Humbling

So, I'm riding my bike yesterday afternoon (a much needed ride since I haven't been able too all week)and one of my all time favorite songs comes on my ipod. It's Chris Tomlin's "How Can I Keep From Singing." I love this song! I love using sign language when I sing it at church. And yesterday afternoon, it was a much needed answer to a recent prayer. As you know, we are currently waiting on our LOA to arrive from China and it's been killing me to wait on what is now day 52. As I focused on listening to the words of this song, I realized that I have only been asking God when and never praising him for it all!
As I sang along, as breathless as I usually am on an 8 mile bike ride, I started tearing up when I thought of how I haven't been praising HIM for everything about the adoption that has happened. Instead, I have been questioning HIM and accuing HIM of not being fast enoough! So, here are the words I heard whispered into my heart as I sped down my favorite hill with tears in my eyes!

There is an endless song
Echoes in my soul
I hear the music ring

And though the storms may come
I am holding on
To the rock I cling

How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting Your name
I know LYNLIEGH is loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing

I will lift my eyes
In the darkest night
For I know my Savior lives

And I will walk with You
Knowing You'll see me through
And sing the songs You give

How can I keep from singing your praise? How can I ever say enough, how amazing is your love? How can I keep from shouting your name? I know LYNLEIGH is loved by the king, and it makes my heart want to sing

I can sing in the troubled times
Sing when I win
I can sing when I lose my step
And fall down again
I can sing 'cause You pick me up
Sing 'cause You're there
I can sing 'cause You hear me, Lord
When I call to You in prayer
I can sing with my last breath
Sing for I know
That I'll sing with the angels
And the saints around the throne
how can i keep from singing your praise how can i ever say enough how amazing is your love how can i keep from shouting your name a know i am loved by the king and it makes my heart LYNLEIGH is loved by the king and it makes my heart i am loved by the king and it makes my heart want to sing

i can sing

I don't know why it took time alone, listening to praise songs, to realize that HE is working it all out. I can lean on him during this time and know that Lynleigh is being taken care of. I can praise him for her life and how she is being taken care of during this time. I can praise him for a warm place for her to sleep and food in her chunky monkey belly. I forgot that! But I am humbled that HE would remind me during this waiting period.

50 Isn't Always Nifty!

I pride myself on knowing the 50 states in alphabetical order thanks to a well known tune called "Fifty Nifty United States." I even taught Brady the song long before he had to learn it in school!!!
But today...I'm not feeling that fifty is so nifty!

You see, today marks day 50 that we have been waiting on our LOA. And like the 50 on this birthday cake...it's not a number that I was looking forward too! At 36 years old, 50 seems so far away. $50 seems like a lot of money, especially to someone on a budget. 50 days to me seems like the longest time ever! I just don't like the number 50 today!

The waiting process of adoption got me to thinking about how we are trained to be "get it now" people. Last night, I took the boys by the donut shop to see what time they closed. Brady wanted to take donuts to his class today so we went by around 7. Unfortunatly, they had already closed for the day but open bright and early at 5am. Well, Kaden, who often throws a fit when he doesn't get his way, had a melt down! He wanted donuts and he wanted them right then. I started thinking that from 7pm to 5am must seem like forever to a five year old. Then I realized that the time it would take for him to get a donut was equal to the time we've waited for our LOA in his mind! So, here I am today..."paitently" waiting (as we have been forced to do this whole process) and hoping that this week will be our turn!

Chunky Monkey!!!!

What's the next best thing to getting your LOA? An update of course! Today, I opened my email and Bam! There's a baby in my email! I know! Now if only I could open the mail box and find a baby in there I'd be set! Of course, I'm kidding! I'm dying to see China! The only place I've ever been that's out of the country is boarder towns Mexico and who wants to claim that as being a world traveler!

But anyway, back to the matter at hand! Lynleigh Ren is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!!!!!!


Seriously...could you not just eat those cheeks up?


I love that she appears to be bullying the other kid (sorry if that's your kid!) But this girl needs to be able to hold her own in the house with my wild children! I mean, you know you're children are wild when your social worker asks what you plan to do with the little "indians" while you're in China!

So, now we just sit and wait! I'm still working on her care package that will include pictures of us and hopefully Tony will be able to record himself singing on a CD. That would be so awesome for her to already hear his voice before we get there!
Please continue to pray with us for speedy paper work as well as the funds to travel with! God has been so gracious with funding for HIS Lynleigh Ren! I know he wants to see her in our arms asap!

Waiting and More Waiting!

