“Walk with Me” Post #5 Small Arrow from Heaven

Not knowing where to start on this journey, questions were at every turn. We began with the most pressing question: What adoption agency? We did some internet searches but quickly got lost in the mountainous options. We didn’t see any clear direction and made no headway.

This lull sparked more questions. Had we heard God right? If He was calling us to begin adoption, why didn’t it all fall into place? And that’s the funny thing about trusting and obeying. We don’t always know the next step. But, with faith, we hope. We live life. We wait.

And that’s what we did until one day, I received an email with a subject line about adoption. It caught my attention even in the promotions tab of my email, and I recognized the sender as an organization in Birmingham, AL. We had once donated to this ministry in memory of a dear friend who had passed away years before.

I clicked on the email, and as my eyes took in the words, I was having trouble making the connection as to why it was referencing adoption in North Carolina. I remembered this agency as a Pregnancy Resource Center only in Alabama, and I didn’t even know I had been signed up for their mailings. Had I been receiving these emails all this time? I hadn’t noticed them before. But this timely email was a small arrow that directed us to the rest of God’s plan. We clicked the link, signed up for a webinar, loved the mission, and chose Lifeline Children’s Services as our adoption agency.

MIRACLES: In 2017 when a dear friend passed away and her family requested donations in lieu of flowers, none of us knew the impact this request would have. None of us knew that years later, an email from Lifeline would be God’s signal of which agency we should use. But God did.

As believers when we trust and obey, we become beautifully intertwined in one another’s journeys. This precious friend had lived a faithful life on Earth, and she impacted our life even when she was no longer here. God used her and her family’s love and support of ministries over flowers to guide us in His plan of adoption.

Friends, sometimes we may not see the impact, but God uses our faithfulness. I encourage you to keep pressing on for even when you can’t see it, God is working.

In this post I shared how God used childhood family friends to point us to an agency. In my next post, I’ll tell you how He provided a new friend to point us to a country.

In loving memory of Mrs. Charlene King. 1950-2017

“Walk with Me” – Post #4 The Flaming Toaster and Finding the Way in Excuses

“You could never. You have anxiety. You are weak and overwhelmed. You have enough. This is crazy.” These thoughts certainly entered my mind as I considered adoption. And I would have stayed paralyzed in them except for God’s counter words that hushed all the negative banter and excuses.

He unmistakably said, “I have prepared you for this. Walk with me.” 

Keep those words in mind and pause because I’m coming back to them. But right now, I’m going to venture off into a crazy story, one in which my choices will probably make you hesitate to let me ever watch your kids again and may be even pet sit your dog. But here goes. You know how people describe a situation and talk about time standing still and things moving in slow motion? I experienced that once when I caught my toaster on fire by toasting a tostada. I know, don’t laugh. I had safely done this many times and had no idea that the oil from that crispy round tortilla could combust and shoot flames from my toaster. Not that any of you would ever think about using a toaster to toast your tostada, but this is a friendly, cautious reminder not ever to entertain the idea even if the toaster slots are the perfect size, even if there is no warning sticker on the appliance, and even if you think you found the next best hack for simplifying your life. Not many people can say that they are the voice of experience in toaster tostada catastrophes, but it was here as I looked at my obvious lapse in culinary judgment that, for the first time, I experienced time standing still. In fact, I stood there and stared in this uncanny time warp and calmly decided how to handle the toaster sitting on my counter whose flames were now reaching the cabinets. I remembered an email my safety conscious dad had sent me and planned out the steps in my head. I’m not bragging because I do realize this fire wouldn’t have been on my kitchen counter had I not tried to toast a tostada, but I was so composed and time was so slow. I moved the toaster from underneath the cabinets, unplugged it, placed it in my sink, and covered it with a wet dish cloth to extinguish the flames. I know it sounds crazy, but instead of panicking, I was calm and composed as flames were a foot high and reaching my kitchen cabinets. 

Do you remember that thought from before? “I have prepared you for this. Walk with me.” Now, I highly doubt that God’s reference to preparation had anything to do with the time I nearly burnt our kitchen down. But that experience of time slowing down and acting calmly when things are out of control, that’s what God promises us as we follow Him. We can rely on His presence and peace. He walks with us but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. We still would rather know the plan than to trust He has it all worked out. 

