Completely honest post

   Well it's Christmas time and I couldn't be happier. I love Christmas. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus and teaching my kids about it. I love baking and watching Christmas movies. I love our church celebrations. I just love all of it. Some people get caught up in the business but that doesn't bother me. If we are to busy to enjoy it we are missing the point. I am looking forward to the someday when we will get to celebrate Christmas and teach the joy of this season to another child.

   I spent today baking all day while the kids played. This allowed me a lot of time to think and pray through some things I've been working through lately. When we started this process a friend who has adopted before told me the process would challenge us in ways we never imagined. I believed her but wasn't sure were God would bring about those challenges. I knew the wait would be hard but we knew that going into the process. So far God has challenged me with the question that keeps coming up on every form we fill out... would we accept medically challenged children and which ones would we accept. This is harder than you would think because if God gave us a child from my body with any challenges I would love that child so it feels very unnatural saying "no, I don't want that child please leave that one without a parent". I was unable to mark no to most things on the list of medical conditions without feeling convicted. After much discussion with God I have come to the point of saying God  if that is the child you bless us with than I will not turn the child away. This may be God preparing me for our referral or it may just be God showing me He wants complete control in this adoption. I don't know which and I no longer worry about that. God will decide.

  One other thing I've been praying about quite a bit lately is the reaction of our friends throughout this process. Yes, on the outside all our friends say they are supportive. However, there are different reactions to different things people don't agree with. Anything from our decision to adopt from another country instead of America right down to the way we have to raise money to cover the cost. I wrote a blog about why we chose to adopt from a foreign country earlier. In a nutshell... because God asked us to. This is His plan for us not His plan for you. If you are convicted about adopting in America that is wonderful. God asks people to do different things that's how he gets all his work done. Everyone has different jobs and different callings. As for the fund raising if you don't like it ignore it. We are going to need around $25,000 to cover the adoption. When you give birth to a child insurance covers most of it and the rest you can usually pay off month by month. That's not the case with adoption. We have to come up with the money before we can travel to Thailand to pick up our child. About 1/4 of it we have saved already from just tightening the budget and using my retirement from when I worked. As soon as our home study is complete I will be applying for every grant I can find on Google. I am confident that since God has called us to do this HE will provide and so far He has every step of the way. And He just keeps showing me every time I think there is no way we can save for the adoption that month because of something unexpected, like blowing a tire on my car, God provides more hours at my part time job. We, of course are still going to ask for your financial support but that's only because to us that is a really big number and every little bit helps.

  So from our friends we ask for prayer that we will not grow weary in this process. I ask for prayer for more emotional toughness when we do get hurt by things people say because this is going to happen now and after we have our child with us. I also ask that if you don't agree with something keep it to yourself. This is not what God has called you to it's what He has called us to do.