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. :)
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
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...
Friday, January 4, 2013
Declare it!!
Hey, I know it's been a while since I've written... and, quite frankly, I'm ashamed of the reasons. I am learning that I should share, even when I am struggling to find the positive. I should be sharing our story as we go, because we learn and grow through the tough times, not just when things are good. I am constantly having to regain perspective and remind myself that I am not in control... I am also having to remind myself to relinquish control because, even though it is just as hard every time, God's plans always work better!
My newest life nugget is about declaring God's plans and promises for our lives, instead of constantly asking Him to do things for us... My husband and I have been reading Relentless by John Bevere, a book about praying without ceasing, and having courage and being unstoppable. In this book, he discusses Ephesians 1:19-20, "I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms." This means that we have been given the same power through Christ, meaning it has already been given. This leads me to my story.
As you know, my husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half. About 6 months ago, we began this adventure of adoption, because we really felt God was leading us down this road for the current place we're in... We prayed and took classes and prepared for a little boy who is 6 years old, only to find out that he was going to live with family in another state. This led us to the realization that our hearts had been opened to a child we didn't birth, and had no idea who they would be... So we continued our adventure, not knowing where it would lead... We tried to submit our information for a 2 year old little boy, only to find out we had waited 1 day too late to decide to pursue other options. Then we had to opportunity to submit our paperwork for a sibling group with a 5 year old girl and 7 month old boy, or a 1 year old Asian girl who sounded amazing. We are not set up for more than one child in our current home, so the 2 were not an option. I wanted to say yes to the little girl, and in my haste was upset when my husband said no. He told me, he really felt like it was going to be a little boy. After being very upset with him for a couple days, I remembered all the times his discernment has won over my pride and lack of logic...
The way it works is that if you submit your information to be considered for a child, you are not allowed to try for another until you have been officially denied. The process usually takes 2-3 weeks. So, about a week and a half after fighting with my husband because I desperately wanted to say yes to the 1 year old girl, we got a phone call from our worker at the adoption agency. She said she had a 7 month old little boy who was perfectly healthy and happy, with no ties to biological family. We submitted our information about an hour after she had received the email. We prayed and declared him as our son for 3 weeks, not wavering in our words, and not really saying, "please God give us this child." Just thanking him for our son and declaring 1 Samuel 1:27 over him: "I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request." 3 and a half weeks later, we got the phone call that this child is going to be ours!!!!!!!! He will be in our house by the beginning of February. We have yet to meet him, but we have perfect peace that this was God's plan all along!
The moral of the story is that God has already granted us authority, and He has a divine plan for us, we just have to accept that we are His children. We have to claim what is already ours, and stop just timidly asking for things. :)
Next week I will share about our son's name and the awesomeness that is God's love and redemption!
My newest life nugget is about declaring God's plans and promises for our lives, instead of constantly asking Him to do things for us... My husband and I have been reading Relentless by John Bevere, a book about praying without ceasing, and having courage and being unstoppable. In this book, he discusses Ephesians 1:19-20, "I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms." This means that we have been given the same power through Christ, meaning it has already been given. This leads me to my story.
As you know, my husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half. About 6 months ago, we began this adventure of adoption, because we really felt God was leading us down this road for the current place we're in... We prayed and took classes and prepared for a little boy who is 6 years old, only to find out that he was going to live with family in another state. This led us to the realization that our hearts had been opened to a child we didn't birth, and had no idea who they would be... So we continued our adventure, not knowing where it would lead... We tried to submit our information for a 2 year old little boy, only to find out we had waited 1 day too late to decide to pursue other options. Then we had to opportunity to submit our paperwork for a sibling group with a 5 year old girl and 7 month old boy, or a 1 year old Asian girl who sounded amazing. We are not set up for more than one child in our current home, so the 2 were not an option. I wanted to say yes to the little girl, and in my haste was upset when my husband said no. He told me, he really felt like it was going to be a little boy. After being very upset with him for a couple days, I remembered all the times his discernment has won over my pride and lack of logic...
