Music For Your Heart

I forget how much music ministers to my heart. I also forget how much I really love music. I especially love to find the lyrics of songs that I like. Many times I am surprised to find out what the lyrics really are. Building 429 has a new song called Listen to the Sound. When I actually found the lyrics it made me like the song even more. I love the where it says: “You’ll never know what faith is until you don’t understand.” That just so reminds how if I could accomplish this adoption on my own, I would not need God and I certainly would not have grown in the ways that He has grown me. I also love where it says “sometimes it takes silence to finally hear his plan” I so resonate with that because at times my prayer life can be filled with me just talking and not taking the time to listen to what God may be trying to say to me.





In an article that got emailed to me was a link to Ginny Owens song If you want me to. I guess it is an older song but I had not heard and really loved the lyrics to this song as well. I so resonate with the words of this song. When she says, “It may not be the path I would have chosen” I smile. I have always joked that I sign-up for many different things than what has happened in my life thus the title; This is Not The Life I Signed-Up For. But the more I grow in my relationship with the Lord the more convinced I become that the life He has blessed me with is; is far richer because of all the things that I did not sign-up for. 

No One Told Me There Was Going to be a Pop Quiz

I had a math teacher in high school who would give pop quizzes. He made them super easy; I think it was his way of keeping people from skipping class. He would have questions like “How many cans are in a 6 pack?” and “What color is a polar bear?” How can you not be prepared for a pop quiz like that? I had a pop quiz in one of my core waiting classes that is required for me to get my degree in waiting and I think I failed. I mean practically bombed it, really.

Jeff and I are working on dossier and we have submitted our application into the U.S Citizen and Immigration Services Office. We were waiting for our social worker to get back to us with some news about this. We were told that we should be able to get an answer the first part of this week. That made the wait last week and over the weekend no problem. The end was in sight so to speak because both Jeff and I thought that would be today, Monday. All day we waited and no news. The later in the afternoon it got the more discouraged and negative I got. To compound my negativity, our social worker is out of the office the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. So I concluded that we wouldn’t get news until next week.

Then the quiz happened, someone asked if we heard anything to which I replied “No and we probably won’t hear anything until next week now” I realized as I answered that I was in the midst of a quiz. I was not doing well but, I had an ever so slim chance that I could maybe get a passing grade. When they then said, “That sounds negative, are you being negative?” I of course answered, “Yes” The words no more left my mouth and I knew I just failed my pop quiz.

So much for, against all hope in hope Tracy believed. To add insult to injury so to speak, I think I had a clue that I might be coming upon a pop quiz today. Because, in my quite time this morning I read a devotion that started with: “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Matthew 9:28. It then went on to say God deals with impossibilities. I was encouraged as I read that and I thought how fitting. I am reminded time and time again that we cannot do this adoption process on our own. There are so many details that without the Lord’s help and guidance I am unsure how they would all come together.When a teacher says there may be a pop quiz, one can pretty much bet there will be a pop quiz. When you are challenged to think, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” It’s a pretty safe assume that you might get a pop quiz.

I do believe that God can do this. The struggle is to let go of my timetable. It is also a struggle to let go of the details. I know God will get us the answer, whether it is the one we want well, that remains to be seen. I also know that we will adopt. The struggle for me is, will all the details work out? I struggle worrying what if we adopt the wrong kids, clearly, I have no idea how that is possible but I at times feel that way. I sometimes worry that all my fears will happen and then, what will do? I can see that I have some more studying to do for future pop quizzes. But, I am reminded that Abraham did not start out at Romans 4:18 “Against all hope in hope Abraham believed” It was process but he got there. I am in process also and like Abraham with the Lord, I know that I will get there as well.

George Mueller a great man of faith wrote the following and I found it encouraging. I will leave you with his words in hopes that they encourage you as you prepare for your next pop quiz. ”Remember, the very time for faith to work is when our sight begins to fail. And the greater the difficulties, the easier it is for faith to work, for as long as we can see certain solutions to our problems, we will not have faith. Faith never works as easily as when our natural prospects fail.”

What a Difference a Week Makes

When Jeff and I started the adoption process we started pursuing international adoption. It is something I have always wanted to do. Especially the part of adopting a sibling group i.e. sisters, brothers or brothers and sisters. They can be difficult to place and well I have always wanted to do that. Once we started the mountains of paper work, otherwise known as the adoption process, we realized that there were some barriers, which at the time did not seem that we could overcome. So we began pursuing domestic adoption.

During this part of our wait I read a lot. ….. On a side note sometimes I think it should be called adoptwaiting because so much of the process is waiting….back to my other thought reading….. I read things I liked, things I didn’t. I read things I agreed with and things I didn’t. As I have said before in another blog the waiting was a gift. I did not always, nor even now, do I always see it that way, but it was/is. I learned and grew. God did and continues to work in my life.

Then a little over a week ago as I was reading about the waiting children our adoption agency has, it’s a place I checked often just in case there might be siblings internationally we could pursue. This time when I checked there was a sibling group that we met all the qualifications of that country and might be able to pursue adopting. Jeff and I inquired about them to find out more information. Since the time Jeff and I started this adoptwaiting some key barriers to international adoption had been knocked down. In attempting to pursue this sibling group we decided that even if we could not get these sibling that maybe we could adopt other siblings. That is when international adoption made it’s way back into our adoption journey or adoptwaiting as the case may be.

Last Monday as I wrote this blog we were still pursuing domestic adoption and now here we are moving forward to adopt from Ethiopia. What a difference a week makes.

That’s the crazy thing about my journey with the Lord. I’m telling him what is going on, how I really would like to see-fill in the blank with whatever I am praying for at the time- and when I look out into the horizon I don’t see a glimmer of change. I get discouraged. Then the next day when I look there it is. It wasn’t there a moment ago and now it is. How easy it is for me to forget that just because nothing is in the horizon doesn’t mean, there isn’t something out there. I just can’t see it yet. Ah there it is again, the crux, seeing it. How easy is it to have faith in what I can see or what I know. 1 Cor 5:7 “We live by faith, not by sight.” It’s not the other way around is it? Live by sight, not faith. I sure sometime wish it was. Yet, I’m always challenged by the thought is it faith if I know what is going to happen? Better yet, is it faith if I am only trusting God to not let what I don’t want to happen, happen? HMMM…..