Category Archives: Inspirational Recently I went to a women’s retreat with the new, smaller church my family has been attending. For 10 years we were at our old church when we felt the Lord recently call us to a smaller community, and I knew going on the women’s retreat would help me get to know some of the […] The church. The people. Community. Missions. Orphan Care. The poor. The world. All of these–require a key thing to do things right. It’s what Jesus came for. It’s what He died for. And it’s a single word. Relationship. It seems like every time I open my computer, Facebook or whatever–there’s another article being circulated how […] I love blogging…”online journaling”…whatever you want to call it–simply because I just love looking back and seeing what was happening this same time last year. It rings of His faithfulness. Always. Can you remember? What was happening this time in your life LAST year? What were you trusting God with? What were you stepping out […] Thank you, Thank you, Thank you …. and did I say Thank YOU!!!!! I didn’t even know I needed to read that as bad as I did until I read it!!!! I am prone to get busy and only focus on what is around me and what people are saying to me today …. thank you for reminding me to take the time to look back at everything that God has done, answered, repaired, created and solved in just a year!!!! God Bless you and your “littles” (I now use that term due to reading your blog everyday, I hope you don’t mind). This is lovely. May His ways and plans and faithfulness always shine through our years :)That’s why I love to journal too- to see how everything is unfolding and how He is loving us through each detail. What a year! I LOVED reading this post–how amazing and what an adventure is this life we are given. Thanks for sharing! I can’t believe all of that happened in just.one.year! Wow isn’t God amazing. I am continually blessed to see your faith in action and how everything has played out with your sweet family! Thank you for the reminder to be thankful for all of the joys (big and small) in our lives. You’re absolutely right, don’t listen to the remarks. Children say interesting things, whether they’re adopted or not. I was just thinking about T yesterday. Thank you for updating! We have had many things happen this past year. I love to look back to see what God has done. The biggest one is we finally know why are son behaves the way he does and have a diagnosis that has helped tremendously. God moved mountains this past year and in a swift fashion, I might add. All praise to Him! I love that maybe your littles are sometime confused about adoption, but none of them are confused about what a family is! You are all blessed to have eachother. Haven’t commented in a while but always read. Love this post! You are so right. It is easy for people to judge from the outside looking in, and I know for me it is each to take those comments to heart. Reading this post, it is truly amazing what has happened in the past year! I remember last year following all of your adventures about Miss T. I so wanted you to adopt her and just couldn’t understand why you weren’t, but you would allude to reasons and so I waited patiently for you to reveal the whys…and I was heartbroken for you when you wrote about your sweet little angel going to heaven…I cried and prayed for God to be good to your family because you were all so sweet and I couldn’t fathom why your hearts were being broken. All of this while my own journey to adopt my twin babies was finally coming up to their birth! They were born on September 2nd, wonderfully made and like little angels they have transformed this house of girls into a loud, messy, but joyful home! Just 2 years before this I had come to the point that I believed that my baby days were over. After 5 children (1 homemade and 4 adopted.) I kept trying to talk myself into feeling content. After all, God wants us to be happy where we are and I felt like I was so blessed to have my children that I should stop praying for more!! And then He so gloriously blessed me with twin boys!! And I was sooo happy! And everyone around would say, but I thought you were done? Didn’t you say you didn’t want anymore?! But I never said that, I just never said I was anything but content. And this past year holding my babies and living faithfully through mothering twins, which is never easy, I never let go of the miracle that is my boys and the fact that I get to be their mother! Thank you, thank you, thank you LORD! And I have watched your family grow again and rejoiced with you! Yes, God is so good!! Yes, His plans are so much more wonderful than our own! And yes…as my boys get so big now I catch myself looking at newborns and saying little prayers…just one more? Whatever He has for me…I am so excited to see how our stories continue to unfold!! I was about to go to Europe for the second time in a year after I’d won a trip for 4. I was taking my then boyfriend (now husband!), brother & his best friend, an awesome girl we all love. I