Brandon and I both agreed God was calling our family to adopt, but we had so many questions. What adoption agency? International or domestic? Age and gender of child? Question marks were at every turn. 

In my next post, I’ll tell you how God directed our steps. 

“Walk with Me” – Post #3 An Unexpected Entry

As I searched through my old journal, I stumbled across a passage that I didn’t remember writing. It went like this… 

“Adoption will be the next best thing, and I know it would probably suffice. But I also would not want to adopt until I had made peace with all baggage that comes with infertility. I don’t want the adopted child to just “suffice” in place of a biological child. I wouldn’t want any feelings of ‘I only have you because I couldn’t have my own child.’ Toward an adopted child, I would want to feel acceptance and love without any barriers and until I would be ready to do that, I would wait to adopt.” 

After reading those words, I drew in a breath and thanked God. The sorrow and pain had been traded for joy. He had blessed us with three biological children of our own. But even still, it was my infertility that had shown me, with or without children, I could trust God’s goodness. I sat in my bedroom with my journal surrounded by pictures of embryos and ultrasounds. And as I marveled at all this, His Spirit spoke plainly, “I have healed you.” That was all He said, but I knew what He was implying. I have healed you for a purpose. I am calling you to adopt. 

MIRACLES: This journal searching and call to adoption took place in late November of 2019. We didn’t know it then, but we now know that during this exact time, our child was in a hospital having heart surgery. An orphan in a hospital moved our loving God to act. And He called our family to do something. 

Friends, so often we look at suffering and say, “Why doesn’t God end it? If He’s such a loving God, why doesn’t He do something.” And yet, we sit in our comfortable world, going to church on Sundays asking why God doesn’t do something. I know this form of Christianity because I’ve been so guilty of this mentality myself. In our modern world, most of us are inclined to be satisfied with just enough of God to make our lives comfortable. But are we willing to walk closely enough with our God that we allow Him to call us out of complacency? Are we willing to look at human suffering and give up our comfort to do something about it? 

If we could only grasp the truth that this giving up is in fact the most rewarding decision of our lives. We soon begin to realize the vanity. We see how frivolous our plans are in comparison to what He has envisioned for us. We realize the futility of the cares of this world and wise up to the deceitfulness of pursuing earthly riches. 

Walking with God is not an easy journey. He will most definitely stretch us and take us out of our comfort zone into the most ridiculous adventures (just read the Old Testament). But He goes before and behind us, and He promises to be with us every step of the way. 

And yet, even still, I fought this surrender and tried to hold onto my own plans. In my next post, I will share with you all the excuses I entertained on why we shouldn’t adopt.

Below: A few photos of our IVF journey from 2012 – 2018.

“Walk with Me” Post #2 – Helping a Friend

The text came out of nowhere from a number I didn’t recognize, and it read, “Hey just wanted you to know we had our first appointment with our RE specialist. I saw this and just teared up.” 

With it came a follow-up text explaining who she was and a snapshot of what had prompted her to contact me. This friend had seen a thank-you note I had written on a framed display in a fertility clinic, one that I had signed with our names years ago. 

I look back now and laugh as I see how one-directional I was. I knew God had arranged circumstances for me to encourage this friend as she dealt with infertility, but I had no idea that God would use this encounter to place a calling on our own family. 

“Did you feel jealous? Did you feel sad? Did you feel…” I nodded to all her questions trying to remember exactly how I had felt. I told her the truth. Infertility had been one of the hardest experiences I had gone through.

I went home and prayed for this friend, for I understood her pain. Yet, I was many years separated from my own feelings, and her questions made me realize that I couldn’t easily remember. It was then that I thought about an old journal I had written during infertility. Truth be told, I didn’t remember much of what I had written in there, but my intentions were to find passages that told of my own feelings. I wanted to let my friend know I had felt the same way and that she wasn’t alone. 

Jackpot! I found a plethora of passages describing my feelings and emotions in that journal. I had been mad, jealous, distraught, and confused and had written page after page detailing it. I had more than enough content to validate what my friend was experiencing. I shared with her some key paragraphs, and she said it was like I had put her own heart on paper. 

