One Year

I can't believe it's been one whole year already!

This time last year we had just gotten back from Texas where Dan had a vasectomy reversal.

Since our journey began, I know of so many people who have gone through this recently.

(We have friends that are coming home today from Kentucky where she had a tubal reversal done.)

I'm glad we obeyed in this and know that we are where we are suppose to be.

There is an incredible peace that comes with it all!

My Gramma asked me today if we never got pregnant would my heart be broken.

I could honestly answer that it wouldn't.

I am so content with our children and feel so blessed by them.

When we first desired children after a few years of marriage it was different.

I didn't have any children to hug or fill my mama's heart up.

I know the feeling of those who want a baby so bad that it almost hurts.

I don't feel like that right now though.

I admit that when I see someone on the same journey as us, expecting twins, I wonder just a little.

(I've always wanted twins.)

I also know that God will only give me what he knows I can handle.

I trust that he knows what is best for me so I don't stomp my foot and fuss about it.

I am content and full of joy!

Joyful that I am blessed already and that my God loves me so much and he is in control!

I trust Him.

Sunny Day!

Today is a sunny day!

Literally!

It finally feels like winter is over and spring has sprung!

Dan had his first day at his new job with PGE. He is so excited about it all. This could be the beginning of a very long career with them. That is the hope anyway.

The first week or so is just orientations and safety classes and such. It will take a few months to be fully on board with how things work around there, but he is a sharp thinker and will get it down quickly.

This is the dream job for Dan.

So our question is 'Why would God want to prosper us?'

I know that it pleases God to bring blessings to those who are his children. Just like I have joy in giving good gifts to my children.

We don't deserve His blessings but we enjoy His blessings because he loves us.

So why would God prosper us?

To glorify Him!

This is true whether we prosper or not.

So....

I've been convicted lately that I need to get out of my 'comfort zone' (disobedience).

Our home becomes a fortress when we use it to avoid contact with others.

I want my home to be an embassy that welcomes visitors and shares the Good News by sharing our lives with them.

I'm talking about

Hos...pi...tality

I attended a conference this weekend and one of the areas I was challenged in was hospitality.

I learned that in hospitality, we show our love for God by how we love each other.

Romans 12:10-14

Hospitality is an offering to God that we get to enjoy with others.

1 Peter 4:8-9

I love the idea of allowing our home to be worn out for Christ.

It's to be used because it is an embassy.

Hospitality is also a way to live like a missionary in your own home. Using it to reach out to strangers, neighbors, co-workers, friends and family.

Building relationships and sharing your life.

Do we need a big, perfect home?

Do we need to have perfect children or a wonderful marriage?

Does it have to be fancy food?

No.

If we wait for all those things to line up, we will never open our home!

It's a humbling thing to do and it takes practice doing it.

This is where I am.

I've grown over the last few years. I can make the main areas in my house look comfortable, but don't open the closet door or something might fall out on you. Keep my bedroom door shut because even though the bed might be made, the rest of the room is a cluttered, disorganized mess. And please ignore the other half of the 'play room' (the garage) because it actually looks like a messy garage.

You have to be willing to be vulnerable to people seeing your clutter or disorganization. It's okay because having people over makes us look at these things in a new light and helps us to work on improving them. (They'll never be fully perfect but that's okay too.)

My house stays a lot cleaner when I have people over often.

It has taken a little while, but I am starting to enjoy hospitality. I use to dread having people over because it meant work on my part.

(Shows you how lazy I am.)

Now I'm starting to enjoy it because it is good to share our lives with people and love on them.

Hospitality is not a big deal for some people as they thrive on having people over.

I am learning from them and

need reminding like this weekend.

Dan and I have a new vision for our family.

The starting of a new job is only an outward reminder of this fresh start.

By His grace,

and our humble obedience to Him,

we will live to glorify God!

There and Back Again

I can't believe we've been there and are back already!

The trip was fast.

The way it all worked out,

We left on Thursday,

Surgery on Friday,

Home on Saturday!

(This is a view from our hotel of San Antonio at night.)

We saw the Alamo and enjoyed the beautiful River Walk.

(It happened to be cold and rainy the first day there.)

Did I mention BBQ?

You've never had real BBQ until you've had Texan BBQ!

Texan's are very proud of their portion sizes of food and drink, too.

We certainly didn't starve while we were there!

It was great!

And guns!

Everyone seemed to have one strapped to their leg!

(Okay, not everyone, but I saw more guns in the open on people in one day than I've seen in my whole lifetime! I must not get out much!)

