Updated Picture

This picture includes the painting that I mentioned in my last post. I created this painting at a painting class. When I started I had no idea what I was going to paint. The instructor kept telling us to paint what was on our heart and at that time. I had nothing.... After an hour of thinking the instructor finally asked me to paint a circle and go from there. The picture you see is what I came up with. While I was painting God spoke to my heart and gave me the perfect thing to paint:)

Waiting on our Little One

Well it has been quite some time since I have last updated our adoption blog. Many things have happened since then...we have had quite an adventure in this adoption journey. Back in October after much prayer we had decided to place our adoption on hold. We had just completed one year of the waiting process in our adoption. Our homestudy was up for renewal and we were heartbroken that we had not recieved a child yet. So with discouraged hearts we decided to wait a while and wait to hear from God on what the next step in the process would be. Well the answer we recieved was a shock!  One afternoon in early November Eddie approached my and told me that after much prayer he needed to talk to me about the adoption. He proceeded to tell me that God had placed me on his heart and that he was supposed to tell me that I needed to stop controlling the situation and trust him completely. The next words he said were god breathed because it was something I needed to come to terms with...he said "Linda, you keep prayimg for God to bless us with a baby but how can he do that when you will not allow him the chance to because you are trying to control the situation instead of letting him control the situation" those words pierced my heart because I knew they we true. He also told me that he was really feeling that God was telling him that we should try to have our own baby, to just let go and trust him. This was NOT what I wanted to hear... not beacause I didnt want to but because there was so much fear involved in that decision. The fear of it happening again, the fear of having to live those moments again shook me to my core. After much prayer and finally letting go on my part we decided that this would be good and that we were ready for whatever God brought our way because we knew that he was with us. We decided to try for 6 months and that if it didnt happen it was because God had something else in mind for us. We still left the lines of communication open in case an adoptive child became available as well just in case :) It has almost been 6 months to the day and God once again shows up!
When I pray for our adoption I always pray that God speak to me through Eddie because with me there are to many emotions that get in the way from what I want and from what God wants. A couple of weeks ago God had been working on me again with the adoption process...and once again God spoke through Eddie. I asked Eddie one day if he would pray for the adoption again. I told him that he had been working on me and I just needed him to pray. Like before, he said "Linda, he's been talking to me about it too" I think we should start working on trying to find out more about other options in the adoption process. WOW!!! God really is amazing! He explained to me that he had come accross our adoption binder while cleaning out some paperwork and something told him to place it on our office desk because we would be needing it soon and he did. He took me into the room where he had placed it. My heart smiled because I knew it was confirmation from God that we needed to get on board with getting things completed and moving forward. So here we are. We sent the last items to heartland yesterday to complete our renewed home study application and will be having a visit soon and have been researching several agencies. We will be visiting with one next month and have already began the process of paperwork and also grant writng to help us cover the expenses of a private domestic infant adoption. We know it can be costly but have faith that if this is the direction that God wants us to go, he will provide!! I don't know why God took us through this season, it could possibly be because he wanted me to let go and let him or because he wanted to test our faithfulness, whatever the reason I know there was something we needed to learn from the experience. I can not wait to see what our journey holds. We are trusing him and trusting in his promise that we can do all things through him. I read a quote the other day that pretty much sums up where we are right now and how we have grown since this

"Never let the odds keep you from doing what in your heart you know you were meant to do"

The odds do seem like they are against us but we serve a mighty God who has created us for a mighty purpose and I believe with all my heart that we will one day soon be holding in our arms a child made just for us by God :)



The picture above has an awesome story that goes along with it that I will share soon, but I am so thankful for how God used Tina to speak to me and how this entire picture even came to be painted :)

Updates

It has been a while since our last post and I just wanted to update everyone on the process. As I have said before the adoption process can sometimes be quite a lengthy process and this has proven to be true in our case. I know many of you have asked and are wondering why it is taking so long for us so I wanted to answer the question for you. The main reason is the age that we have selected. Our age range is 0-5 years old. When we started the process we were told this age range was the hardest to get and had the longest wait time. The younger kids are always the ones that most families want. There is a waiting list of possible families for this age range and several of the families have been waiting a lot longer than we have. Another reason it is so difficult to adopt children of that age group is because usually the foster families have first choice and most of the time, they adopt the younger  children. We also had some special requests because of this being our first child.

