Author Archives: admin Happy 10 day anniversary for those of you reading the Word with me this year! Isn’t it AMAZING to have your heart SATURATED with His Word?! I just wrote the LONGEST post…and with one click of the wrong button—it all erased…don’t you hate it when that happens? But I have something to say–and I guess […]  My sweet friend at “Filled With Praise” nominated my blog for this fun award. Thank you friend! You know I think your blog is over the top too:). The award states you have to use only one word answer the questions, pass along to six favorite bloggers, and tell ’em you did so. I’ll be […] definitely praying!!! I will be praying for you! I pray that we both get our approvals before working our way to the top of the wait lists! Absolutely!-your family is already in my prayers but I will specifically remember this request when I’m praying. Praying… And if the time gets close or referral comes, call your local senators office. We did that and they pushed ours through the next day! But hoping it will all happen on it’s own! ~Kathryn Love your answers. You know I am praying…you have to travel with me…have to!!! Andrea…we had our appointment Dec 23rd to be fingerprinted and received our FDL letter back in our mailbox the next WEEK! It was postmarked Dec 28th…I’m not kidding. So don’t freak out…it could happen super quick too!! Jenn Praying for you! Puttting the request up on our Prayer Angels…it will be exciting to see the miracles appear…PRAYER CHANGES THINGS ! Psalm 91 Andrea, Thank you for nominating me. What an honor coming from you. Oh, I will definitely be praying that you would be approved really fast! Looking forward to Thursday! I will certainly join you in praying for a miracle and for expediency!!!! We got our USCIS form back in under 3 months, so it can happen! Love you! Hi Andrea! Remember, me? We spoke on the phone and you answered some of my preliminary adoption questions. Although I rarely comment or post, I just wanted to let you know that I am praying for you all! We are praying about moving forward in adoption too. Also, thank you for your encouragement…I am reading the bible with you too. 🙂 I’m praying about the 1600! 🙂 Love you! Reading through in a year…just some thoughts on today’s reading…ok—a lot of thoughts…but today’s reading is REALLY good! Promise to not be so long winded next time;) BUT IT’S GOOD! I want to give my sweet blog friends a BIG HUG and thank them for reading this with me this year. I have to confess…it […] It was a good reading today! I enjoy reading the passages we know so well and then God speaking a fresh word. What hit me today is what do I not find valuable in my life? What would I trade for instant gratification such as a bowl of stew? On the surface, nothing…but when I dig deeper…do I trade a time of bonding with my children and husband for the instant gratification of tv? Do I trade off a deep relationship with a friend with the instant gratification of using my tongue in a hurtful way? by the way..love the song and sara groves…she is probably my all time favorite singer. such a worshipper I nominated you for an award at my blog 🙂 Such good stuff! The Word changes people for sure! I think Rebekah & Jacob were worried that God couldn’t do what He said. God promised the blessing to Jacob, so they were just trying to help Him out. I’m thankful for the relationships I have with my husband, brother, & sisters! Hello! Found your blog through another adoption blog! ;0) We are adopting from Uganda! So excited to follow your journey now! :0) Can you believe that Esau actually gave up his birthright for stew! I’ve worked some long, exhausting days before, but I’ve never been so hungry as to make a stupid oath like that! And then Isaac makes the same stupid mistake his father made time and time again! I just can’t even believe this family!!! And STILL Abimelech is kind to him, promising that if anyone harms him or his wife they will die. This ruler just continues to treat Abraham’s family better than they deserve! Now I know we have talked about this before…back when Abraham deceived Abimelech…Sometimes we feel like God won’t use us for something big, something huge, because we’re not worthy. Somehow we have messed up one too many times and we have this skewed image in our head of how God views us. But watching Abraham (and Isaac) mess up time and time again and God not only still loves them, but uses them for amazing things! Reminds me that nothing is too huge for God, including taking a sinner like me and doing something amazing! Then there is this conflict over water rights. Isaac and his family are just being pushed from one area to another. And why? Because he is doing too well. It just shows that there has always been an issue with people being jealous of the wealthy. Fortunately Isaac handles it in a very mature fashion. On the story where Jacob steals Esau’s blessing…I can’t imagine as a mother favoring one child over the other. Not to mention to the extent that you would trick one out of something like this! This is what the commentary said in my Bible: “It is heartbreaking to watch Rebekah and Jacob conspire to deceive Isaac. Notice the great lengths to which they go to fool the old man. They already knew that Jacob