it's a long one...i'm not hurt if you skip it ;)
i've contemplated posting this one. not really sure why...but you know how when you feel strongly about something sometimes it's hard to write out and make it sound so....real. like telling everyone that you're actually believing in this or for this? makes you feel a bit crazier. ha. well it's all part of our story so i'm going to write it out, if only for myself and our family.
april 10th, 2011...is when our family, or the idea of it began.
I had gone to ethiopia that january to photograph and document the adoption of our dear friends (life changing awesomeness, y'all...but anyways). came home and we met with a local agency to adopt within that next month. so february we met with an agency and got all the info, but it just didn't feel right. in march we left for south africa and visited my sister there. while it was amazing and super enjoyed hanging out with family, we also spent 10 days with my nephew. and he's an angel, really, don't get the wrong idea at all from this story...but we saw how exhausting it can be to have a child and as we flew back to the states, we talked about maybe holding off a bit longer on a family. at least give it a few months. so we get back that first week of april. and went to church that following sunday. it was an all worship sunday. and i was doing my worship thing. and i looked up to our stage and saw a girl worshipping and felt God tell me "see how she worships me? she is going to teach her children to praise me like that"...it was the sweetest thing. that girl at the time was trying to get pregnant and i knew that word would be such an encouragement to her. so i went back to worshiping and tucked that little word in my mind to share with her when she got some positive results. onto another song....and i open my eyes again and immediately heard "you're going to be pregnant with her". i stopped in my tracks. knowing the discussion i had just had with jacob on holding off i knew it was not a thought i could have come up with on my own. i was very silent as we left the service that night, went out with friends to eat where the girl confirmed she was excited about being pregnant soon and i just knew it was our time. so we got in the car to leave and i told jacob i felt strongly that what i had heard was our push to begin a family. and so it began.
well, within just hardly a couple weeks the friend was pregnant. and we celebrated!! and all the while i knew what i had heard and started to get excited in my spirit. the months passed and i didn't share what i had heard for me with really hardly anyone. it came october, november and december...and i really began to learn faith in God...faith in what i didn't see. faith in His voice and not the natural and what i saw. up until the very DAY she delivered i believed i would be pregnant and we would be pregnant together even for 12 hours. ha. her delivery came and passed and then i defaulted to the symbolism. pregnant together in excitement. pregnant in the spirit with something big God is going to do....and after many months...pregnant maybe with her second child and my first. i wasn't discouraged, i knew what i had heard was not from me and so i held up...continued to hold hope. we often intepret what we hear incorrectly...it doesn't mean you heard wrong, but that you see it in a different way than God intended it...He's always right, though...as is His word, His truths and His promises. don't question him...look inward to see if your heart needs to respond differently.
there's a million stories of things i've heard or jacob has over the past three years...."sons of thunder" leading us to believe we would have twins boys....scriptures that have spelled out our lives with a girl's name that has led me to believe we are having a girl...you name it. God has spoken to us in so many different ways. it's encouraging...always hope giving...which is all about who He is anyways. so flash forward lots of months....we can cover those other words and months (years) another day...let's stick with my dream. i don't think that all of these are literal, perhaps they're spiritually meant...perhaps to be fulfilled in many years to come...just because we don't see how they work out now does not mean they are not what we heard. gosh have i ever learned that in the past many years. God is true to Himself and His word....always. never question that.
back to my dear friend and the word and my recent dream.
this same awesome gal announced her second pregnancy a few months ago and while i was initially shocked (thinking..."hmm...but i'm not pregnant" ha ha) i ran to my calendar to find that she is the same weeks along as i am into the adoption. how sweet is that?? is that what God meant?? i have no idea. may never...but the dream.