The story could have stopped there. But it didn’t. My next post will explain how God used this journal to show us His plan. 

“Walk with Me” – Post #1 Ordinary People, Extraordinary God

“I greatly admire you for adopting and know God calls special people to do it.” If you’ve adopted and our paths have crossed, you’ve probably heard those exact words from me for that was my usual response. Since then, God has taught me so much. 

The most important thing He has shown me is that it doesn’t take special people. Really. It doesn’t. When God calls us to do something, He is zero dependent on our special skills, our charming personality, or our impressive intellect. His callings are His work. He has the plans and the vision. He only needs our willingness to allow His work to flow through us. A calling is simply His invitation for us to join what He is already doing. While God does some pretty miraculous things that can seem intimidating, we should never fear to join in. As believers in Christ, choosing to follow and live life in the center of God’s will is the absolute best, most fantastic decision we will ever make on this earth. And our only “special” part is being willing to walk the journey with Him. 

My next post will share how God brought a friend into my life and through trying to help her, I received an unexpected call to action.

Introducing “Walk with Me” – A Story of Miracles

Dear Friends,

What if? It’s the question I keep asking myself.

What if Noah had caved to the mockery and hadn’t built an ark? What if David had felt embarrassed to volunteer and hadn’t fought Goliath. What if the widow had given into fear and hadn’t fed Elijah?

As Christians, we are faced with what ifs every day. And if we stay paralyzed with fear or doubt, we never know what God could have done through us. He constantly calls us. He doesn’t want us to live life in fear, regret, or doubt. Rather, He continually invites us into His ridiculously amazing plans. If we will listen.

God not only gave Noah specific instructions for the ark, but He gave him time and means to complete it before sending rain. God not only gave David a notion to fight a giant, but He was with David as he hurled the sling. God not only sent Elijah to ask the widow to make him bread but provided so that the widow and her son never went hungry again.

Friends, we need to understand that God does ridiculous things. He loves choosing people and circumstances where we all marvel and say, “That was the hand of God. Because I know that scrawny teenager didn’t just kill that giant.” And we need to believe that God still does ridiculous things.

Beginning tomorrow and spanning over a few weeks, I will be sharing entries from a series of writing entitled “Walk with Me.” In these posts I will recount to you the ridiculously awesome things God has been doing in the life of our family. My prayer is that God will stir within you as you read, for He wants to write an equally faith-filled chapter in your life.

If you’re interested in following the “Walk with Me” series, you can sign up for email alerts here on our website to be sent straight to your inbox.

From days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. ISAIAH 64:4

Bouncing Back

March 31, 2021 

Twenty twenty stretched us, and we couldn’t wait to reach 2021. Now we have three months of 2021 under our tight fitting belts, and some of us are still just continuing to survive. We think, “Shouldn’t it be better than this? Shouldn’t I have already bounced back?”

People describe it different ways. I feel trapped. I feel stuck. I am not happy anymore. I feel depressed. I feel helpless. I am so wrapped up.

Life is hard, and that’s not news to any living, breathing human being. We work hard and don’t get the promotion. We have plans that never happen. We want a disease to be cured, but it sticks around.

And we may feel as if our lives are more complicated than anyone else’s. I know I’ve been guilty of this. When the twins were babies, and I only slept a broken up 3 hours a night. When they were one and getting heavier to carry but couldn’t quite walk on their own. When they were two and not only learned how to walk but how to run in opposite directions. When they were three, and Allen was a newborn. It was easy for me to feel like I was the only one exhausted. It was easy to lose sight that the level of neediness in my children was a season and wouldn’t last forever. In the middle of circumstances, it is so easy to be overcome and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Twenty twenty was a season. Many of us would have volunteered to have skipped it altogether if we’d known what was coming. But 2021 is a season too. And 2022. Some people make sense of seasons by years and dates. We joke with my mother-in-law because she loves to talk about her childhood and remembers it vividly. She says, “When I was 8 years old and just starting 3rd grade…” But others of us look at seasons as significant periods of time. It’s like our childhood was one big ball, not really linear events, and it’s only the important memories that stand out. We have no idea what we were doing when we were 8 years old at the beginning of 3rd grade.

