Progress!!!!

I just got off the phone with Cristina and Marisol. The papers are getting faxed to the agency tonight!

Please be praying for Marisol. As the due date is getting closer, her anxiety is increasing about how she is going to make it, financially, after the delivery. She will not be able to work for about a week and will not be able to make rent for that month. Her monthly rent is $300 and if she indeed misses a week of work she will lose out on $180. Lee and I will be contributing as best we can, but with the adoption expenses looming, we are not able to do much. Please pray that God would provide for her!!! She is sweet, she is timid, but she is needy and I don't know how else in the world I can better show appreciation than to take care of her while she is pouring out generosity on us!

She says the baby is moving quite a bit and she's now getting so big that it's hard for her to walk around........you know it's gotta be close, now! Two weeks.......Dear Lord Jesus, give us all strength!!!

Timid Relief.

Last night I went over to a friend's house and updated them about the latest goings-on. Mary told me something that was just recently told to her and I will use it probably forever. She said, "Don't think beyond what you know." Exactly what I've been doing the past few days......

After I got home last night I checked my email and read that Marisol has an appointment tonight with Cristina (a catalyst in this process like you wouldn't believe) to fill out paperwork. Thank you, LORD!! I was so ready to disassemble every hope, every plan for how things were going to work out this fall, even the nursery, but I guess I'm supposed to hang in there and continue to trust. Can you imagine our relief when this whole process finally ends?!?

The due date is two weeks from today, but I have a feeling that the next two weeks are going to be quite dramatic, to say the least.

Pray for motivation...

We received an email last night saying Marisol has been difficult to get a hold of, and with just basically two weeks until the baby's due date, time is running out. There is no time for delay, for lack of motivation, or disinterest in the legal preparation process, but I fear that all those things are happening. All it took was one comment about it being hard to get a hold of Marisol and I'm back to thinking, "Well, I guess that's over." How timid my faith!

I was putting laundry away a few minutes ago and walked into the freshly repainted nursery and prayed, "God, we're trusting you. Please....not again." How meager my ability to endure! You'd think at this point in the process we would be able to handle the bumps in the road, the complications as hurdles easily crossed, but I tell you I'm fighting my fatalist tendencies. This is where my faith counts and we are praying that God would once again hit us up. Can I claim resolution, victory, relief? Can I be that bold? The doubts I had abolished seem to be sneaking up on me again and I want so much for my faith to outweigh the ugliness, so we will choose to trust when I want to revert to protecting my heart.

In the meantime, PLEASE pray that Marisol will get a kick in the pants to get her paperwork done, that she will be motivated to get all this over with so she can once again focus on where her life is leading. Pray for the agency- that they will be able to expedite the process as much as possible, that there would be no paperwork delays. I will continue to post updates along the way. We appreciate (SO MUCH!) all your support and prayers as we anxiously await our baby boy!

Less than 3 weeks and counting....

I haven't even been able to process the normal goings-on of my hectic life, let alone the idea of parenthood (again) rising to the surface, but Lee looked at me tonight (our 8th wedding anniversary) and said, "So, are you ready to be a mom?"

Part of me is terrified, petrified even. So completely frozen in fear that once again I'm being set up for complete heartbreak. But I know God to be good, and Lee has been so great in setting my heart at ease. Lee, who still has not even met Marisol, has more faith in this process than I can muster.

I still have the carseat (almost brand new) that friends of ours lent to us in the spring. It was sitting by the front door for almost a week in May and when we got home from the cities I meant to return it. We had been home a few days when Bekah came over and as I reminded her that we needed to get it back to her, she looked at me and said, "Just keep it for a while....." Choking up, we both believed that God would put it to use.

Little did we both know that we would need it so soon! At least for a few weeks until we get our own. The paperwork has begun, so it's officially in process. I dare not even count days until the due date because I don't think I can quite handle the reality of it quite yet. The paperwork should be fairly straight-forward as many of the things were straightened out when I met with Marisol. There are no plans for on-going contact with her, and the plan for the delivery/hospital stay is all but worked out. Our little man will be born at Regions Hospital in St. Paul (where I was born)!