It seems like so many people asked us how the adoption is going this week. I guess I haven't noticed it much or maybe no one has asked but for some reason, it's on everyone's mind! I'm chalking that up to maybe this week will be the week!

Today's message at church was about fear. Know Fear! It's crazy because I have had such anxiety the past two weeks about all of this and I am figuring out that I'm afraid! I'm worried that it's not going to work out like I want it to. And I've noticed that I'm not trusting that God will take care of the paperwork like he promised! I'm such a hypocrite! I mean, one day I'm praising HIM for providing the exact amount of money on our invoice and the next I'm telling him that he isn't doing a good job getting our LOA to us in time! I seriously need some prayer!

So, today, I'm once again giving this all to HIM! Because, as it always happens, I can't do it on my own! This adoption was his idea anyway and HE will make it all happen just the way he planned it long, long ago!

Debate

I've been reading a forum for people who are adopting from China, and in the last few days, the debate has arised on whether or not you should fund raise for your adoption. In an effort to stay out of the line of fire on the website, I have decided that I would post my opinion on my blog.

You see, when I was a little kid, God gave me a heart for orphans. I always knew that I would adopt a baby one day and I'm so grateful that he has also put this desire in my husbands heart. After Brady was born, we started talking about adopting. We knew it was something we wanted to do but to also have another biological child. When Kaden was born, we knew for sure that God would have our little girl waiting for us in China. And the great thing about God is that he always fulfills HIS promises! At that time, Tony and I were in debt up to our eyeballs thanks to some really bad decisions on our part. Thanks to the grace of God, we enrolled in Financial Peace University to get back on track and start repaying debt. We set a two and a half year goal to pay off or close to pay off our debt.

As a family, we decided that we would begin the adoption process in January 2010 no matter what. God confirmed this decision and paved the way for us. Before we even began the process, we had the majority of our church praying for us. This was one of the most over whelming things I've ever experienced. People I didn't even know would come up to use and say, "Hey, We're praying for Baby China!" I loved that so many people were already in love with someone they hadn't even seen a picture of yet!

With time, we bagan the paperwork and thus began the need for funds. One of the coolest things that happened in that time was talking with my dear friend, Sarita. I had mentioned that if we took out a home equity loan, and maybe took money out of my 401k, then we would only need to pray for about $5000 from God. I love my friend so much and she's so honest with you about your spiritual life. She asked me why I wasn't asking God for the whole amount. Why should I limit God's plan for my family? This totally changed my perspective on where we would get the money! So, I got busy!! I got busy praying and also putting my talents to work. I signed up for every craft fair I could find and started sewing like a crazy woman. Tony took extra call and even worked as much over time as he could get. Once we became obedient, God started raining money! Between working craft fairs, selling flip flops, and getting over time, God blessed us ten fold. We received numerous gifts from families we knew and even some we didn't know. Each time we needed money, God supplied the exact amount. I couldn't believe it! I mean, I trusted HIM with everything but for some reason, I thought that we'd be on our own with this one! Boy were we wrong!

So, to state my point, I think that the debate of whether or not it's right to fund raise for your adoption will never be settled, I would suggest to those on the forum to agree to disagree! However, what is best for our family is to trust God and know that HE will provide for us beyond anything we could ever imagine. I am so grateful for the many who have helped us and I pray that Lynleigh Ren will see how incredibly blessed she is to have a whole community behind her and praying for her everyday!

Anxiety

I have two bio children and I promise you that adoption is way more stressful than being pregnant! I have been starting to suffer from anxiety since we received our referral back in March! You see, one of the many blessings about being pregnant (and mind you, I hated being pregnant!) is that you know when the end of the process will be. Well, you might not know the exact day and time but you know roughly when that baby is going to come out! Well, with adoption, you don't know! The paper work seems to take forever and you are stuck waiting on other people to process it. Then once you get a referral, you have this picture of your baby (the ultrasound) but you still have to wait on others to process it all! Then, if you're like me, you sit here obsessing over the many forums waiting to see if people with your same time frame get any new news and the stress begins!

I'm really struggling with this because I feel like I'm running out of time! See, this isn't something new. I get this way once summer vacation gets here. I worry that we won't get to do what all we wanted to do and we will have to start school. So, here I am stressing that we won't make it to China before Lynleigh's 2nd birthday. And I know that she doesn't know any different and she is probably as happy as she can possibly be in the situation. But I do! Blah! I never would have thought adopting would be like this. It seems so much easier on paper!

Introducing Lynleigh Ren

I know that many of you have been dying to see our sweet baby girl so, here she is! We were given permission to post her pic to our blog. I can't give you much info on her except that she is 19 months old. Please continue to pray with us as we patiently wait to travel.