Okay, I am literally timing myself as I write this, because I have SO much to do today…and I can’t spend too long fretting over if I spelled a word right, or if my sentences make sense or not. 

Why do I have so much to do?

Because last week Sarah and numerous of her children got sick, so I taught the school 3 days in a row…and then on the 3rd day (Friday) I got the sickness and have been in bed ever since friday night.

(of course Ruthie stayed in bed with me)

So…as you can imagine I have a lot of catching up to do.

But, the reason y’all really read this blog is for V, so let me tell you right now, no news on that end.

Last Tuesday I had a bit of a crying day, because I was just tired of not hearing anything…and every day that goes by is just one less day with V.  That drives me N.U.T.S.!!!!!

But the Lord has been talking to me A LOT about suffering lately….(and I am so not equating this wait with true “suffering”).  But, I am saying that there is NO promise that this life is pain free.  And in fact, if anything IS promised, it is that we will suffer.  Just look up “suffer” in the Bible, and you’ll get all those quotes on how we should expect it….since I am being timed, I don’t have time to add them here.

I personally would much rather have a life of comfort.

Where everything is pain free and comfortable.

I have to fight this a lot.

Because, that is NOT the life a Christian is to lead.

I have read 2 books recently…

“The Triumphant Church” by Richard Wurmbrand and John Piper

and I am again reading,

“How Long, O Lord” by D.A. Carson

And if there is one thing that I am learning at a deeper and deeper level is that:

A victorious Christian is one who’s life shows a testimony of how good God is, despite any circumstance.

I could quote a million quotes from the book, but I’ll leave you with this one:

“In the pursuit of joy through suffering, we magnify the all satisfying worth of the Source of our joy.  God himself shines as the brightness at the end of our tunnel of pain.  If we do not communicate that He is the goal and the ground of our joy in suffering, then the very meaning of our suffering will be lost.  The meaning is this:  God is gain.  God is gain.  God is gain.  The chief end of man is to glorify God,  and it is more true in suffering than anywhere else that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.    …..the pursuit of joy in God, whatever the pain, is a powerful testimony to God’s supreme and all-satisfying worth.”        John Piper

Yup….David was my Valentine this year. 

There was a photography club meeting that I really wanted to go to tonight, and since David loves photography he very graciously went with me.

I couldn’t have picked a better Valentine (except for Mike of course)

Because David is such a zealous lover of God.

He is actually living in a house, called Wisdom’s House, with 2 other young men from our church.

It is a place where these young men get pretty intensive training in how to be  godly men, and someday have their own households where they lead their families to be zealous for the Lord.

These young men also help in training their younger brothers in Christ.

Every week they meet with Caleb and a few other boys from church, teaching them how to be Worship Warriors.

So…it is always fun to get to spend some time with David.

He’s just so wonderful.

Even if he does love to remind me that I am PLENTY old enough to be his Mom.

Which I am.

Plenty old enough.

Sigh.

Guess what they did?

Of course, I took NONE of these pictures, because I don’t do snow.

But thankfully, Mike does.

On other happy news, Sarah found a place for us to buy.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3064048581-1701-Azalea-Dr-Fort-Collins-CO-80526

So…I know it’s just a pipe dream…but can you imagine?????  We’d both only have to pay $132,000….  Oh…I would re-do any amount of adoption paperwork to buy this!!! 

Hope you are all having a wonderful day in your neck of the woods, too.  But if you live somewhere sunny…please don’t tell me about it.  I am missing warmth….and greenness something fierce.

I bet a lot of you reading this know how much that costs.

Way too much for a family trying to save for an adoption.

But…they said if we didn’t start early intervention with Elijah, he would need jaw surgery when he got older.

So…we were just going to have to bite the bullet with Elijah’s and get on the orthodontist’s payment plan.

Thankfully, insurance will pay half of Elijah’s, and since he needs 2 phases, this first phase is by far the least expensive one.

But then, Mike remembered that his job takes money out of his paycheck every month for medical expenses when he retires.

We have no say in this, they just do it.

But there is a wonderful catch.

You don’t have to wait until you retire to access the account.

Anytime you have a medical bill, or even buy Advil at the store, you can ask to be reimbursed out of this “retirement” account.

So guess what?