christmas night i dreamed i was pregnant. and i was 8-11 weeks along. i don't know why 8-11...but it stuck out. and i was delivering! and everyone was like "no way! that's way too premature! you can't do that yet"...and i was all calm, explaining that it was the perfect timing. and i delivered a perfectly sized, normal baby (not gender specific in the dream, darn, i know :D). i woke up feeling odd. i shared it with jacob and he asked how long we had been on the waiting list. at that point it was about 6 weeks. well that following week i began texting with my friend who is pregnant and learned some new informaiton. she was going to have an appointment this past week that they might need to do an ultrasound for...and if they did they would know the gender....if they didn't end up needing to do that ultrasound then she would go back in for her normal gender appointment on the 29th. that's neat, right? cool....
then it hit me. and i ran to the calendar again. wednesday when she went we were EXACTLY 8 weeks on the waiting list...and the 29th when she is going back now...EXACTLY 11 weeks on the waiting list. random? ironic? i think not. if we are in fact "pregnant" together...it makes sense to me for us to both know the genders of our baby at the same time.
now i write all this knowing that God has a divine plan. that is clearly not my own. wednesday i was a bit heightened...needless to say. and thursday morning i nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone rang early before we were both up! and come the 29th it might be best you just don't call lol.
i'm also a firm believer in God constantly providing hope. there was a time this past year that i was upset and crying with God...i had been experiencing a million new pregnancy symptoms...some id never experienced and some i had....and then they turned out to not lead to me being pregnant. and in the past many months i've had that a lot...new symptoms that would lead me to believe i could be. and so after one especially difficult month i was praying about it....yelling about it perhaps, let's be honest this path is not an easy one. and i asked him why on earth He would continually lead me to thinking that i was, or could be, or might be pregnant, only to reveal i'm not...and i heard this "hope. to give you hope". it stilled my heart and i cried. without little symptoms or little nudges to make me think there was hope to growing our family, i may have crumbled into an awful mess. the silence would have crushed me more. it was one of the sweetest lessons of the past 3 years. God was providing me hope...and once i realized that...the months got easier and hope came more easily.
so what does this all mean. i have no idea. perhaps nothing. maybe it's all a way of providing hope. but i'm currently believing that we will know (get our referral) who our baby(ies) is by january 29th. and if we don't, that's fine. but we have nothing if we don't have hope. so i'm hopeful we will know and that the craziness of the past three years means something tangible that i can see laid out before me soon. let's be honest, that'd be a pretty stinkin' awesome testimony. because it's all for God's glory, guys. if it's not, you best lay it back down. everything that happens is to give him the most glory...THROUGH us. and if this is part of our story then i can't wait to share it...and if it's all seemingly irrelevant currently, then i'll store it in my dreams/visions/notions category of my mind knowing that at some point in life it will be crystal clear.
logistically....
we are on the waiting list. but where our agency is all christ-centered, they pray over every applicant and every baby and place them how they feel God leads them...which doesn't always mean going in order according to a "list" per se. so my dear friends behind us in the adoption might get their referral before us and that's okay....and people who have been on the waiting list far longer than us may have to wait after us...that one is harder for me to handle...but it's not a check off down the line with this organization. and i'm thankful for that...it takes even more control out of my hands and i need more of that in my life...things that don't run on my timeline. so it is, in fact, possible for us to know at anytime. there was one woman i met who got her referral within THREE WEEKS of being added to the list...those were different times at the orphanage when they had to get their numbers down more quickly....but it is not by any means impossible.
timing wise...
currently taiwan is 13 hours ahead of us. so it makes sense to me that if they were going to call it would be early morning or later evening. because if it's 8 am here it's 9pm there....and if it were like 7 pm here it would be 8am there...otherwise during the day either here or there would be middle of the night in the other location. hence my jumping out of my skin the other morning to answer my phone...perhaps these are the motherly instincts kicking in (i was hoping that would start at some point because man am i a sound sleeper!!)...so the soft buzz of my phone sends me in a whirlwind these days....and our video camera is always on me to get it recorded! :)
soooo. we are just waiting. but we are ever so hopeful :) God is writing our story and i'm thankful.
i've contemplated posting this one. not really sure why...but you know how when you feel strongly about something sometimes it's hard to write out and make it sound so....real. like telling everyone that you're actually believing in this or for this? makes you feel a bit crazier. ha. well it's all part of our story so i'm going to write it out, if only for myself and our family.
april 10th, 2011...is when our family, or the idea of it began.