was the heir to God’s promises through Abraham, but through their deceit they were trying to make God’s plan happen. That never works without causing pain or added trouble somewhere else. God is in charge of the timetable of our lives. We need to stick with the truth and move at his pace.” Wow! That really relates to the adoption for me! God’s plan is perfect. His timing is perfect. Why do I continue to try to rush or slow things down to make them happen the way I plan? Regardless of what I do, God has a handle on the situation and it will happen in His timing. I love the story of Jacob dreaming about the staircase of heaven. I have daydreamed about seeing such a vision! I can’t even imagine how amazingly beautiful it must have been! This is barely even touching all the thoughts swirling around my head this morning after today’s reading, but hopefully it has provoked some thoughts for you too! What an amazing God we have. Is anyone else feeling extremely touched and blessed that our God loves us enough to leave us His holy, breathing word to reflect on?  Just had to throw in a quick post to celebrate our NEW numbers! I’ve waited since the first week of December for these! We knew there would be very little movement this round…but we are sooooo excited about what is ahead! The referrals have just started back up! We were told in the beginning it’s […] Things are going to get super exciting and now you are soooo close to the teens Yay!!! I soooooo wanna be a teenager! Bring on the teens!!! You are getting there!! Great news! Can’t wait until we’re officially waiting, too! We got ours too!! We are boy 26 girl 35. Can’t wait to watch those numbers dwindle together!!!! Jenn Yeah!! So exciting! I have been following your blog and I am SOOOO excited for your family, you have no idea! 🙂  Look what I got in the mail today! Yes…2010 is my year of organization. It IS going to happen;). Step 1. The pantry…(I even went to Kroger in the snow to buy…NO not milk or bottled water…but AAA batteries so my label maker would work;) It’s the Brother PT-90 version and might I add I […] Oh my gosh, if you are anything like me (and it seems that you are) you will LOVE your label maker! I am also on an organizing frenzy right now! Although I can’t commit to labeling my cabinets because I change them all the time, lol! =) But one of my goals in 2010 is to find a home for everything…maybe it’s ambitous, I don’t know, but I’m striving for organization! I’ll read the verses in the morning and then post! Oh Happy Day! Beautiful entry (as always) Andrea 🙂 I love your heart. -R Hear your heart on marriage…and I completely agree…as I very wounded and baggage filled person (and 19 marrying a man ten years older) when I married, I had LOTS of emotions…and if I had went with my emotions all the time…well, let’s say sometimes I did and it WASNT GOOD! God gave me the person that completed me and who was perfect for me…even though from alot of peoples standpoint’s…we were nuts! (or more specifically they thought he was!) I love him now more than ever… LOVE studying the Word with you! Were we separated at birth? My label maker is going in my will as one of my treasured possessions 🙂 Love the post today…keep it up girl. Andrea, our family is too reading the bible together. Nightly works for us. We are using The Daily Walk. It has it broken down with bites to ponder the Word ! I have made a copy of your One Year Chronological Bible schedule and it is almost the same. Ya’ll have Chronicles added so I am going to do that too….I always get blue after our time together at night doing our Jesse Tree and that is when Doc suggested the daily reading together. Last night we missed but our Lord loves our hearts to be coming back even when we have missed Him only one day or years…doesn’t matter He is waiting and present. Some of the comments and things you write are exactly what we discuss after the readings. It tickles me to no end that we are all defying “the world” by doing something so precious by being in His word daily. Most of us do but it is spiritual exercise daily. I also noticed that Abraham took care of his estate. He still gave to every child, although the majority went to the promised seed, Isaac. One other thing I noticed is that when Abraham had another wife & more children, he sent them away as well. Do you think he was lacking a little faith there & trying to protect his “promised seed?” Or what? Not sure. I also loved that Isaac & Ishmael came together to bury their father. We don’t know all that went on there, but there’s no evidence of fightings. They were both mourning for their dad. So that must mean Abraham still reached out to Ishmael even though he sent him away. It says that Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah. Then he asked God to open her womb, so she was pregnant with twins. It also says that Isaac was 60 years old when the twins were born. Wow! 20 years of dealing with barreness! I can’t imagine that. My husband & I have been dealing with that for almost 3 & it’s been hard! But back to the twins, them struggle with each other in the womb basically represents their lives in the future. Always a struggle! God told Rebekah that the younger would prevail over the older. Jacob was