The way it works is that if you submit your information to be considered for a child, you are not allowed to try for another until you have been officially denied. The process usually takes 2-3 weeks. So, about a week and a half after fighting with my husband because I desperately wanted to say yes to the 1 year old girl, we got a phone call from our worker at the adoption agency. She said she had a 7 month old little boy who was perfectly healthy and happy, with no ties to biological family. We submitted our information about an hour after she had received the email. We prayed and declared him as our son for 3 weeks, not wavering in our words, and not really saying, "please God give us this child." Just thanking him for our son and declaring 1 Samuel 1:27 over him: "I asked the Lord to give me this boy, and he has granted my request." 3 and a half weeks later, we got the phone call that this child is going to be ours!!!!!!!! He will be in our house by the beginning of February. We have yet to meet him, but we have perfect peace that this was God's plan all along!
The moral of the story is that God has already granted us authority, and He has a divine plan for us, we just have to accept that we are His children. We have to claim what is already ours, and stop just timidly asking for things. :)
Next week I will share about our son's name and the awesomeness that is God's love and redemption!
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The Lord will go before you!
I love that I get to share things in this way! God has really blessed us, and I am very proud of how far we've come! Things are not always perfect, but we have learned that the best way to handle things is by letting God be in charge. To "be still and know that I am God" is the hardest, yet most rewarding aspect of life. We are waiting on so many things to happen right now and get so impatient some days, but we have learned through experience that His timing is best! God is constantly doing things that we cannot see, and just like children trust their parents to take care of them, we are trusting Him to work on our behalf.
I will close with a Bible verse that I feel describes what we are believing for right now, that God is going before us to fight for us! Deuteronomy 31:6 (NLT) says "So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you."
I will close with a Bible verse that I feel describes what we are believing for right now, that God is going before us to fight for us! Deuteronomy 31:6 (NLT) says "So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
He wants to say YES!
Well, I am trying to get better about posting regularly and absolutely loving seeing all the views on my page! Thanks so much for reading! :)
So, it has been on my heart to just tell you, whoever you may be, that God loves you and sent His Son to die for you, 2,000 years ago! We are His children, and He loves us! It is so important to remember that, as His children we have favor. He wants to say YES to us! Psalms 84:11 in the New Living Translation says: "For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." To me this says that He will never say no to us if we are doing the right thing.
We have been going through the adoption process and every time I question if we are making the right choice, I ask God for something to hold onto, a confirmation. And every time, when I ask Him to hold me up and give me faith, He does something amazing! Sometimes it's small, but it is always exactly what I need to get me through the week... Just be aware that He loves us and His timing may be different than ours, but He has our future in mind. I know that my parents always had my best interest at heart when they made me wait for things, or took things away when I got in trouble... I did not realize it until I was about 24, but I see it now. They also made sure we were always taken care of, fed, clothed, and happy. Just as our human parents love us and want what is best for us, our Heavenly Father will not ever leave us wanting because He loves us so much that He sacrificed His Son for our eternal well-being! :)
So, it has been on my heart to just tell you, whoever you may be, that God loves you and sent His Son to die for you, 2,000 years ago! We are His children, and He loves us! It is so important to remember that, as His children we have favor. He wants to say YES to us! Psalms 84:11 in the New Living Translation says: "For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." To me this says that He will never say no to us if we are doing the right thing.
We have been going through the adoption process and every time I question if we are making the right choice, I ask God for something to hold onto, a confirmation. And every time, when I ask Him to hold me up and give me faith, He does something amazing! Sometimes it's small, but it is always exactly what I need to get me through the week... Just be aware that He loves us and His timing may be different than ours, but He has our future in mind. I know that my parents always had my best interest at heart when they made me wait for things, or took things away when I got in trouble... I did not realize it until I was about 24, but I see it now. They also made sure we were always taken care of, fed, clothed, and happy. Just as our human parents love us and want what is best for us, our Heavenly Father will not ever leave us wanting because He loves us so much that He sacrificed His Son for our eternal well-being! :)
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