It's a new day

On Sunday I posted about my eventful summer, and the day my Daddy died.

Yesterday I posted about why my family was able to rejoice even in that difficult time because of the things we know for sure.


Today I want to tell you about what happened next.

1. I drove back to San Antonio, where Brian and I packed for a longer stay. We headed back to the Valley, heartbroken and teary-eyed, but praising the Lord!


2. We arrived at my parents' house and embraced my mama, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nephews. We cried. We prayed. We laughed. We rejoiced. My brother and his family stayed with us at my mom's house all week. We planned a memorial service for Friday. We decided that my brother would deliver the message, and he worked tirelessly to craft the message God gave him. And WOW. It was powerful. Thank you, Lord! We prepared a slide show and a program and music, and asked several dear ones to speak. The week passed by in a blur of tears and joy, photos and memories and hard work.


3. We had wonderful friends and family ministering to us. We were so blessed. So many people stepped up to love on us and feed us and help us with details, both large and small. Julie, Kirstin, and Stacie, you were a special blessing to me!


4. We had a precious, beautiful memorial service for Daddy. I can't tell you how healing it was for all of us. Oh, how we praised God! For the privilege of knowing my Daddy, for the fact that he's well and whole now, and for the promise of eternal life! And we had a sweet reception afterward. My parents' church blessed us later with a dinner together with loved ones who had traveled down for the service.


5. When we finally had time to breathe and relax and remember, we rejoiced again at the things God had done for us over the summer. Because Mama & Daddy were planning to move to San Antonio, we got to see them both a lot more than usual! Because they had a contract on their home, they came up even more! Because my brother had to close his business and was visiting with churches in San Antonio, we got to see his family more often that usual, and we all got to spend a lot of precious family time together. Because the home sale fell through, we went home for a special weekend to help with the open house, and had precious time with my daddy before he died. Also, because the home sale fell through, my parents weren't in the middle of packing up when Daddy died, and Mama didn't have to rush out of the house. Because my brother didn't take a job in San Antonio, he and his family were able to spend that whole week with us after Daddy died. Because I didn't leave for the Valley on Monday night, I was not too far away from Brian when I got the news about Daddy, and I was able to have him at my side when I needed him. Because Daddy was on chemo this summer, we got to have the best of him, right up until he died. These may seem like circumstancial things, but we know for sure that God was working out His plan for us, so that we would be encouraged and so that He would be glorified. Thank You, Lord!

After the service, my mom encouraged Brian to take me to Comfort for my birthday, as they had planned. It just ended up being me and him. But it was a precious, healing time. AND it gave us time to get our initial adoption application completed. (I told you I'd get back to that!) We were so excited to have it completed! So, we sent it off and in September we went to Waco to have our orientation meeting with Generations. We knew right away that this was the place. God affirmed and encouraged us so much! This month, we went back for our training - even more affirmation. All that time dragging our feet, and now we're raring to go! We've been reading books and studying and praying and preparing our home. We've had inspections and worked on documents. We've almost finished our formal application. We hope to send it in this week. Then we'll be getting close to a home study...we're so excited!

It has been an eventful summer. Life-changing. I have more to say about the changes and that Ebenezer Stone, but I will save that for a later day. For now, I am looking ahead and trusting God for the future and praising Him for the things He has done!

The hardest day

So...I haven't posted since May. After being "gone" that long, it's been hard to get back into the bloggy swing of things. It's been an eventful summer, and I've found it hard to proceed in light of those events.

I know there aren't many of you reading this. I hope that those of you who are will forgive my indulgence as I catch up a little (or a lot), because I'd like to have a written record of these events. If you aren't in the mood for a novella, skip ahead. Once I get these thoughts recorded, I intend to forge ahead with the regular posting, for better or for worse!

But this summer's events mark many turning points in my life and the life of my family, so I need to place an Ebenezer stone here. I need to remember what God has done and is doing.