I had gone to ethiopia that january to photograph and document the adoption of our dear friends (life changing awesomeness, y'all...but anyways). came home and we met with a local agency to adopt within that next month. so february we met with an agency and got all the info, but it just didn't feel right. in march we left for south africa and visited my sister there. while it was amazing and super enjoyed hanging out with family, we also spent 10 days with my nephew. and he's an angel, really, don't get the wrong idea at all from this story...but we saw how exhausting it can be to have a child and as we flew back to the states, we talked about maybe holding off a bit longer on a family. at least give it a few months. so we get back that first week of april. and went to church that following sunday. it was an all worship sunday. and i was doing my worship thing. and i looked up to our stage and saw a girl worshipping and felt God tell me "see how she worships me? she is going to teach her children to praise me like that"...it was the sweetest thing. that girl at the time was trying to get pregnant and i knew that word would be such an encouragement to her. so i went back to worshiping and tucked that little word in my mind to share with her when she got some positive results. onto another song....and i open my eyes again and immediately heard "you're going to be pregnant with her". i stopped in my tracks. knowing the discussion i had just had with jacob on holding off i knew it was not a thought i could have come up with on my own. i was very silent as we left the service that night, went out with friends to eat where the girl confirmed she was excited about being pregnant soon and i just knew it was our time. so we got in the car to leave and i told jacob i felt strongly that what i had heard was our push to begin a family. and so it began.
well, within just hardly a couple weeks the friend was pregnant. and we celebrated!! and all the while i knew what i had heard and started to get excited in my spirit. the months passed and i didn't share what i had heard for me with really hardly anyone. it came october, november and december...and i really began to learn faith in God...faith in what i didn't see. faith in His voice and not the natural and what i saw. up until the very DAY she delivered i believed i would be pregnant and we would be pregnant together even for 12 hours. ha. her delivery came and passed and then i defaulted to the symbolism. pregnant together in excitement. pregnant in the spirit with something big God is going to do....and after many months...pregnant maybe with her second child and my first. i wasn't discouraged, i knew what i had heard was not from me and so i held up...continued to hold hope. we often intepret what we hear incorrectly...it doesn't mean you heard wrong, but that you see it in a different way than God intended it...He's always right, though...as is His word, His truths and His promises. don't question him...look inward to see if your heart needs to respond differently.
there's a million stories of things i've heard or jacob has over the past three years...."sons of thunder" leading us to believe we would have twins boys....scriptures that have spelled out our lives with a girl's name that has led me to believe we are having a girl...you name it. God has spoken to us in so many different ways. it's encouraging...always hope giving...which is all about who He is anyways. so flash forward lots of months....we can cover those other words and months (years) another day...let's stick with my dream. i don't think that all of these are literal, perhaps they're spiritually meant...perhaps to be fulfilled in many years to come...just because we don't see how they work out now does not mean they are not what we heard. gosh have i ever learned that in the past many years. God is true to Himself and His word....always. never question that.
back to my dear friend and the word and my recent dream.
this same awesome gal announced her second pregnancy a few months ago and while i was initially shocked (thinking..."hmm...but i'm not pregnant" ha ha) i ran to my calendar to find that she is the same weeks along as i am into the adoption. how sweet is that?? is that what God meant?? i have no idea. may never...but the dream.
