The Day After

As Christmas time has come and gone in the since of a day, but we need to celebrate Jesus Christ everyday!  Anyways, it was such a joyous time celebrating with our family and watching all the cousins having fun and playing together.  There is something so great about hearing the kids running and playing throughout  the house.  I just pray that next year our new little one will be laughing and running and playing with them.
 Laying in bed this morning snuggled with my family I was thanking God for the true blessing of our family and anticipating/dreaming of our other child snuggling there with us by this time next year (oh how I pray that will be so)!  Our family is just not complete without them and God is so good to have put that desire in our heart and to keep nuturing that desire for our child who is far away.  We continue to pray daily for them and their protection and can not wait to pick them up and hold and squeeze and kiss their beautiful face.  I am so thankful to God for helping me/us through this time of year knowing that they are far away from us and not knowing their situation is hard, but God has challenged us and brought us closer to Him through this time of growing and leaning on Him to take care of them and us.  This time of waiting is hard (and we have only been in this stage for 3 months) but we are going to take this time to let God work on us and what He needs to teach us and if we allow Him to  grow us through this time the lessons we gain are far more worthy than the hardship of the "waiting"!  Everything comes in HIS timing!  Merry Christmas to everyone and I pray we all learn and grow in Him this upcoming year!!!

Prayer Needed!

As I mentioned in my last post that even though this is a wonderful time of year it is also very hard at times when you are in the "waiting stage" of adoption and we have only been here almost 3 months there are many others that have been in the "waiting stage" for 16 months and are struggling not having their babies home with them.  So, I am asking for any of you that read this to please keep them and all those in the adoption process in your prayers.  Most of we all know that God has called us on this journey and there are times that we just need to be lifted up by others to help carry us a little when we can't stand on our own.  Through this journey God is pruning and teaching us in many ways, but at times it gets hard and I can only imagine the struggle that those feel that have been waiting for a year, 14 , 16 months must be feeling.  I asking that you not only pray for them, but to pray for referrals to come.  There are many children and sometimes the paperwork just isn't getting done in a timely manner or they don't have all the clearance levels in place and so the children who are paper ready are just left waiting in the orphanges.  (this is in the southern region of Ethiopia-please pray for this area).  God is so in control of every step and as much as you know that at times you just need a little hope.  Please pray for all of these families who have been waiting so long to bring their children home and pray for the children and their hearts to be prepared for their forever family.  May God truly bless you during this time of celebration of the greatest gift that could ever be given to each and everyone of us and that is the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  If you don't know how ask Him into your heart and learn about the most perfect gift that has ever been given to you and I!  Merry Christmas!

Christmas Time!!!

As we are getting ready for this time of year and enjoying our time together as a family we can't help but know that our other child is not yet here with us and we pray they are with us next year, actually I am assuming they will be!!!  As we decorate, buy gifts and prepare you still feel like you are missing someone and that is a bit hard!  So, we pray a lot for them and where they could be right now and their situation.  I pray so often for God's arms to be wrapped around them carrying them and protecting them and whispering to them that everything will be ok.  I pray for their birth family and the situation they are in and the decisions they will be making or already have made and how hard it must be for them to make that decision to give up their child for another to raise...  It is a little overwhelming everything that can and does surround the adoption process.  Things you don't think about when your pregnant with a baby in your tummy.  But, knowing that God is preparing their family for the decision they will make and preparing our hearts and our child's heart for each other is an utterly amazing and overwhelming sense of peacefulness.  This time of year and everyday for that matter is about God and for God and through this journey of ours to get our other child we will praise God and give Him all the glory, because HE IS GOOD!!!