1. We started this summer by investigating and eventually proceeding with a new adoption agency. Friends of ours used them and recommended them to us. You may remember that I mentioned that we were pursuing adoption here. Yeah, way over a year ago. The desire and call didn't go away, but we were scared...and feeling kinda old...and we drug our feet. Well, God blessed us with these friends who introduced us to Generations, and the more we've learned, the more excited we've become. We spent the summer making preparations and filling out our initial application. More on this in a bit.


2. My parents began planning a move to San Antonio. We were all so delighted, and were looking forward to living in the same area again.


3. My dad (who had 2 rare blood cancer disorders) started chemo to build up his blood. This kind of chemo actually makes the patient feel better and stronger. He seemed like the old Daddy, with lots of energy and enthusiasm.


4. My brother closed the doors on his woodworking business. The change in the economy was making it less than profitable, and he was feeling a tug toward a more ministry-based career. He and his family made several visits to SA as well, as he visited with area churches. We were blessed to spend time with them.


5. While we were still in the process of working on our application, Mom and Dad had a buyer for their house, so they came to SA to look for homes. The buyer had to back out and the sale fell through. They (together with their realtor) planned an open house to reintroduce their home on the market. Brian and I went down to the Valley to help prepare for the open house and to celebrate Brian's mom's birthday. Our whole family spent a great weekend together, celebrating with a delicious meal, working on the house, relaxing in the pool, etc. Brian & I left the Valley on Sunday evening, July 19th to return to San Antonio. Brian had made secret plans with both of our families to meet in Comfort the following weekend to celebrate my 40th birthday (a bit early).


6. On Monday morning, July 20th, my mom called me to let me know that my daddy was running a fever. We'd been through this before, several times, and she just wanted to let me know so that we could be praying for him. A bit later, she called to say that she was calling an ambulance because he was unable to get out of the bed. What followed were several hours of spotty communication, as we waited to hear what was going on and how he was doing. He seemed to rally at times, then falter at other times. Late that night, I spoke with my mom and my brother, as we tried to decide whether I should return to the Valley. Everything was too uncertain, and we were having a hard time reading the reports from the doctors. We finally agreed that I would wait until Tuesday morning, and then decide. Brian & I decided I would go by myself, and that if things became more serious, he would join me later. This was hard, as I haven't traveled by myself since we were married.


7. On Tuesday morning, July 21st, I stopped by the office to pick up some things to work on, then started heading to the Valley. I was shaky and teary, and worried about my daddy, but God was just blessing me with the best worship time. I felt He'd chosen special music to play on KLove. About an hour out of town, I called Brian to ask him a question. He told me he wanted me to come back and get him. I asked him why, and he told me he didn't want me to drive alone. I asked him if something had happened, and he told me that my daddy was already with Jesus. The official cause of death was heart failure/pneumonia. His body just gave out. I was shocked, because the chemo had allowed him to be so hearty and happy the last few months. He'd been so...so...alive on Sunday! This was the hardest day of my life, thus far. All of us were hurting. We grieved. We prayed. We loved. And then...then...we rejoiced!

We rejoiced, because we recognized all the good things God had done over the summer to bless us. We had joy because we knew some things for sure. I'll share those things with you tomorrow.

A New Thing

Isaiah 43:18-19

Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

I share that verse today as a way of announcing something new that is happening in our lives. If you know us, you probably already know some of what I'm about to share. If you're a blog friend, this may be more than you care to know. But it's central to what is going on with us, and several things I've wanted to blog about relate to this "new thing", so I felt it was time to share the whole story.

Brian and I have been married for 6 and 1/2 years. We married when he was 33 and I was 32. After 2 years of wedded bliss, we began trying to get pregnant. Due to our age (mine in particular), we had difficulty in the endeavor, and finally opted to see a fertility specialist. After another couple of years, we learned that it was unlikely that we would ever conceive. That was a tough blow for us. About that time, we heard about this conference, and it was going to be taking place at a church just down the road from our house! We knew and respected Dennis & Barbara Rainey's ministry. We used their book, (which I highly recommend), for our premarital counseling. So we jumped at the chance to learn more about adoption from an organization that we trusted. Let me tell you, if you are thinking about adoption, this is an excellent workshop to attend. It's very thorough and informative.