I think the t-shirt I saw that said 'Texan's don't dial 911' and had a picture of a gun on it, was not far from the truth! Pretty crazy for an Oregon Northerner who lives where the SWAT team is called in and the schools are put in lock down when a second grader pulls out a rubber band gun.

(No exaggeration! It happened just last week!)

Something else interesting about our short stay in Texas was the people.

They are SO nice!

I had not experienced Southern anything before and that's the first thing we noticed.

People went out of their way to be polite and helpful and initiate conversation!

I don't want to knock my fellow Oregonians, but I think we could learn a few things from our Southern neighbors.

Eye contact and a friendly 'hello' go a long way!

The last night we were there, the state wide cheerleading camp came to town so there were little cheerleaders all over the place! It looked like 1st through 8th grade. We were told that the high schoolers had already been through the week before. Our hotel had rented 190 rooms out to them and that was just one of many hotels. So the place was crawling with them!

Texas was a nice place to visit but it was SO refreshing to come back to my green native home.

I also missed my children.

They missed us too!

The surgery went well and Dan did great!

I'm proud of that guy!.

It was a little over two hours long and I got to watch the whole thing and ask questions.

It's quite fascinating how God has made our bodies!

Today we enjoyed home church, praising God for an uneventful trip, a good surgery and a delightful reunion with our family.

Dan is taking this week off from work so he doesn't over do it.