grasping Esau’s heel, coincidence? I don’t think so. God has perfect plans & He sees them through. just wanted to say I hardly get to comment much about the reading but I’m with ya daily! I love your thoughts about the reading. I actually read your thoughts before I read so I know what’s ahead and I LOVE it! My husband and I are actually reading it together every night. If it’s something I think the kids could absorb, I usually read it out loud to them. Love the reading! What a great start to what will be a great year. We are bringing home our little girl from ET as well through AGCI. Help me with the lable maker thing. I actually have one but I inherited it. I’m all for organization but I must be a rebel. I have visions of one of my sons future girlfriends coming over and then telling her friends/family…”okay…his Mom actually has her pantry labeled…like I could not see where the hot cocoa goes…” and then she feels she can’t measure up…that expectations are high.( ahhh..insert my own experience here…now we are on to something!) I keep pulling it out and putting it back. On a positive note… I have a label stating the machine in the plasitic storage box is a “label maker”. Does that count? Most of the reading is about Abraham’s descendants. The part that stood out to me was when Rebekah cried out to God asking why she was having difficulties in her pregnancy. She was pregnant with twins and the two boys were fighting with each other even in her womb. God explained to her that her sons would be rival nations. The reason this stood out to me was because I remember feeling like this when I was pregnant with Skyler and throwing up for nine months. I remember crying out to God, “Why is this so hard?” I wish I would have received an immediate answer as Rebekah did. Instead, I received an answer much later. Later when we were planning for our second child, we felt God telling us that adoption was the route. It was very clear to us at that point that if I wouldn’t have had a “difficult” pregnancy, we probably wouldn’t even had considered adoption until much later down the road. From the beginning God was writing our story, and we look forward to His perfect ending! |
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by admin
I love Jacob’s vision. “Jacob’s Ladder” is what we hear it called. God told him He would bless him & be with him where ever Jacob went. Jacob & Esau both married their cousins! Esau went to his dad’s brother to find a wife, & Jacob went to his mom’s brother to find a wife! Interesting! Jacob must have LOVED Rachel. It said that him working for her for 7 years was only like a few days to him because of his love for her! That’s precious! But I often wonder, why didn’t he realize the first girl he married wasn’t Rachel, it was her sister Leah, until the morning? What took so long? That just seems a little strange to me, but I don’t know all of the culture from back then. This is all just the start of a bad father-in-law & son-in-law relationship! Here on out Jacob & Laban pretty much constantly are trying to deceive one another.
Then Leah is blessed with 4 little boys! Rachel is jealous & gives Jacob her maid & she has 2 boys, then Leah gives him her maid & she has 2 also. Then Leah has 2 more! Wow! Finally Rachel has 1 child, Joseph, & I believe he turns out to be a favorite! Back to 30:15, that’s a big OUCH! I can’t imagine how Leah felt. Her husband didn’t really want her, he wanted her sister & her sister is jealous of her. I’m sure in Leah’s eyes she doesn’t think there’s anything to be jealous of except her children because Jacob is deeply in love with Rachel still. He shows that over & over in the next few chapters. It’s a little crazy though, Rachel & Leah are bargaining or “selling” him out! I wonder how that made Jacob feel!?
Andrea..thank you for the reminder on prayer! I had the priviledge of being at the bedsides of 3 of my grandparents before they went on to glory, and each one reminded me that they had prayed for me earnestly my whole life, and instructed me to pray earnesly for my children. I spend lots of time nowdays praying for our adoption and our adopted child… but this was a good reminder to pray for the hearts and minds of those littles ones in my care now! OK, so as to Jacob and all of his women…. let me just say I am so glad that I did not live back in the day. Ugh, can you imagine, these women (sisters no less!) and fighting over a comon husband and even throwing their maidservants (slaves) at him, fighting for nights with him…um, so glad God saw fit to intervene in this lifstyle. I’m kindof laughing, thinking, “what you sow, you shall reap.” Take a lot of wives… you are pretty much asking for it!
Since we’re going to be dealing with this issue throughout much of the OT, I have to say that every single time I read about men sleeping with — and having children with — more than one woman, it makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t imagine how broken those women were, how defeated they must have felt. It’s no wonder they sought to have the most children, to be the “favorite”, to literally fight for their husband’s love… because it’s not the way God designed it to be. So sad… and yet again, God does so much with so little. Amazing.