Whether you think of seasons linearly with every detail or you clump seasons together and only remember the important parts, this pandemic season is not one that many will just forget about.

And if you’re struggling with “bouncing back,” it’s important to remember that life is hard for everyone and you’re not alone. Jesus on the night he was betrayed asked God to spare him the pain of the cross. He had the power of God living inside of him, but his circumstances here on earth were dark and his human nature was weak. And in that human weakness, He got alone and sought out strength from His Father. We are the same, my friends, and need to follow His example. In bleak circumstances, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is filled with hope. Jesus gave us victory over any darkness and sent us a Comforter when He left. When we spend time in prayer as Jesus did, we have that same strength to keep going in all seasons. That’s how Jesus bounced back and conquered death. And that’s how we bounce back, too.

Saving Jonah

February 4, 2021

It was a pretty normal day. We attended a homeschool class about Astronomy, visited my sister, ate lunch, and went to the library. I should have known this day seemed a bit too normal. 

When we got home, we switched into boots, threw some feed to the chickens, and collected eggs. Surprisingly we didn’t crack any eggs. None of the chickens flew the coop. Even the cats were chill and didn’t dart here and there in their daily starvation dance. What an especially enjoyable perfectly normal day we were having. 

And so, with some happy whistling from Everett and a calm turn of the key, we rode out in our hay-filled gator, collected some water, and headed to the goat pasture. Our goats are temporarily in a smaller pasture, and upon entering the big pasture, we noticed an escapee. We knew the goats were bound to be discontent in the smaller pasture, and it was no surprise to see Jonah running to us, hollering to tell us he was hungry. 

Now, I’ve written about Jonah before. He’s the goat we were wrestling when Brandon accidentally squeezed a syringe of goat insecticide into my face. I don’t completely blame Jonah for this mishap. After all, neither Brandon nor myself are professional goat farmers. Nevertheless, Jonah has a track record of a trouble maker and if it can be eaten, jumped over, or squeezed through, it will be Jonah doing it. 

We rolled the gator to a stop and began throwing hay to the goats inside the pasture. Jonah quickly realized he was on the wrong side of the fence for food. As you can imagine, he had a mellow panic attack as he ran along the fence line watching the other goats eat. I tried coaxing him through the gate, but true to his nature, he wanted to do it his way and devised an alternate plan. And so, with a couple practice hops, he attempted to jump the fence.

It didn’t go well. His leg caught in the wire and he was left fighting and dangling as he tried to free himself. You know how they say mothers can have supernatural strength come upon them when their children are in danger? Now, Jonah is far from being my child, but based on what I found myself doing next, one can only assume that I have a soft spot deep down for Jonah.  

I rushed in and with all the brute strength my 5′ 3″ frame could muster, I picked up struggling Jonah to keep him from breaking his leg. As I struggled under his weight, I hollered for my boys to help free him. Not only was he stuck but I was stuck too as I couldn’t put him down or he’d break his leg.  

He was struggling, and I was struggling to keep from dropping him. I breathlessly told Emmett to run home as fast as he could to get Brandon. Jonah, meanwhile, turns to me in his despair and starts trying to eat the buttons off my jacket. Only Jonah would think about eating at a time like this. 

I adjusted my grip on the heavy goat and buckled. “HURRY!” I hollered across the pasture in the direction of my sprinting boys as I continued to waver under the weight of Jonah. 

My boys made it home and delivered the message. When Brandon arrived on the scene, I wouldn’t say we were chilling, but Jonah and I had made the best of a bad situation. He had stopped trying to eat my clothes, and I had found a way to prop the burden of his stout winter body on the fence. I passed Jonah over to Brandon, and we managed to untangle his leg and hoof. Lucky goat. He walked straight through the gate with no fuss and happily ate hay with his herd mates like nothing had happened. 

While I didn’t have plans today to hold a goat until my arms felt like jelly, I have learned to roll with the crazy. Besides, I’ve heard that normal can get quite boring, and there’s no worry of that happening here.