Despite all of these conditions we have still had the privilege of being recommended for possible matches. We were even selected in the top 3 families for one child and were interviewed for a possible match. Although we were not selected we did have the opportunity to experience our first interview which will help us have a better understanding of what to expect next time. Although this was heartbreaking and very difficult for us, the experience helped us remember that we have to trust God in this process. His timing is perfect and even though it sometimes gets tough we have him to lean on and know that his plan is better than ours. He has called us to adopt and he has the perfect child for us and it will all happen in his timing. We have the opportunity now to fully trust God and leave it at his feet while we rest in his promises. We are humbled and thankful that he has allowed us to even have the possibility to adopt and give him all the glory!

For I know the plans I have for you declares The Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future

Be still and know that I am God

These are the verses that we cling to and the promises that we have been holding on to. We have peace and know that when our day comes it will be a God ordained miracle!

Please continue to pray for us and for the child that we will be adopting.

We are so happy that our friends the Hall's and the Samuels' have already been matched with children:) please pray for them as we'll as they walk through the process and follow God's call to adopt.

Happy birthday Babies

Well if you know me at all, you know that one of the hardest months if the year for me is April.... Oh how I dread this month every year! The doctors describe it as post traumatic stress... For the last couple of years April has come and gone with no problem but this year it has been tough! I think that God is teaching me something... After so many good years I was shocked to find myself running out of the room after a conversation about babies and crying myself to sleep at night. I thought I had moved on from moments like these but the truth is, even though I know  that God has  a plan and that he has healed me, I'm still human....and I will never forget. That's what Jesus is for. If I had it all together and never struggled with it I wouldn't need him! But I do need him!!! He is the only one who can give me strength in my weakness....because I alone can do nothing. There has still been no word yet in possible adoptive children and we are waiting to begin working towards our foster care home study but in the mean time I will wait while  God works in me..... Happy birthday this week and next  to all my angels in heaven! Know they are celebrating it up in heaven with Jesus!!!!

Happy birthday Chris, Alaina and Isaac

Hello Again

Well it has been quite a long time since I have updated the blog, but that is because we are in the waiting process. When you are adopting it is so exciting in the beginning when you are filling out paperwork, completing home studies and obtaining approval but after all those things happen the waiting game begins. It is the most un-exciting thing about the whole process. We are approved and just waiting for the call that says we have been recommended for a child. That has happened for us once already, but we were one out if five families chosen for this particular child but in the end we were not the family chosen. Yes, this was disappointing but we know that God has the perfect child already picked out for us.
This week we were able to attend the Project 111 kickoff event. Project 111 is an organization who's goal is to find Christian homes for children who are in foster care and need to be adopted in the state of Florida. We attended this event thinking that it would be just an event to encourage us and keep us positive about the adoption process but little did we know that God was going to speak to us and open up our hearts to a new process. While we were at this event we heard story after story of foster children who's lives were changed when they were given a home and parents through foster care. We heard Michelle from the joy fm's testimony as well as from her daughter Crystal who went through the foster care system. Through all of this both Eddie and I felt the Holy Spirit tugging at us. After the event we both turned to each other and said " we are supposed to foster" it was an immediate consensus. Without even speaking to each other during the event we both knew God was speaking to us. We spoke with Michelle and decided to speak with our adoption agency about what the process would be to start fostering.
Next week, we begin the paperwork to begin the foster care licensing process. Please pray for us and for the process. We are listening to the call that God has put in our hearts and obeying his word to take care of the least of these. We want to help as many children as possible. Our human side is afraid and nervous but we know that God will be with us!!! We are so excited to see how God will use us and how our hearts will be blessed by fostering.

God is Good!!!!!!