I will continue to keep everyone posted on the details as we progress. Thank you all for your continued prayers!!

Mercies are new every morning.

Today I received a much needed random act of kindness from a lady on the street. The past few days have been slightly overwhelming with making a decision about using an attorney or continuing with the agency, organizing my school schedule and class requirements (I won't go into all of those details- but there has been a lot to handle this week), having our roof replaced, organizing our finances so we know how to proceed with the adoption, etc. So there has been a bit of stress this week for us. But I guess when it rains, it pours. Trying to maintain a good attitude when it seems like poo is falling from all around is extremely difficult to do, and to top it off we've been dealing with stress from other people.

Being the people-person that I am, it's incredibly difficult to be at odds with anyone (try having that attitude when working in customer service- it's hard) especially when it's about important stuff. Something that I said was completely misinterpreted and I feel like the worst was assumed about me. I know there are some that can just brush those things off, but this situation penetrated me and even after my attempts to clarify nothing seemed to put it right. Yesterday we decided to go to the dog park to have some fun after a really busy day and ended up encountering an extremely rude man that thought it appropriate to humiliate me in front of everyone else. I was done after that. I had reached max capacity in enduring criticism from other people and we ended up going home in a worse funk than when we started.

But there's nothing like a good long walk to relieve stress, so this morning as Lee and I headed off throughout the neighborhood that funk slowly started to diminish. God reminded me that mercies are new every morning- not just for me, but for those who have hurt me as well. So when that lady saw us walking toward her and asked if she could give our dogs a treat my spirit soared. A complete stranger, a woman whose name I didn't even catch, showed me beautiful uncomplicated mercy. I looked at Lee and said, "She just wiped the slate clean of the last few days for me." So thank you, dog-loving stranger-lady!

Her name is Marisol..

I came home late last night from meeting Marisol, a woman whose story will make your jaw drop open. God is real- and boy, did I ever get the story I was asking for.

It looks like we will be bringing home a beautiful Latino baby boy in just a few short weeks! He's due October 10th.

Even as I write these words I cannot put the concept together in my head, it's too beyond what I'm capable of grasping right now. As I mumbled a few broken Spanish sentences and watched Marisol smile at my attempts I realized that I trusted her. How did that happen when all we could think about when we first heard of this possibility was how sketchy it sounded?


I'm about to bear the full honesty of my heart- and just know that God himself is working on it. When Lee and I considered our international options we specifically narrowed our options to countries with Caucasian children, thinking if we had a choice, why not choose something that wouldn't necessarily be so obvious? Did we really want to deal with people's questions, looks, etc. for the rest of our lives? Wasn't our family supposed to be our sacred thing that wasn't another walking public awareness announcement? But I tell you this, God speaks. There is a voice He has just for me, a way of saying my name like no other can, gentleness that's commanding. As I was preparing to leave for the meeting in the cities I spent a good chunk of time regurgitating all that we've been through these last months, thinking that if this situation were to actually happen there would be no hiding it, our adoption would be extremely evident. And it was like this:


"I want it to be obvious. I want this story known." Talk about immediate conviction, but the most tender of reprimands.


After everyone left last night my parents spent time helping me process through some of this before I hit the road to come home. In a stupor my gaze wandered to their fireplace, and I sat there completely shocked, not really focusing on anything. Do you remember Magic Eye pictures? You stare at this complete hodge-podge of colors, things begin to get hazy and a bit blurry and you begin to ask yourself, "What in the world am I looking for?!?" And suddenly out pops this dimensional picture of a bald eagle, full span of wings soaring over a mountain and you realize that only in this transfixed, semi-blurry state can you see clearly what was intended.


My eyes had fixed on what, I didn't know, until it came out just like those Magic Eye pictures......a rock with the words, Trust, engraved in it.



And I said, "Okay.........I will." So we turn the page.