Loving Without Being Loved Back

It is amazing to me how God is so preparing my heart for the adoption of our little guy.

This summer brought on challenges and opportunities we weren't expecting - one of which was having a girl we have known for several years come live with us.

Having her in our home brought on so many lessons that will absolutely apply to our adoption - so many so that I sometimes wonder if Little Guy will get here sooner than we are anticipating.  That, and we know a lot of people who are praying for that very thing.

God gave me a heart for this girl, who lived with us, in January when her mother passed away suddenly.  You hear of adoptive families saying they knew their child was theirs as soon as they laid eyes on them.  I obviously did not have that experience with this girl because she had a mother, a woman I greatly enjoyed being with. 

After this girl's mom passed away I felt like God have me a mother's heart for her.  I've never experienced anything like that and it was a lot of what led me to believe that we could actually adopt.  I just couldn't imagine before that how I could love any other child as I do the ones I bore.

But, nothing happened at that point.  A different person became her guardian, leading me to wonder what in the world that was all about.  We learned of a housing need of hers while over the summer and at the beginning of August she came to stay with us.

The joys and challenges of having someone live with you started almost immediately and we're still working through the bonding of that and wondering what the future will hold.

It is such an awkward time to enter someone's life in a quasi authoritarian role.  We don't have the background with her to ask her to do something and have her understand our motives or even our dynamics and how things just simply work in our home.  And although God gave me a mother's heart for her, He didn't necessarily give her a "daughter's heart" for us.

What do you do with that?

I keep struggling with my role in her life and I feel like I keep being asked, "How much do I love you?"

How much does HE love me?  When I don't feel like loving Him back.  When I don't like the rules He puts in my life.  When I doubt that He even loves me. 

He LOVES me no matter what.

And I am supposed to do the same.  I am supposed to love others, to love her, no matter what their response is to me, no matter what role I have in their lives, no matter what the future holds.  Just keep loving.

So, as much as I want things to be black and white, and as much as I want to be loved in return, this is one of those situations where I just can't expect that.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving me.  Help me to love like You do.

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." – 1 John 4:9-11

Eb and Flow

You know, last year, when I prayed for life to be uncomfortable - for the sake of Christ - I didn't know what that meant.

I didn't know that would mean seeing a mother die before her children were ready to have her go.

I didn't know that would mean my heart breaking for those children and welcoming one of them into our home.

I didn't know how confused I would feel in that role.  How my black and white world would became so very gray.

I think I'm messing it up.  I don't want to.  I want to do so well here.  I want to provide security and stability for this girl.  I want her to know that I love her with no strings attached.

But, my issues are so in the way, particularly the issue of wanting so desperately to understand where I stand and how long I'm going to stand there.  I have forgotten that while Jesus loves me, so dearly loves me, so much more than I love and adore any of my children, biological or no, He does it knowing that I will eb and flow away from Him.  That sometimes the very security He provides will make me want to rebel.

Oh, how I love Him for standing beside me.  When I'm messing everything up, He's there.  When I'm the last example of Christ that anyone would look toward, He is there.

I pray that He will work in this area of my life beyond where I can work at all - that if I could say all the right words and have all the right expectations and set all the right boundaries, that His love and His work would still surpass mine.  That I will stand firm despite the eb and flow that are supposed to occur here because I am following His example of love.

Thank You, Jesus.

Faith On a Different Plane

I love the new song by Plumb, "Need You Now".

I heard, or thought, or something of the reflecting and remembering the times when God has been there for me.  Landmarks in my faith, so to speak.

The last year has brought on a different level of faith for me - one that I hadn't experienced before and one that I am so grateful for.  My faith feels real.  I have longed for that for a long time.

This summer was very emotional for our family.  Thankfully, at the moment, we seem to be in a period of rest.  And I was thinking as I listened to Plumb's song, of how now would be a good time to remember God's goodness in my life.

Take a listen here.

Giving Him Glory

Our prayers, YOUR prayers were answered!

A couple of weeks ago I told you I didn't think our dossier would make it into IBESR (Haiti's child welfare agency) before the September 15 deadline.

We've been asking God to let it happen.  Despite the fact that there is no reason whatsoever that He should show any favor toward us.  Despite the fact that it seemed impossible.  Despite my very own fear that He wouldn't answer our prayers and I wouldn't know how to process it, I asked.  Our children asked.  And we reached out to you and asked you to ask Him on our behalf.

2 weeks ago our dossier left our agency in Colorado.  They told us it would take a week or two to get to Haiti.  4 days later, over Labor Day weekend, our dossier made it to our orphanage in Haiti.  Then it had to go through first legalization - a process that takes two to four weeks.  Done in one week.  From the time our dossier made it to Haiti until the time it got into IBESR, only 10 days elapsed.  Friends, that is a miracle!

On September 14, one singular day before the scheduled close, our dossier made it into IBESR.