Elijah’s getting (his first phase) with no expense out of our pockets.  (in a sense)

Now..this will deplete the account to almost nothing; therefore, we will have to hold off on Caleb’s braces….but that is no big deal, since he won’t ever have to worry about needing jaw surgery. 

So today Elijah went in for his molds and to put spacers in his teeth, and next week he’ll get the actual braces on.

Isn’t he so cute?

Seriously, he was so cute in that dentist chair.

(The pictures don’t do him justice,  because in order to have enough light my shutter speed was 1/20 and 1/13.  So…considering that, and I had no tripod…they could be worse.)

And another praise is….Elijah broke his glasses last week.

Well, that’s not a praise, but when I went to get them fixed at the eye dr., they told me they were unfixable.

Again, I’m thinking one more expense….

But the receptionist said, “Oh, but they are still under warranty, so you’ll be getting a free pair.”

Oh…thank you, Lord!  You have been so good to us!

This boy, is exactly what I needed tonight.

Tuesday is date night with our kiddos, so Mike took Elijah and I took Caleb.

All I knew is I wanted to split a BIG sundae.

Dripping with chocolately goodness.

Which we did.

Another thing we did was laugh.  A lot.

My child can do some mean Tim Hawkins impersonations.

He can also retell a Car Talk episode quite well, too.

He had me in stitches.

He had me in stitches for other reasons as well.

At one point on our date, I was telling him about a family that got to meet their daughter for the first time today.

Instead of him responding with, “That’s neat.”  or “Wow.” 

He said, “Isn’t it funny when cement is wet, and a dog walks over it, or a child puts their hands in it, and it dries…and their prints are left in it forever.  I wonder what would happen if a dog did that and then took a nap,  would he wake up with his paws stuck to his body?”

Hmmmm….yeah…..I wonder, buddy….

I wonder how that had ANYTHING at all to do with a family who met their daughter for the first time today.

Boys. 

They are wonderful.

And funny.

And sweet.

And can make me laugh hysterically.

Exactly what I needed today.

That, and God painting a beautiful sunset over the foothills.

Mike read the blog before we went out for our date, so he was all prepared for my craziness.

Really, it’s not craziness, though.

I think it is the Lord working in my heart.  And in fact,  anyone who has read this blog for a while may feel that what I write in this post is just a repeat of “The Jar” post.  (which I am not going to link to, because I’m to lazy.)  And you’d be right in a sense.

But, I am sort of  glad that I am repeating myself.   It just confirms even deeper, that it truly is something the Lord is doing in me, because it just won’t go away.

So, on our date we talked about $ stuff.  What is the “right” way of viewing our responsibility with what we’ve been given?  What best gives glory to God?  What is He asking of US specifically?

For instance, how much do you save for retirement?  Or do you just not save at all?  What part does our being responsible play into it?  And what part does faith play?

Part of our questioning is, due to our specific circumstances.  Mike has an opportunity to retire at age 55  (which is only 9 years away).  If he does this, he could get a part time job, giving him  more time for doing ministry in the church?  In fact, maybe that part time job could even be at the church school.  But in order to do that we’d need to save a lot of $ to make that possible.

OR….do we just not save anything, and give away as much as possible?

What is the right answer?

And you know, we have no idea.

There’s a part of us that thinks it’s probably somewhere in the middle….but who knows.

This is what we do know.  We want to be able to stand before the Lord, and know that we did whatever we did for His glory.

You know when you read books and they say, “If you want to know what is really important to you, look at your checkbook.”

Well, I want the Lord to be able to “look” at our checkbook and say, “I can see I was important to you.”

And right now, I think He could say that, because we’re obviously saving every dime to bring a child He created, and He loves into a family.

But honestly, before we started the adoption, I don’t think He would have said that to us.

The adoption process has definitely made us aware of how much $ we’ve squandered in the past.

So, the plan is that Mike and I will take this time of waiting for V, to seriously pray and seek the Lord for answers.  We are planning on reading a George Muller book together, called, “George Müller of Bristol and his witness to a prayer-hearing God ” and also a Randy Alcorn book, called, “Money, Possessions and Eternity.”  After that we will come up with a plan of what we think the Lord is inviting us into, and then go for it.

I’ll tell you my dream though.   And it’s only MY dream….I’m not saying it’s of the Lord.  But I will pray about it.

