The tough stuff

Sometimes we find ourselves in not-so-pleasant seasons, or not-so-pleasant places in our lives. These places are difficult, monotonous, bland, boring, lonely, or just plain ridiculous. Sometimes they can be all of these things, and more. What do we do during these seasons? Do we let them tear us down and discourage us, or do we let them build us up and make us better? There are so many times that we want to throw in the towel and let the circumstances overtake us. Don't. Just don't. We may not see it, but there are amazing things waiting on the other side of the season. 

I know this is cliché and overdone, but I am going to tell you more of our story. I want you to see the reality of the greatness of God during struggles. Hearing Bible stories is amazing and encouraging, but to know real people with real stories that speak to God's faitfulness, is even more so. And, quite frankly, sharing the things God has done for us encourages me in times when it's harder to see what He's doing. It reminds me that He does love me, even in the rough stuff. I've been reading Restless by Jennie Allen, and she keeps talking about how our suffering can guide us to God's purposes. I fully believe this is valid, and the following story shows that God is faithful in using us... 

As many of you know, or have read in previous posts, we have not been able to get pregnant. It is coming up on 4 years of struggling with infertility, miscarriages, and overall heartbreak. The beautiful thing is, that's not where our parenthood story ends. We adopted an 8 month old little boy in January of 2013, Samuel Jeffrey. He is brilliant, witty, looks just like my husband, and lights up any room. We adopted him through foster care, and were able to have one of the smoothest adoptions anyone working on our case had ever seen. It was an amazing testament to God's faithfulness through our heartache! 

A year later, we started fertility treatments again, ready for another. They were too hard for me, they made me a wreck, and Sam was now almost 2... Anyone with children can tell you that it's not safe to be borderline psychotic (not an exaggeration) when you have a child entering the "terrific two's." I had a very early miscarriage following one of my treatments, then we tried again a month later. I remember calling my husband from the car in tears and telling him "If we don't get pregnant during this round, we're adopting again. I can't stand feeling this way." He agreed. 

I told one person we were considering adopting again, my very dear friend, Rhonda. We didn't tell our parents, or anyone else. I think we were tired of hearing the "just stop trying, it will happen," or the famous "it's all God's timing, you'll get pregnant when He's ready."  Long story short, we went a baseball game to watch Rhonda's son play, and she introduced us to a foster family. They had a couple of adorable boys... One of them was 3 month old Noah, and they were trying to decide if they were going to adopt him. We continued going to games, and getting to know this sweet baby and we started fighting, along with his foster family, for him to be ours. During the process to get him into our home, we had another miscarriage. It was devastating, but we realized we were doing exactly what God had planned for growing our family. 

3 months later, Noah moved in with us, and 5 months after that, just last month, he became Noah Alexander Dice. He is one of the cutest kids I've ever seen. He is hilarious, and smart, and looks like Sam. He has become another amazing chapter in our story that has proven that God has our hearts in His hands, and knows what we need. Everyone always tells us that our boys look just like us, and it's one of my favorite things to hear.

I say all of this to tell you, God knows. He knows your heart's desires. He knows your passions. He knows your dreams. Who do you think gave them to you? I know it's hard, trust me. A lot of tears have come from my heart to God over not being able to become a mommy. Sometimes, I still cry for hours wondering if I'll ever experience the flutters of a baby in my belly, or the bond of breastfeeding. But, then I see my boys and hear their giggles and I remember that God loves me. He has my future in mind, and whatever it is will be amazing. Take heart, sweet friend, and know that the other side isn't necessarily easier, but it will be so much better!! 

New Seasons

I am so excited to enter a new season of productivity, ministry, motivation, and relationship. I am not entirely sure what it all means or will look like, but I know that God is moving and changing my heart. He is reminding me of all the things He has called me to do, and moving me in directions I had forgotten.

Over the last 2 years, we have adopted 2 brilliant, amazing boys. The oldest is going to be 3 in May and the second just turned 1 in January. Our second adoption was finalized at the beginning of February. I will share more about the story of growing our family God's way in another post. :) They have been such a blessing and changed everything about our life together. We have been so blessed by them and their amazing personalities and joy, and we are beyond thrilled to be their parents. God really knows what He's doing, as far as timing goes... 

But, now that we have settled in as parents to 2 children under 3, it is time to remember who I am in the Kingdom. People keep telling me that becoming the mother to 2 children who needed homes and a family means that I am fulfilling my purpose and ministry, but I long for more. Not that being their mother isn't enough for me, just that I know there is more that I have been called to do. I have felt a restlessness and longing for more. Psalm 37:4 (NLT) says "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart's desires." I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, but I want to reiterate that I firmly believe that if you are taking delight in the Lord, He drops desires in your heart that line up with His will for you. It doesn't mean that you should believe that He will give you anything you ask for, ever. Anyway, I say that to say that I know my desire to do more isn't simply because I'm bored. If that were the case, I would be longing for vacations and trips to foreign lands (which is also the case...), but I feel a desire to create an adventure with the Lord. I mostly long to minister to young people who feel like they have become someone they don't know anymore, or just who want to strengthen their relationship and understand God's purpose in their lives. I want to help them find themselves and realize their worth. This blog is going to become about my journey toward realizing how God wants to make this happen, and the thoughts I feel should be shared. 

Please comment with the ways you feel God pulling you, or the restlessness you may feel. I am also working on writing a book about realizing your worth, regardless of how far you've wandered, and I'd love input about how you feel you've wandered, or how you feel you've rediscovered your relationship with the Lord... :) I would love to develop a relationship with my readers, in order to better share and minister to you, as well.  