One thing they made a point of saying at the conference, over and over, was that you shouldn't adopt just because you felt it was the right thing to do, or because you had a whole in your heart or home due to infertility, or because someone told you that you should consider adoption. They shared many scriptures which revealed how Christians are to care for the widows and orphans. And they urged us to find a way to minister to widows and orphans, both in our midst and far away. But, they said you should only adopt if you believe God has called you to adopt. They asked the conference participants to spend time in prayer, seeking God, before we made the decision to adopt.

Fresh on the heels of our infertility news, we knew we weren't ready to adopt. We had some grieving to do first. We were open to the idea, but we didn't want to run ahead of God, so we just stayed in prayer about it. For over a year. The next fall, we met with some friends of Brian, who had adopted. We asked them a lot of questions and learned some of the ins and outs of private domestic adoption. But it's very expensive, and we didn't feel a peace about it. Still, over the next several weeks, God made my heart very tender toward adoption. Brian and I would talk about it, from time to time, but he didn't seem ready. In January of this year, I was looking at an adoption website that Brian's friends recommended. It had a quiz that was intended to help assess your readiness for adoption. First, it asked what your motivation was for adopting. Were you considering adoption because you felt it was the right thing to do, or because you had a whole in your heart or home due to infertility, or because someone told you that you should consider adoption? I thought it was interesting, because they were the same things we heard at the conference. I knew, at that time, that I believed God was calling us to adoption. He had put it so heavy on my heart that I ached to move forward. However, the second question asked who was leading the pursuit for adoption. You, your spouse, your parents or in-laws, or someone else. God nudged me and pointed out to me that I was the one, at that point, who was leading the quest. This brought me to my knees. I didn't want to be the leader. I knew that was not God's plan, either. I understood very clearly that God wanted to bring Brian to the point that he knew God was calling us to adopt, and my persistence and encouragement or nagging wouldn't help matters. If Brian was going to exercise his God-given right to be the spiritual leader in our home, I needed to settle down and wait...on him and on God. So I prayed and asked God to help me be patient with His plan. And I prayed for Brian, that God would help him to be sensitive to His call, and help Brian not to discount it out of fear. I didn't say anything at all to Brian. I left it in God's hands.

Two days later, I was sitting in a doctor's office when my cell phone rang. It was Brian. He'd just heard a Focus on the Family radio broadcast about adoption. God spoke very clearly to Brian's heart, and he wanted to tell me that he felt God was calling us to adoption, and that when I was ready, we could proceed. I was ready! That very weekend, a local church was hosting another adoption workshop. We went to the exhibit hall and met with several organizations who deal in domestic adoptions. Then we went home and prayed about it. By the end of the day, we felt God was directing us to pursue adoption through the state. Gulp.

We called our families and shared the news with them. They were delighted for us. We shared with our Sunday School class and asked for their prayer support. Our friends and family have been so good to pray for us and encourage us along the way. A dear lady in our church approached me with the scriptures above, not even knowing our situation. She said God had told her to share those words with me. What a sweet encouragement that was!

So we've spent the last several months preparing our home. We have several significant remodeling chores that need to be complete before we have a home study or home inspections. We're about halfway through the task list. We have finished our application, except for the home plans (a sketch of the layout of the home), which Brian hopes to have finished in the next day or so, and then we'll send our application in. We'll have several classes to attend, followed by lots of inspections and such. It's a little stressful, but I know that God is sovereign and in control. And I have confidence in His perfect plan for our family.

In the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some of the progress we've made in our home remodeling projects, and updating our progress on the application/interviews/classes, etc.

In the meantime, please keep us, and our future children in your prayers. And thanks for reading!