Messy Math

January 20, 2021

Now I’m not blaming the math book. The lesson was simple enough and doing a recipe with your kids to talk about measurements shouldn’t be hard. I tried to make it simple for us. I really did. I didn’t choose beef wellington, coq au vin, or croissants. I chose Kodiak protein balls that came in a neat package with easy directions on the back. It had few ingredients but had 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup honey, and 1/4 cup water. Perfect! Or so I thought. 

With all this careful planning, I honestly don’t know how the following scenario ensued. Yet, it was within minutes of beginning our recipe, I found myself wiping peanut butter out of the eye of a kid who had been trying desperately to make careful measurements. I guess I had faintly heard him as he repeatedly slung the spoon and hit it against the measuring cup trying to get “all the peanut butter off.” And as a somewhat experienced mother of boys, I shouldn’t have been surprised when belting from the middle of the kitchen we heard, “Ahhhhhh! I got peanut butter in my eye. Ahhh!” Y’all, don’t worry, he’s fine. 

It wasn’t Saxon math’s fault that our very large container of peanut butter was down to its last 1/2 cup and ended up all over the counter top and in his eyeball. It wasn’t the curriculum’s fault that my other child had gotten distracted and spilt bits of the 1/3 cup of honey onto the counter. And it definitely wasn’t the book’s fault that my youngest covered the floor in oats and chips as he kept forgetting to form the protein balls over the bowl. 

All in all, with my current homeschool mom expectations, I rate this lesson a success. I mean, my kitchen may look like a protein ball exploded and there may still be a little redness in one of my kid’s eye, but there honestly have been worse lessons. Now onto literature…

Worth Teaching

Dec 18, 2020 

What is the same about them? 

“That they are all different.”

It was just a simple question I asked during a math lesson about coins, and I was unprepared for my four year old’s answer. Perhaps he didn’t mean it to be profound as he was just sitting in on his older brothers’ lesson. At first I laughed but then began to think about his answer. 

Teacher’s manuals have us viewing comparison and contrast as if we are introducing a new thinking skill, yet all the while most kids are fully aware and can easily discern how they themselves compare and measure up. On one hand, I teach my kids to compare and contrast so they can learn to think critically, yet almost within the same breath, I also tell them not to compare. 

With having twins, comparison is amplified. Not only do my boys feel it within themselves, but being the exact same age in the exact same grade doing the exact same things, the inevitable measurements exist whether we are using a ruler during math lesson or arguing over who has the biggest sandwich during lunch. 

One of my sons in particular is so wrapped up in comparison that it has stirred within me a prayer. I see his value. I see his growth. I see the potential and quick wit. I also see how in a school setting, he looks at his brother and feels inadequate. And on the flip side, in the common sense realm, he far outperforms his brother and feels pride. He is acutely aware of his weaknesses and strengths and measures his own worth based on others.

We all have comparison tendencies, and some of us entertain them to different degrees. We have those in our lives, past and present, who either help us “You are so talented” or hurt us “Why can’t you do anything right.” 

But as I’ve talked with my own son, I’ve begun to realize that my words are not powerful enough to convince him of his worth. And that has caused me to delve deeper into the truth of worth itself. Sure, it would be nice if I could convince him that he’s an amazing kid because I say he is. But that isn’t enough because his value would then be based on my opinion of him. I’m smart because my Mom says I am.

Many of us go through life with our worth wrapped in others’ opinions, and as long as we surround ourselves with loving and encouraging people, we feel good about ourselves. But even surrounded by the best people, we still lack the confidence of knowing the truth. And the truth is, our worth isn’t defined by others. It isn’t even defined by ourselves or our ability. Rather, our value is inherent and comes from our Maker. We are valuable because He created us in His own image and He says we are worthy. Basing our value on anything other than this truth, inevitably puts us on a wavering foundation, for even the smartest brain will one day experience decline and the fastest runner won’t be able to keep up. 

My prayer is that my son understands the truth that his worth doesn’t come from how he measures up among others. I pray he doesn’t feel inadequate when he sees others excel and that he doesn’t become proud when he outperforms. I pray all my children thrive in knowing God designed them differently for a purpose and they bring Him glory by excelling in who He created them to be. 

And just as my four year old said that the common thing is that they are all different, I pray we all know worth based on our common Creator and not from our differences. 

2 Corinthians 10:12 – For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.