christmas night i dreamed i was pregnant. and i was 8-11 weeks along. i don't know why 8-11...but it stuck out. and i was delivering! and everyone was like "no way! that's way too premature! you can't do that yet"...and i was all calm, explaining that it was the perfect timing. and i delivered a perfectly sized, normal baby (not gender specific in the dream, darn, i know :D). i woke up feeling odd. i shared it with jacob and he asked how long we had been on the waiting list. at that point it was about 6 weeks. well that following week i began texting with my friend who is pregnant and learned some new informaiton. she was going to have an appointment this past week that they might need to do an ultrasound for...and if they did they would know the gender....if they didn't end up needing to do that ultrasound then she would go back in for her normal gender appointment on the 29th. that's neat, right? cool....
then it hit me. and i ran to the calendar again. wednesday when she went we were EXACTLY 8 weeks on the waiting list...and the 29th when she is going back now...EXACTLY 11 weeks on the waiting list. random? ironic? i think not. if we are in fact "pregnant" together...it makes sense to me for us to both know the genders of our baby at the same time.
now i write all this knowing that God has a divine plan. that is clearly not my own. wednesday i was a bit heightened...needless to say. and thursday morning i nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone rang early before we were both up! and come the 29th it might be best you just don't call lol.
i'm also a firm believer in God constantly providing hope. there was a time this past year that i was upset and crying with God...i had been experiencing a million new pregnancy symptoms...some id never experienced and some i had....and then they turned out to not lead to me being pregnant. and in the past many months i've had that a lot...new symptoms that would lead me to believe i could be. and so after one especially difficult month i was praying about it....yelling about it perhaps, let's be honest this path is not an easy one. and i asked him why on earth He would continually lead me to thinking that i was, or could be, or might be pregnant, only to reveal i'm not...and i heard this "hope. to give you hope". it stilled my heart and i cried. without little symptoms or little nudges to make me think there was hope to growing our family, i may have crumbled into an awful mess. the silence would have crushed me more. it was one of the sweetest lessons of the past 3 years. God was providing me hope...and once i realized that...the months got easier and hope came more easily.
so what does this all mean. i have no idea. perhaps nothing. maybe it's all a way of providing hope. but i'm currently believing that we will know (get our referral) who our baby(ies) is by january 29th. and if we don't, that's fine. but we have nothing if we don't have hope. so i'm hopeful we will know and that the craziness of the past three years means something tangible that i can see laid out before me soon. let's be honest, that'd be a pretty stinkin' awesome testimony. because it's all for God's glory, guys. if it's not, you best lay it back down. everything that happens is to give him the most glory...THROUGH us. and if this is part of our story then i can't wait to share it...and if it's all seemingly irrelevant currently, then i'll store it in my dreams/visions/notions category of my mind knowing that at some point in life it will be crystal clear.
logistically....
we are on the waiting list. but where our agency is all christ-centered, they pray over every applicant and every baby and place them how they feel God leads them...which doesn't always mean going in order according to a "list" per se. so my dear friends behind us in the adoption might get their referral before us and that's okay....and people who have been on the waiting list far longer than us may have to wait after us...that one is harder for me to handle...but it's not a check off down the line with this organization. and i'm thankful for that...it takes even more control out of my hands and i need more of that in my life...things that don't run on my timeline. so it is, in fact, possible for us to know at anytime. there was one woman i met who got her referral within THREE WEEKS of being added to the list...those were different times at the orphanage when they had to get their numbers down more quickly....but it is not by any means impossible.
timing wise...
currently taiwan is 13 hours ahead of us. so it makes sense to me that if they were going to call it would be early morning or later evening. because if it's 8 am here it's 9pm there....and if it were like 7 pm here it would be 8am there...otherwise during the day either here or there would be middle of the night in the other location. hence my jumping out of my skin the other morning to answer my phone...perhaps these are the motherly instincts kicking in (i was hoping that would start at some point because man am i a sound sleeper!!)...so the soft buzz of my phone sends me in a whirlwind these days....and our video camera is always on me to get it recorded! :)
soooo. we are just waiting. but we are ever so hopeful :) God is writing our story and i'm thankful.
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