Parenting craziness :)

Hey everyone! Things have been absolutely insane and AMAZING over the last 5 months! Our son moved in January 29th, he was 8 and a half months old and adorable! He turned 1 in May and we have so enjoyed being parents! Well... mostly enjoyed being parents... haha. Adjusting to parenthood is hard, especially when helping a child adjust to a new home and family... We have had some crazy, difficult attachment and separation issues, but not ever considered going back to how things were. There have been times, now that he is learning to have an opinion, when I cried (alot) because I didn't know what to do. But, I have never thought about Samuel as "someone else's child" or been resentful or regretful that we brought him into our home.... I have questioned my sanity or my ability to be a mother, but I think that is normal when we forget to let God do the parenting through us... :) I was recently asked to to share something I had posted along these lines on my facebook page for a friend, so here it is:

This is a blog post titled "To parents of small children: Let me be the one who says it out loud," a post about loving our small children, but being exhausted in every sense of the word. I posted it a few days ago, but my son has started throwing tantrums and refusing to sleep... I have read this like 8 times this week and cried every time. I keep trying to remind myself I'm not a bad mother just because I'm hormonal and want to cry constantly. I will say that if I hear "enjoy this time with him," a sarcastic "welcome to motherhood," or "you'll miss this season of your son's life" again, I will have to not be friends with whoever you are until this season is over. I'm glad you who are parents are passed this and don't remember how awful it is, but I can't wait until we get passed it and I'm missing the good things about this age and forgetting the tears I've cried everyday this week because I refuse to let my child run over me....
I love my son desperately and wouldn't trade him for the world, but I'll really like him more when he starts sleeping again and stops screaming at me....
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=3209305

I say all of this to let everyone know that it is ok to be transparent... Not everyone has easy children, not everyone has an easy time being patient all the time, and not everyone has it easy.... I love my son more than I ever thought possible and I am so grateful for him! Sometimes, it is the biggest things God gives us that are the hardest to be thankful for... I also want to say that, if you are married and having a hard time getting pregnant, please take time to appreciate your spouse... We have had a hard time becoming parents and all we wanted for so long was that, and now we realize that we didn't appreciate each other enough... PLEASE ENJOY EVERY MOMENT! I know that is a dumb thing to say, because I was there, too. But I now wish that I had listened when I heard it before. If you have children, make your spouse your priority, it is vital for your child's future that they see you loving your spouse. :)

Life is beautiful!!

My life is now full of poo, throw-up, tears, and tantrums... But that is totally outweighed by the smiles, giggles, snuggles, and slobbery kisses! I am so loving being a mom, even on the days that I am overwhelmed to tears... ;) The process of adopting this sweet ball of crazy joy has been such an eye- and heart-opening gift for us. I am honored that we would be chosen to be this boy's parents, and amazed at how God is already using him, even at 10 months of age. We have been able to share our story with so many people and minister to them in the process, all because of the joy people see in his eyes! I don't have a lot to say today, but I just know that having an amazing man doing life with me has been one of those things I know God gave me so that we can be a "power couple" and follow His path together!! Now, we get to be a "power family" because we are walking out His will for all of us through this!

God shows us His love for us in the most amazing, unexpected ways, and loving this child as my own has shown me a little more about how much the Father loves us! Romans 9:8 (ESV) says "This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring." Such a fitting scripture for how He accepts us according to the Promises and adopts us.... This child is our child of promise, the one that has become our answer to prayer, and he counted as our offspring now. Remember that no matter where you are in life, when you become His child, you are always His child and He loves you dearly. :)

Samuel Jeffrey

Samuel means God answered our prayers. Jeffery means God's divine peace. This is what we are naming our son. The name he was given at birth means "terror, or god of fear" and there is no way we will speak that over him.When we got word that this boy was available and found out his name was Deimas, I immediately looked up what it meant. We were calling him Baby D at first because we didn't like what his name meant and our last name starts with D, too. We just kept praying about what his name should be. When we had been trying to get pregnant for about 6 months, we decided when we did, if it was a boy, his name would be Samuel. We had been praying for a child and it was getting pretty emotional and hard to have faith... I wasn't thinking about naming our adopted son Samuel, I just wasn't really putting the pieces together. :)

Then I was looking through a jewelry catalog and saw a necklace that simply said 1 Samuel 1:27 on it. I looked it up in the New Living Translation, which says "I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and He has granted my request." I don't think it could have been more clear to me that this was that child. We hadn't been approved yet, we didn't even know how the process of changing his name worked yet, we just both agreed that Samuel was his name. We started speaking that verse over our lives and every time we said his name we were claiming that God had answered our prayers. 

We don't know what his middle name is right now, but I knew it needed to be something that means peace. There are so many stories of redemption and deliverance in the Bible that involve God changing someone's name to something that spoke over them a fulfilled purpose. I prayed about it for a week, then looked at a baby name website where you can put in what you want your baby's name to mean and it lists the names that mean anything close. I simply entered the word 'peace' There were some weird names, then I saw Geoffrey, and I knew. We prefer Jeffery as the spelling, but the meaning is the same, God's divine peace.

I hadn't really thought about it, but one of my best friends said that she loved that we were part of Christ's redemption story for this baby. At that moment, it became clear that all of our heartache and tears were for a reason, to love this child and raise him as God's. I've cried many tears of joy over being chosen for this amazing role as this child's mother, and I know that we would never have made the decisions leading up to this if we hadn't gone through the trials of temporary infertility. 

Through this, I hope you understand that God's plan may not make sense, and we may want to give up sometimes. But giving up on what He has at the end of that particular trial may be giving up on being someone else's path to the Savior...