still hope to maybe maybe be able to visit the US in March to visit sissy, BIL, & precious niece & it’s my hearts desire to attend the Created for Care weekend in March. We will see if God opens up doors for that trip! “Never listen to the opinion of someone who hasn’t been there all along–who has no idea where you have been and all that the Lord has done and is doing in your life now. Instead–allow the truth of what God has done and His faithfulness be what carries you through the current unknowns and uncertainties in your life. And marinate on what is true.” Thank you for this post! We too have been judged and misunderstood concerning our family’s choice to adopt. I wrote about it on my blog as well, though not as eloquently as you have here. To say God has been in the details for our most recent adoption–well, although true–that is quite the understatement. Every corner turned…every milestone reached…every prayer asked–He has been there… …in the most perfect timing. We saw Ezekiel’s (Zeke’s) picture just when we were ready to “try” to grow again. It had been four weeks since […] loved every. single. word. of this post. 🙂 I also love how you’ve brought us on all the highs and lows and ins and out of this journey for quite some time. I long to be consistent and disciplined and vulnerable enough to also do that better. Thanks for being an example for me. Love you friend!!! God ROCKS! Adoption is always, ALWAYS beautiful and scary and convoluted and filled with moments of God showing Himself to be the author of these stories! Hallelujah! My heart just needed to read this. I just needed this reminder of God’s love in the details right now in this terribly busy and stressful season of life. Thank you! Wow…! What a beautiful story He writes. So excited for your family! All I can say is WOW. God is so incredibly amazing. I just love how He is there in all of those little tiny details. So very happy for you and your family! Andrea, Your story has me wiping tears this morning and thinking of my own journeys… I love it when He allows us to see the beautiful bits that make up our stories! Thank you so much for sharing your amazing God moments….it is a completely AWESOME thing to watch Him meet us where we are and pour our His love on us in such personal ways. Once again your post hits home. As I sit here reading tonight I read over your post and my mind flashes back to when our son Mason died and then we buried him….I remember the agonizing tears and screams often not realizing they were coming from my mouth….and too sitting in church with tears streaming down my face unable to lift my hands or open my mouth to praise. But it was in that season that God revealed himself in a huge way that only God can and changed my life. Praying for you and your family as you wait for travel approval. Blessings this Easter! Mimi OH YES! He is a God of details!!! We got our letter Monday, April 1st and now you had encouraged me to call and check on our cable date??? and she what “day baby” we will have! LOL “JoY” our girl is a “Thursday” babe!!! My prayer for her is that God calls her to be a missionary so well see! Passion week. The week we remember Christ’s path to the cross. The crowds watching him walk…mixed in their belief. And for those who had decided they believed He was the Messiah–well…crap–if He is the King–why doesn’t He do something??? Why doesn’t He stop it all here??? Why doesn’t He reveal His power and put all […] Amen…wow, just when I think it is okay to be normal for a little while. Just when I think it is okay to put work first for a little while. Just when I think it is okay to give but to try to hold myself off emotionally from those in need with painful burdens. I thought that a break from the overwhelming feelings that come with mercy would be okay. I thought that as long as I gave that I could at least separate myself from the empathy that urges giving every last drop. God will let us know loud & clear exactly what we need to do in our walk with him. ALL things work for the good for those who serve the Lord…yet we need to give our ALL to him & for him. When we pour ourselves out for others he will refill our cup to overflowing. Girl, you have overflowed & I thank you because my cup sure needed refilling! Thank you! 🙂 This post has blessed my day in so many ways! Thank you for being so transparent! Beautiful and inspiring! Thank you for sharing your heart and your journey.. How awesome! I wonder how many people God was able to reach from “hanan’s” child-like faith! That IS truly the test of faith, when things are perfect where are your eyes fixed? On the problem or on God. Such a great message to hear this week! |
|
by admin
Andrea, thanks for writing this! Very encouraging and refreshing to see positive talk about the church. I find it to be true that all too often there’s too much talk and not enough action. It’s amazing that God’s work prevails despite anyone’s lack of involvement or disagreement – which is a testament in itself to God’s goodness! Praise God!
