for a "right" time, a time for it all to work perfectly and make sense - in my human eyes! Even now, 4 months later, I have chills remembering how clearly I heard His voice telling me the time is NOW!
So, if you read the last post, you know that we knew we would adopt at the "right" time, but that was supposed to be in the distant future, when we had more money and our other kids were older . . . . Well, God has other, better, perfect plans. While I was content to wait, the Lord kept at me by building a community of adoption around me. A few of my friends started an Orphan Care Ministry Team, and since I had no time to join it (yep, that's sarcasm), my good friend kept me updated on all that they were doing. She went to a conference, learned a lot, had fun, met some neat people, heard John Piper preach, began hearing the Lord speak to her very specifically about her role in caring for orphans . . . It was all great, and I was loving being a part of it by praying for her and thinking through all these things with her. When it was time for the next conference (this past May), our other friend couldn't go. The conference was for 4 days in Louisville, Kentucky, and she was planning to drive. I sort of flippantly said, "I'll go!" To me, it made perfect sense: we'd have a fun road trip together, I'm interested in orphan care and plan to adopt one day, and I will have some much needed time away! (All very selfish reasons for going, I admit.) Then when I started to really think about it, I knew I needed to talk to my husband, make sure I could get off work, arrange childcare, oh, and pay for it. I told her I could only go if everything except my meals was covered, and that it would be totally okay if she needed to find someone else, most definitely thinking I would not be going. She asked another girl . . . came back to me later and told me that everything was paid for (conference fee, hotel, gas, even my food!), could I go? God was preparing the way! Obviously, I went!
The Orphan Summit VII was amazing!!!! I could write for days about all the great things the Lord is doing around the world! I learned so much, and met some really great people! But, more importantly, this is when I really started to hear the Lord speak very clearly about the "right" time for us to adopt. There were many moments during the conference when I was emotional, and the stories tugged my heartstrings, but this was more than that. Up until the very last sermon of the conference, I was still in my "one day" mode - constantly thinking, "Oh, I'll have to remember that when it's time for us to adopt," etc.... The last sermon was about our culture being a "Snuggie culture." The pastor was speaking from John 21 - the third time in a month I had heard a sermon from this passage! (I knew I really needed to get it this time!) I wish I could recount the sermon in it's entirity; there were so many great truths! However, the one the Lord really wanted me to hear was this, in our comfort-seeking (i.e."Snuggie") culture, we have tranferred our need for comfort to God. We claim to know that we are in God's will when things line up, make sense, and are easy. (In His goodness and grace, He often does that for us.) However, in John 21, Jesus first affirms Peter's sense of belonging by recreating the scene where he denied Jesus three times and gives him the opportunity to proclaim his love for Jesus three times, then He tells Peter that he will go to places he does not want to go. The pastor talked about how Jesus told Peter He would build His church upon him, yet he would be led to places he did not want to go. (He was ultimately referring to Peter following Him in death by crucifixion.) How can we, the church, expect anything different? 1 Corinithians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God." The rest of that chapter and chapter 2 are all about how different man's wisdom is from God's wisdom. Likewise, man's will and God's will are not always the same, and God's will often does not make sense to men. So, the challenge from this pastor was for us to consider if perhaps, being in God's will often is difficult, even something we don't really want to do, and defintely something that doesn't make sense. WHOAH! In that moment, I heard the Lord speak directly to my heart about how I was waiting for a "right" time, a time for it all to work perfectly and make sense - in my human eyes! Even now, 4 months later, I have chills remembering how clearly I heard His voice telling me the time is NOW!
"Are you done?"
Being a mother of 4 at the age of 31 was never my plan! But, it was definitely the Lord's - but that's a whole other story! :) Anyway, having 4 kids as close in age as we do, people are always, I guess, amazed, stunned, dumbfounded (insert your word of choice, here!), and they often jokingly ask,"So, are you done yet?" Or the "bolder" ones say, "Don't you know what causes that?" The answers are, "No" and "Oh, yes, we do, thanks," respectively. Wait, did I just say, "NO, we are not done yet?!" Here's how I know that the Lord is not done adding to our family yet. . . . (. . . and belive it or not, this is the short version!)
When I was 19, I spent a summer in China teaching English. At that time I had been dating my husband for almost 4 years already, and we knew we were headed for marriage. While in China, the Lord did MANY things in my heart, and it was definitely there that He planted the seed of adoption. At one point after I got home, I said to Chann something like, "If you want to marry me, you are going to have to adopt a little girl from China one day," to which he quickly responded, "Okay." Fast forward 4 more years, we had been married for about a year and thought that we would wait a little while to have children, but we knew that it would take a while to adopt and began to think that we would pursue adoption first. However, we learned 2 things: that we had to be 30 to adopt from China (I was only 23 and Chann 24 at that point), and that the Lord had other plans for our family - I soon found out I was pregnant with our first daughter! Fast forward again 4 more years, and now we had three children! Adoption was probably the furthest thing from our minds, so was another baby, but yep, here comes one more! :)
After our fourth was born, the "Are you done yet?" question came more and more frequently. Although we knew my body was done birthing babies, I simply could not say, "No" to this question. So, adoption came up again. We thought: yes, it's definitely something we want to do SOME day, when we have the money; when the other kids are older; when maybe I don't have to work . . . . the list goes on. But, needless to say, we knew it was not in our near future. Then came Missions Sunday. That night I went to listen to some of my friends talk about their summer mission trips. I was overwhelmed with such an urgency to adopt NOW, so much so that I left with a migraine and had to have someone else drive me home! Chann and I talked and prayed and decided that there was no way we could do this now - he was only working part-time, and Evy was just 6 months old! The urgency eased, a little. School started, life moved on, and adoption again became something we would get to at some point. I was really okay with this. We both knew the Lord had confirmed in our hearts that we would adopt, so now we just had to wait until the "right" time.