My dream right now, would be to buy a townhouse that is even cheaper than our current house.  (I say even cheaper, because our house was a super cheap, fixer upper….think college kids gone wild and you get the general idea.)  And then use the money we’d be saving to do whatever the Lord leads us to do.    I like the idea of a town house, because they also make life more simple with no outside maintenance….it’s just I’m not sure if those pesky HOA fees would defeat saving on a mortgage.

Oh, and one more thing…. in this said dream, David and Sarah would buy the townhouse next to ours.

So…Sarah said we could pester talk David into saying yes first, and then once he’s on board, all 3 of us will work on Mike.

But, whatever happens I’ll know we’ll get an answer from the Lord, because He always gives revelation when His people ask, seek and knock…and that is what we’re planning on doing.

*  So, our agency said that CARA expects to have this initial batch of families processed by the first week in February.  Our agency hasn’t been able to track us by our registration number yet, because CARA is still working on improving the website.  But hopefully soon we’ll have some news.  Do you think the first week of February is next week….or would that be the week after?  Since SN is still not on the website, I’m thinking that our paperwork would then need to get sent to the state we are adopting from.  But don’t quote me on that, that is completely my own idea.  It just seems logical to me.

*  On another note, my wonderful husband let me go to a photography workshop at the library today, even though it meant he had to be the cook for the kiddo’s drum and piano teacher.  I had already pre-planned the meal before I knew about the class, so he made chicken fried steak for them.  Yum.  But a lot of work.  So, I am super thankful to him. 

*  I went for a drive about 10 minutes before the sun set tonight and took a few pic’s. These 3 are my favorites.

*  I started the blog for V so I can write all those mushy letters…and I love it.  One because I am writing a lot more personal things…but two, because I can write her full name on the letters, and it is amazing how MUCH more affectionate that makes them seem.

*  And lastly, in another post, I’ll write about what Mike and I talked about on our date.  Maybe.  (I only say maybe because I always have grand ideas for posts, but then never actually post them.)

Goodnight!

I read an article by K.P. Yohanan a few days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it.  It was about living with no regrets.  Making our time here on earth “count” by living with a heavenly perspective.

And I know to some that can sound like “I need to DO something for God.” As in, I must DO things to please Him.

But I don’t mean it like that.

What I mean is that I love Him so much I want to DO something.

Does that make sense?

I keep teasing Sarah that I want to sell our houses and move in together.
And when I say “keep teasing”, I mean I’ve been stuck on the subject for quite a while now.

I finally realized the other day why I am so fixated on it.

It’s not that I really think it’s from the Lord, but it’s because I am SO RESTLESS, I just want to do something C.R.A.Z.Y.

Elijah and I went on a date the other night, and NPR was on the radio.  I don’t even know what the show was about, but it was telling the story of a little girl in China who had to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning and walk by herself through a mountain pass in freezing weather to get to a bus, which would then take her another 10 miles to school.  At school there was no heat in her classroom, and her lunch consisted of 2 pieces of bread and a drink.  (She ate no breakfast.) She would make the same trek home, and then eat dinner at 5.  Her family only made $120 a month, and tried taking her out of school, but it is illegal for her not to attend school, so they had to put her back in.

I shut the radio off after this, because like I said, I was on a date with Elijah, and I realized I was spending it listening to the radio, but you can bet we spent a good portion of our date talking about what we heard.

When I stand before the Lord I want to know I loved to the fullest.

That I didn’t squander the incredible gifts that He has given me.  Because OH MY WORD, we’ve been given so much by living in this country.

I want to be the servant who had doubled his money when the Master returned.

And I KNOW, I’ll never be perfect….but still, I don’t want that thought to then make me complacent.

Mike told a story the other day about how a professor at Biola chose to always live off of the initial salary he had as a new professor.  So with every pay raise, he and his wife would just give the rest away.

Well, stories like that little girl in China and Mike’s professor make me RESTLESS.  They make me uncomfortable, in a good way.

So, I’m wrestling right now, with a million thoughts going through my brain.

But it’s really good.

>Pray that I gain some clarity.  I’m definitely one that can put the cart before the horse, and I don’t want to do that.  I don’t want to DO something just to do it.  I want it to be from Him.  But I do want to do SOMETHING.

So, with all this swimming in my head, I imagine that Mike and my date tomorrow night will be very interesting.  (But, I don’t think he’s going to go for my idea of moving in with Sarah.)

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