Well the day has finally come!! We had our adoption committee meeting on Thursday September 27th and our meeting went well:) We were recommended for approval. The whole experience was very nerve wracking and uncomfortable, but with God we endured the trial and have now come out on the other side. God is so amazing. Even though we fall short, he always comes through even though we don't deserve it. I am super proud of Eddie. He did so well. He was able to share his testimony with the committee and how God changed his life. It was awesome to be sitting with him listening to him pour out his heart and giving God the glory for changing his life. It was truly one of the moments that I will never ever forget. After the meeting we had a waiting period in which we were waiting to hear what the verdict of the committee was. At about 2pm we recieved an email that stated we had been recommended for approval. We were so excited. We have been through so much as a couple and it was one of those moments when God showed who he is. Only by his grace and by his hands was this even possible and we give him all the glory!!!! With this process now complete we are able to begin enjoying the adoption process. Our application has been submitted to Talahassee for a signature and then it will be sent back to the agency for a final signature and the matching process can begin:) This takes approximatley between two to four weeks. I am so thankful for the great friends that God has placed in our lives to walk with us through the process. I would't even consider these people friends I would consider them our family. We are so blessed that God put these people in our path to walk with us through life and to make us chocolate cake to celebrate the day:) One thing that stuck out to me about the entire process was the fact that we all have a story. Some of them may not be something that we are proud of but those stories are what makes us who we are and what God will use!! If we keep our stories to ourselves out of embarassment or a fear of showing weakness, we are telling God that what he did to change our lives wasn't good enough. We put him and what he did on the back burner. We should rejoyce in telling our stories because it shows how BIG God is and how he still performs miracles in people everyday. I can not wait until the day we bring our child home!!! It will be more proof that God works miracles everyday!!!!!

Be still and know that I am God

Humm....I don't really like the waiting part! Well it's been quite a while  since we've heard anything about our adoption process. We've heard stuff but it has been.....the date had to be pushed back, and pushed back again and pushed back again. Seems like every time we turn around something new has come up. But the strange thing is that a lot has happened during this time. I was able to go on my first international missions trip to the Dominican Republic and Eddie finished school and  got his first job as a lineman. God has blessed us both tremendously!!!!! Even with all these amazing things happening there are moments when we feel like the adoption process Is going no where. I wanted everything to go smoothly and quickly but its not. God has spoken loud and clear and what he has said is not really what I wanted to hear at first and that was BE STILL!!!! If you know me at all, those words don't taste good coming out of my mouth. I like quick and busy and god your telling me to be still!!!! I don't like this!!!! If it's your will for us to adopt why do I have to be still, shouldn't I be moving and pushing it forward until something happens? These are the thoughts that were running through my mind until I got back from my trip and reflected on what I wrote in my journal while I was gone to the DR. While in the DR God revealed something to me, something that I had been telling myself I wouldn't do BEFORE I left for the trip. I was one of those people who said that I would never adopt internationally because there were plenty of kids here close to home that I could adopt and that there was no need to adopt far away. WOW!!!!! Did God sure show me! See while I was there I realized that the orphaned children in other conntries don't have a government that takes care of them the way that we do, the kids here still get food, education and have a home usually with a foster parent but those kids who are in other countries, they don't!!!! Some don't get food, shelter clothing or education. They live in the streets and in orphanages that can't afford to feed them! That is a totally different scenario. See when you adopt those kids you are truly saving their lives!!!! And that my friends didn't sit well with my soul!!!! God opened my eyes!!!! So now my heart is extremely torn and my world is shaken. See, I had it all planned our already. I was going to get my child from the U.S. and everything would be great but now I don't know what to do!!!!!! When I told Eddie this in the back of my mind I was hoping that he would say no and that I was crazy but it didn't happen! He agreed!!!! Now my mind is really messed up! Now the waiting seems okay and I have a peace about the waiting that I can't explain! I have been praying  hard and listening to gods voice but I'm still at a loss on what to do next. We've set up a meeting with the Local adoption committee for September and my heart is okay, right now my heart is okay with waiting for 5 years to adopt and this isn't like me. I can't explain  it !!!! But what I do know is that god wants me to be still right now and wait for his prompting. So that's what I'll do. I will BE STILL! Trusting my God and his plan because his word tells me that he knows the plans he has for me already, plans to not harm me and plans to prosper me and give me a hope and future. I'm clinging to that promise with all of my heart and while I'm waiting I'm serving him! I've planned another trip to Guatemala next year to work with babies at the malnutrition center and I'm so excited!! I have to share this from my trip. I have never ever in my life felt extreme peace and happiness the way that I did when I was with the kids in the DR. I can't even put into words how amazing it was to be loved by them and to love on them. I was the happiest I ever was in my life. It was perfect,  God breathed, and I know it was because I was doing what god created me to do and because I was using the talents that he gave me! It was so special that I felt like it was a small glimpse of what we will feel like the day we go home to heaven because we will be worshiping and serving our God doing  what we were created to do and if that's what heaven is like, I'm Ready!!!!! I also got to feel the love of a child ...,,something I've yet to experience. I can't wait until God gives me that and I know one day he will...but until them I'll be still and wait knowing that it's coming :)