Yes, yes, and YES!!! Thank you so much for sharing this. I am so weary of the judgment and negativity and finger pointing. This is so timely.
I’m crying over the fact that someone took time to write this! Truth! What a breath of fresh air!
Great job!!! Way to be bold. This is truth. We have been focusing too much on people’s issues and mistakes and when we do that, it takes our eyes off of Jesus. We are called to share his love, not point out everyone’s mistakes and try and fix them. This does nothing but cause hurt and like you said, fear. We are all human, and we will all fail from time to time. I believe it breaks Gods heart more than anything to see the church divided and see Christians focused on other Christians mistakes and trash. We all have some sort of trash that Jesus already paid the price for! . We need to get back to sharing His love and fixing our eyes on Him and not nitpicking others mistakes so much! This has been on my heart a lot lately as well. Great job!
“I want to pick a fight because I want someone else’s suffering to matter more to me. I want to slug it out where I can make a meaningful difference. God says He wants us to battle injustice, anyone who gets distracted with the minutiae of this point or that opinion is tagging out of the real skirmish. God wants us to get some skin in the game and to help make a tangible difference.” – Bob Goff #lovedoes
Amen. Thank you Andrea!! LOVE YOU!!!
This means so much to me! I have been so discouraged lately with all the negativity towards the church and adoption. And, a small part of me wondered if I was doing the wrong thing (the enemy). This spoke so much truth and gave me so much encouragement that “yes”, God is for adoption!
You are NOT crazy, you are RIGHT, sister! The enemy’s most successful tactic is to destroy the church from within! Way to preach TRUTH!
Thank you for being a voice for so many! I have heard enough negative, unproductive, self righteous, attention seeking, chatter. So sad to see the enemy using believers to stifle the good works of their brothers and sisters are doing!
Andrea, you have spoken so well of the Bride. We must never forget that the Church (even the ones we disagree with!) is who Jesus died for–the ones he is coming back for. I so appreciate how you are honoring His Bride, for I believe it is never in Jesus’ heart to dishonor the ones he loves, as is so common. Well done friend!
YEAH! Standing and cheering… and some tears of celebration. Thank you, thank you.
Thanks so much, Andrea, for this. When I read all the negativity that’s circulating, I wish people could come and see what God is doing where I work in Uganda. And everywhere the stories are repeated. He is the Redeemer, and He is at work redeeming His lost world, calling people from every nation to Himself, and using His imperfect church to do it.
So exactly what I needed to hear!
This is so encouraging to me! I wrote you an email about how I was fearful about adopting for the wrong reasons. Really, it was just the enemy putting people in my path to discourage me.
I needed this today! <3
You nailed it with this post,Andrea. God is doing such good work through the Holy Spirit with you and your family. Saying ,Yes, My Lord…is action packed. One day years ago 20 or so , we got a call from David Hicks. He was watching 2 girls struggling using a pay phone . He pulled over to help them . They had suitcases with them . They were from Antigiua. They were legally here but clueless of how to cope with life in America. That one intersection was more cars than they had seen in their lifetime. Dave call me and and shared that these girls had no place to stay . He was going to his church to ask for anyone to give them a home to stay in until they got there feet on the ground. He wanted to know if we could put the girls in our home until the church responded. I VERY reluctantly said yes. I truly wished I had not picked up the phone (no caller ID’s ) Dave said , you and Doc have a big home and it sure would be a blessing …Mary and Dave had refugees staying in their home. I told Doc that night and assured him it was temporary.It ended up years and years that they lived with us . We sent both of them to nursing school ,they both got married. They also had other church friends of theirs move in . AT one time we had 5 Antiguan’s . They all had jobs . They lived with us for almost 10 years and one never left so she is going on 19 years. No rent is charged, they are family. You , Andrea , are such a cool person. You do it ,girl .