He gets sore easily right now so I'm glad he'll be home.

~~~~~~~~

I read this scripture today and it sums up this whole adventure so far.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;

trust in him, and he will act.

Ps. 37:4,5

Thanks for the many prayers, y'all!

So Now What?

So we lost our zeal for adoption.

Now what?

Just before Christmas, Dan and I found ourselves at our favorite Thai food restaurant on an unexpected date together. As we were enjoying our food we started to discuss where we were in the adoption process. We both agreed that we had lost our zeal for adopting through the state. Neither of us had a heart for overseas adoptions either. His comment was, 'If we're going to spend a bunch of money on an adoption for one kid, why don't we just get a reversal instead.'

Um, REVERSAL?

Really?

(I'm thinking I can't believe he is really saying this!)

We talked about it, and decided to pray about it some more.

Just around New Years the conclusion is...

YES!

Okay, now this didn't just come over night.

Like I said before, all along I have felt we are missing someone. Dan has done the same thing a few times too.

I realized that this is spiritual thing too.

(I might step on people's toes here. I don't mean to. I just want to share my own journey on this. It doesn't apply to anyone but me. What ever you might think of it is between you and God. This whole blog is my own experience and my feelings concerning it.)

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way I want to share what has been happening.

Wouldn't it be just like the enemy of our souls to try to discourage us, especially when we are on the brink of obeying God on a major issue in our life?

All these things started happening around us.

Late one night I parked in the wrong spot at my mom's apartment complex. I didn't have the right 'sticker' to park there. My other car had it but not the one I was using. (Dan's) A very frustrating $322 tow fee later that included taking a ride with 'Shawn' the tow truck driver into a very dark and scary tow yard to retrieve Dan's car and made me an hour late picking up my poor mom from the airport, was all very upsetting.

(panting heavily from saying all that in one sentence!)

I was feeling bad that Dan's hard earned money had to go to 'those really friendly business men'. (I could use another word to describe them but don't want to hurt any tow truck drivers feelings. I don't use bad words but I was thinking of a certain kind of bird that begins with a V.)

Never mind.

Moving on!

Then a couple days later Dan is called on the carpet at work for a safety technicality that could cost him his job.

After that I was cleaning up from the holidays and went through some papers and found a jury duty summons for Dan that he was suppose to serve the week BEFORE!

Great! Not only did he almost lose his job, I got his car towed and now I'm going to have the poor guy arrested because I forgot to tell him way back in November that he had jury duty the first week of the New Year!

WOW!

You know, through all of this we put our trust in God alone.

(Not in employment, or money nor anything else.)

Jury duty...well, he'll just be served a summons again and he'll serve then.

The car...it could have been worse. It could have been stolen or wrecked. That equals paying for a new car plus recovering from possible injuries. Or I could have gotten a nasty ticket which includes increased insurance and a bad mark on your record.

It could have been a worse night.

His job...well, not only did he not get fired but was put on a committee to report examples of the new safety code from working in the field. The code was so vague that they needed people to understand with examples. Also, his forman was sure to say that if people had to be let go on the crew, Dan was to be absolute last to go.

He has work for the next few months plus found favor in the eyes of his superiors!

Our God is GOOD!

What ever might have been meant to discourage us turned out for our good.

It was a chance to rely even more on our Father in Heaven.

(Regardless of the outcome.)

He is in control.

That is how we are looking at this whole thing.

I would love more children in our life. They are a blessing and a heritage from the Lord.

Why would we cut God's blessings off?

Whether God allows anymore children or not,

I trust Him.

I just want to be obeying Him no matter what.

We sinned by not regarding God in our decision to have a vasectomy.

We want to undo the wrong by making it right.

Dan said he is going to get 'Fixed'.

(He was broken before.)

'Jesus does not hang desires in front of us without showing us how he wants us to get there. These words are water to a thirsty soul that wants true righteousness, but how do we get there? It comes by being submitted to God in the power of the resurrection.

You can't do it.

He will do it.'

-Jim Schmitt-

We desire true righteousness through submission and humble obedience to our God and Savior, for His glory!

Cheyanne

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I realized we were missing someone in our family.

I would do my regular head count in public to make sure we had everyone.

One, two, three, four....

Oh ya, we only have four.

I was always looking for someone else.

This feeling was very overwhelming at times.

Then we met some dear friends who were in the process of an international adoption. I started wondering if we might consider adoption. We had talked about it briefly when we only had our first two children. A cousin's children were possibly going to need a permanent home. They ended up with their mother which was fine with us, but I knew that Dan had been open to it back then. Back then, we only had two children, but now we have four.

What would he think now?

I didn't want to influence him about adopting beca

use I didn't want to push for something that wasn't suppose to be.

(Ladies, we have a powerful influence that we have to be careful of.)

So I prayed.

I prayed that if this was something we needed to pursue, then would God please move my husband that way. Otherwise, I asked for contentment and that God would remove any desire for more children.

Little did I know that Dan was thinking the same thing! He wasn't sure how to bring it up to me because I would be home with them the most.

All that to say, we decided we should pursue adoption.

We decided to go through the state to adopt foster children. It is the least expensive and I felt a connection to foster children because my brother and I were both fostered as children.

(He with the state and I with family.)

I ran into an old acquaintance who just started fostering her infant granddaughter. She told me the child would be going up for adoption eventually. I mentioned we were working on our home study to adopt.

That started a long relationship.

She was a single women in her early 60's, so she asked me if we would do respite care for the baby. (Basically babysit for free that included a weekly overnight stay.) Dan and I discussed it and said yes

So our family was introduced to baby Cheyanne.

We got to spend a lot of time with Cheyanne. We all fell in love with her. We got to see many of her 'firsts' because we started being involved with her when she was only three months old.

During this time or home study was finished and we started sending it in for many different children to be considered for adoption. We hoped we would be able to adopt Cheyanne but the way the state works, it's not a guarantee. We just put our faith in God, that he would bring just the right child into our home. We wanted Cheyanne in our family but only if God wanted it.

After being closely involved with Cheyanne for 11 months, our family was considered with two other families before a committee of state workers. The other families didn't know her but had been chosen for consideration by her case worker.

Regardless of our history with her, we weren't chosen to be the adoptive family.

That...was...hard.

It's still a little painful to talk about it.

We were never chosen to go to a committee for any other children either.

This all occurred over the last two years. Our home study expired a few months ago and we have let it sit there. We could renew it anytime but we just aren't sure if that is what we are suppose to do.

Ultimately, I don't feel that our time was wasted.

I was sad to say goodbye to Cheyanne but a little relieved too. I felt a peace about the whole thing. I knew we hadn't been chosen to raise her because that wasn't God's plan for her or us. We were allowed those 11 months with her and that was very important.

I have to say, though, that this little girl took a piece of our hearts with her.

This time was a faith building, family bonding time for all of us.

I was amazed to see my oldest, who was 10 at the time, grow in her faith so much. Don't be nervous when your children pray for something that you aren't sure of the outcome. Regardless of the answer, God will grow that child's faith. I use to be scared when my little girl asked for more babies in our house, because at the time, we weren't going to have anymore. I didn't want her to be 'disappointed' because God hadn't answered her the way she wanted. He did answer her prayer in Cheyanne.

Faith like a child is so much different then ours.

It is innocent.

Trusting the Father to answer and allowing Him to heal when it isn't what we thought it should be. It doesn't shake a fist at Him.

We are all called to such a faith.