There is so much that is hard about adoption, no matter which adoption path you choose.  There's grief and waiting and heartache.  It just goes with the territory.  And when something joyful happens - something that encourages your heart to know that HE sees and works in our lives, we can't do anything but rejoice.

I said if we made it in to IBESR before the cut off that I would give God the glory because there would truly be no other explanation.  And that is what I'm here to do tonight.

Thank You, God, for getting us through to this next step.  And thank you, friends, for standing beside us.  We know you are supporting us and we can't wait to share with Little Guy just how you stood beside us through this process - how you advocated for him to the only One who really has any control over this process at all.

To Him be the glory tonight.

Maybe....

Last week I shared with you that I didn't think we were going to make the September 15 deadline when Haiti again stops taking dossiers.

Now it looks like that may not be exactly true.

Our dossier is there already.  It was shipped on Friday - and it got to our orphanage yesterday.    Man, this process makes me cry a lot!  Today, the tears are happy and hopeful.  That's a good thing!

Now our dossier goes through first legalization in Haiti, which should take a week or two.  Once it comes out and Little Guy's dossier is finished they become one and go into IBESR.  That's where we need to get before September 15.

It still seems next to impossible, but we're praying anyway.  We have no idea how much of Little Guy's dossier has been finished or when it will be done.  Please pray with us!!

Why is this a prayer request for us?

• The sooner our file gets into IBESR, the sooner Little Guy gets to come home.
• It will save us $200, which would be awesome!
• We will still be able to work with our agency and orphanage, no matter what the new laws and changes are.
• We won't have to wait to see if IBESR opens back up on October 1.  Last time they closed on April 24 and were reset to open on June 1, which became August 14.
• It would just be a huge relief for us.

Thank you for being with us through this process, friends!

Not Going To Make It

A few months ago I told you about all the changes happening in Haiti in regard to adoption.  And how it seemed like we were on a deadline.

Well, IBESR did open back up on August 15.  At the time they opened they said they would be open for 1 month and then close again.  September 15 became our new deadline.

It seemed possible that we could make that deadline.  Little Guy's dossier was almost done.  Ours just had to go to the consulate and be mailed to Haiti for first legalization, whatever that is.

It's been 2 weeks and our dossier hasn't reached Haiti yet, which means we aren't going to make it.  What does that mean?  There are a lot of potentials, but we don't really know yet.

The government of Haiti says they will close on September 15 and re-open on October 1, implementing new laws.  Supposedly they are only going to work with certain agencies, raise their fees and change some of the laws about the adoption process, including only allowing adoption of children over the age of 1 and not allowing the birth and adoptive parents to interact with one another.  But we have to wait and see.  Please pray with us as we wait.  Waiting for something like this is so hard.

Our prayer requests.....

1. For Little Guy to be safe and healthy.
2. For our dossier to get to Haiti quickly and safely.
3. For Haiti to accept our agency on it's list of agencies to work with.
4. For our dossier to get into IBESR quickly.

That's a pretty good start.  :) Thank you, friends.

He Was There

Remember how I said that I couldn't pray for a little boy to get to one of the orphanages so we could adopt him?

And remember how it was going to be another 2-10 months, minimum, before we would receive our referral?

That was all wrong.

:)

Our little boy was there the entire time.

Little Boy (what we're going to call him here) was there all the time.

A lot of changes have been happening in Haiti and after the last "announcement" of changes we received a phone call from our agency on a Tuesday.  Never happened before.  We haven't gotten a phone call from them yet and the person we've been working with doesn't work on Tuesdays.

So when I got a phone call saying, "Karyn, call me back.  I need you to call me back today" on a TUESDAY, I was sure it was over for us.

Instead what I heard was, "I think we have a little boy for you."

Husband and I listened on speakerphone as we learned about 1 minute of information about a little guy who one day could become our son.  And we received a handful of pictures.

That's the information you receive when you get your referral, or child match.  And you need to decide.

This decision felt easy for us.  A couple of months ago we were told about 2 little guys that had significant medical needs and a set of siblings.  We prayed and thought and cried and prayed some more, but there just wasn't any peace with any of those children, as horrible as that sounds, and as horrible as it is even for me to type.

We didn't feel like God had called us to any of those children. 

But, we feel He's calling us to this one.

This could still fall apart for many different reasons.  Some of those reasons I know right now.  Some of them I'll learn in the future.  Some I may never know.  It's scary.

But, I have to trust that God did indeed give us the right referral at the right time and I'm going to trust that He will get us through if it doesn't work out, for any reason.

Right now we are joyful.  We have a picture to look at and a name to pray for and an orphanage to focus on.  We have specific prayers we can pray for his health and safety, that will apply whether or not he ever gets here.  We have someone to look forward to meeting.  And that is wonderful.

"He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’" (Acts 17).