When I was 19, I spent a summer in China teaching English. At that time I had been dating my husband for almost 4 years already, and we knew we were headed for marriage. While in China, the Lord did MANY things in my heart, and it was definitely there that He planted the seed of adoption. At one point after I got home, I said to Chann something like, "If you want to marry me, you are going to have to adopt a little girl from China one day," to which he quickly responded, "Okay." Fast forward 4 more years, we had been married for about a year and thought that we would wait a little while to have children, but we knew that it would take a while to adopt and began to think that we would pursue adoption first. However, we learned 2 things: that we had to be 30 to adopt from China (I was only 23 and Chann 24 at that point), and that the Lord had other plans for our family - I soon found out I was pregnant with our first daughter! Fast forward again 4 more years, and now we had three children! Adoption was probably the furthest thing from our minds, so was another baby, but yep, here comes one more! :)
After our fourth was born, the "Are you done yet?" question came more and more frequently. Although we knew my body was done birthing babies, I simply could not say, "No" to this question. So, adoption came up again. We thought: yes, it's definitely something we want to do SOME day, when we have the money; when the other kids are older; when maybe I don't have to work . . . . the list goes on. But, needless to say, we knew it was not in our near future. Then came Missions Sunday. That night I went to listen to some of my friends talk about their summer mission trips. I was overwhelmed with such an urgency to adopt NOW, so much so that I left with a migraine and had to have someone else drive me home! Chann and I talked and prayed and decided that there was no way we could do this now - he was only working part-time, and Evy was just 6 months old! The urgency eased, a little. School started, life moved on, and adoption again became something we would get to at some point. I was really okay with this. We both knew the Lord had confirmed in our hearts that we would adopt, so now we just had to wait until the "right" time.
Why "Rhema"?
In my small group a while back, a very wise lady shared her experience with the scriptures above (Luke 4:4, Deut. 8:3). She taught us about the word "rhema," and told us how she and her husband's eyes were opened to the truth in this verse. They thought, well, we usually eat three times a day, does that really mean we can "hear" from God three times a day?! So, they prayed that their ears would be opened and challenged one another to really listen and see if they could hear from God at least once a day. And, guess what, on most days, when they were really listening, THEY DID! In that meeting, we talked about how we have not only been given God's "logos" - his written word, but also His "rhema" - his spoken word, which is revealed to us by His Holy Spirit. All we have to do is ask and listen! So, I did!
What do I mean by "the spoken word of God?" Am I talking about an audible voice that booms from the clouds, no (though I don't doubt that can happen!) Most often, it is just a sense of "knowing" something without obvious explanation. Sometimes, it is a still, small voice that is so clear that I wonder if it was audible to anyone else. Other times it comes through other people and situations that only God can orchestrate, or it is two people coming to the same conclusion without having any discussion at all. It is the Lord laying a person on your heart - when you think of someone "out of the blue" and know that you should pray for them or call them. It is something revealed to your spirit by His Spirit living in you.
Back to LIVING by God's word. . . in the words of my dear friend. .. "the essence of the teaching: It's that God is speaking rhema to us all day long. We don't catch it because we don't expect Him to be speaking to us all day long. Our expectations are on the floor. The teaching comparing rhema to bread, and the thought that we eat 3 times a day at least, revolutionizes our expectations on how often God WILL speak to us. We don't expect Him to speak, so we don't hear Him speak."
Obviously, I am no where NEAR perfect, and there are definitely days that I forget to listen, but when I do, I hear. Isaiah 55:6 says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." and Psalm 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth." Let God revolutionize your expectations; seek Him, listen for Him, and He will speak to you. In the following posts, I will attempt to give testimony to God's rhema in our lives concerning our adoption.
*This is not at all to belittle God's Holy written word! And, it should definitely be stated that rhema will never contradict logos!!
What do I mean by "the spoken word of God?" Am I talking about an audible voice that booms from the clouds, no (though I don't doubt that can happen!) Most often, it is just a sense of "knowing" something without obvious explanation. Sometimes, it is a still, small voice that is so clear that I wonder if it was audible to anyone else. Other times it comes through other people and situations that only God can orchestrate, or it is two people coming to the same conclusion without having any discussion at all. It is the Lord laying a person on your heart - when you think of someone "out of the blue" and know that you should pray for them or call them. It is something revealed to your spirit by His Spirit living in you.
Back to LIVING by God's word. . . in the words of my dear friend. .. "the essence of the teaching: It's that God is speaking rhema to us all day long. We don't catch it because we don't expect Him to be speaking to us all day long. Our expectations are on the floor. The teaching comparing rhema to bread, and the thought that we eat 3 times a day at least, revolutionizes our expectations on how often God WILL speak to us. We don't expect Him to speak, so we don't hear Him speak."
Obviously, I am no where NEAR perfect, and there are definitely days that I forget to listen, but when I do, I hear. Isaiah 55:6 says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." and Psalm 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth." Let God revolutionize your expectations; seek Him, listen for Him, and He will speak to you. In the following posts, I will attempt to give testimony to God's rhema in our lives concerning our adoption.
*This is not at all to belittle God's Holy written word! And, it should definitely be stated that rhema will never contradict logos!!
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