Thanks so much, Andrea, for taking the time to spur us all on in the reading! 🙂
thanks so much for mentioning about colt mccoys link…i sent it to my husband who is a BIG football fan!
Hey Andrea:
Just stopping by to say hello! I met some friends of yours at Passion2010 (can’t remember their names right now…but I was running on zero sleep at that point so forgive me!) I hope to meet up with you soon in real life, but for now, I enjoy reading your posts and celebrate with you as you inch your way closer to the Babe of your Heart.
joy-
Emily V.
I just started my readings for the year….almost caught up. What can I say….we have had a really rough start. I know reading the Word is where I need to me. I was not in the Word enough for many years….same thing really. I would have great spurts, but that was it. Last year I was challenged by another blog to read the Bible in 90 days (which was a little longer than that for me, but not bad). I LOVED IT!!!! So if there is anyone out there in doubt- it may not be easy….may seem like a chore….may seem like too much to ask, but once you are into it….once God has Blessed your socks off……..you will CLING TO IT!!!! Because STORMS WILL COME- not if, but WHEN they do……your heart will be GROUNDED in HIM!!!! Just know that 🙂
thanks for posting the books you have gotten so far…i have a mother for choco but want to get many more!
I feel convicted all the time of my lack of devotions and personal prayer time. I keep justifying to myself that I’m busy and later is okay. But you’re right, NOW is the time! So thank you again for starting this Bible study. I feel grateful that I feel a sense of accountablility to actually do my devotions every day. And yes, when you are immersed in The Word you have a whole different perspective on life! Even something as simple as my husband asking me to make dinner after I’ve had a crazy day and I’m tired. I want to answer, “How about you take a turn” but instead I catch myself not even hesitating to not only make him dinner, but serve it to him. And the glory goes to GOD because that is soo not me! =)
More thoughts on the reading on my blog.
Hey Andrea… I just have to add that my husband and I also pray for our children to one day go into “all the world”. Their little hearts are already so sensitive in that arena. We have some friends, who are 11th generation missionaries. Way back when, a little old lady on her deathbed prayed that God would raise up missionaries from her descendants, and now 11 generations later, her descendants are literally all over the globe, still spreading His good news!
SOOO much great insight! Andrea, I just love your commentary and I’m so thankful God led me to your blog and you invited us all to take this journey. I love what you said about excusing ourselves because of the “season” were in. With four kiddos it would be easy for me to try to justify my lack of time for bible reading and devotion. But look again at my life and yes I am busy with four kids but there are so many other “things” that distract me from being in the word and in prayer with Him. Oh how I have loved doing this reading and how I feel Him calling me each day to open up my bible and read more. The best part is I CAN’T wait to spend time with HIM! I love what Megan said about your change of perspective when you’re immersed in the word. I find myself doing/saying things that are not from me but truly the Holy Spirit working…praise God! Something I want to share that keeps pressing on my heart as I do this reading is how disgusted and disappointed I feel with so many of these people. Why couldn’t Abraham learn his lesson and stop manipulating? Why did Sarah have to be so hurtful to Hagar and Ishmael? What kind of wife and mother is Rebekah to play favorites and then fool her husband? And then’s there’s Jacob and his deceit and of course Rachel and her cruel heart towards Leah. Just as I’ve had enough of these people guess what He does? He reminds me I am no better. I am a sinner just like them, I fall short every day and He STILL loves me even with all my messiness. I manipulate, I judge, I covet and the list goes on. Oh thank you Lord that your ways our not ours. Thank you for forgiving me and thank you for your word that I can see how since the beginning we have been falling short and since the beginning you continue to love us.
I love children’s books! So far in my “collection” I have
“Little Miss Spider” David Kirk ( did you that the Spider family is a transracial adoptive family!? )
Spotlight on Shimmer – Kirk- Shimmer talks about being adopted
I Like Myself- Karen Beaumont
Shaoey and Dot – Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman
A Blessing from Above- A little Golden Book that I found at Lifeway
On my wish list is:
It’s OK to be Different – Todd Parr
How I was Adopted- Joanna Cole
Happy Adoption Day- ?
Have you been to the Amharic Kids website? They are linked on my blog, near the bottom right I think….