Bring Liza Home

Here is a story I read today on Adoption Connect, a blog I follow. Please click the link below if you would like to donate $10 or more to help bring Liza home. As a bonus, you will also be entered into a raffle!

Rick and I were married almost 4 years ago. We were both single parents before we married who knew we wanted to have more children. When we were dating we started talking about adopting and being foster parents because we knew we were unable to have more children biologically. Rick himself is adopted and I was in foster care as a child so this is something that was near to both of our hearts. We also both have strong hearts for the orphan and those who are downtrodden. We have tried a few times to adopt through different avenues and the door has always been shut to us. We were beginning to think that it was never going to happen. Then a few months ago I had a dream that I was crossing a bridge and I was carrying two children. Rick came beside me, took one of the children out of my arms, and walked on ahead of me. When he was in front of me the child looked at me and smiled like a child would smile at their mother. I noticed that it was a little girl with blonde hair and she had Down syndrome. When I woke up I just knew that I had seen my daughter. Around that time I began to pay more attention to the children on the Reece's Rainbow site again and that's where I found Liza and started to pray for her and all of the rest of the children. The Sunday before we committed to her I felt that Holy Spirit telling me to find out the meaning of her name. After church I looked it up and was floored that it meant "God's Oath". (Before we were married God promised me during a church service that we would have more children.) I immediately stepped up my prayers and asked others to pray as well. That next Friday my husband told me he wanted to commit to her. and now here we are. Believing that god will provide for us to bring her home.


Please visit Journey to a Promise and consider giving a donation to help Liza come home.

http://journeytoapromise.blogspot.com/2009/03/lizas-first-fundraiser.html

The Heart of a Mother

Here is a beautiful article about life by Lorraine V. Murray. This is so encouraging to me with our surprise baby #5, because it reflects my heart.

Most life stories of great men open with their births. But in the case of the greatest man ever born, a man who was also God, the story starts with the actual moment of his conception.

And what a poignant moment it was, when an angel told a young girl that she would bear a son and call him “Jesus.” We can imagine her tangle of emotions at hearing this news.

She had to know that she was in danger of being harshly criticized. In fact, in her day, an unmarried woman who became pregnant faced death by stoning.

So when Mary said, “Let it be done to me according to thy word,” she was in effect saying, “I am willing to face death.”

Mary had plenty of reasons to tell the angel “Go away. Ask someone else.” She could have said, “I’m too young.” Or “I’m not married.” She certainly could have said, “I’m afraid!”

She obviously could have used many of the reasons that women rely on today when they decide to say “no” to a pregnancy: “I’m too poor” or “I’m too young” or “I’m unmarried” or “I have other plans.”

Talk about the ultimate unplanned pregnancy: This was what Mary faced!

It is very likely that many readers of this article are the results of unplanned pregnancies. Some may have been conceived after their parents had decided their family was big enough. Maybe others were conceived because Mom thought she was past childbearing days, and then: Surprise!

But even if a pregnancy is unplanned and comes as a shock to the parents, here is the important part: There is no unplanned life.

You see, God doesn’t create any child accidentally because God doesn’t make mistakes. So even if we stunned our parents, we certainly didn’t surprise God.

And the feast of the Annunciation reminds us of the old saying that “God writes straight with crooked lines.”

Here are some crooked lines in the life of Christ: His mother was very young, and she wasn’t married. But God had everything straightened out to protect Mary, so that Christ would be born nine months later.

God sent an angel to let Joseph know in a dream that Mary’s account of her pregnancy was true. And because Joseph accepted God’s plan and married Mary, she avoided social ostracism and stoning.

There are crooked lines in every life. In my own, my mother had a miscarriage before bearing my older sister, and my sister’s birth was long and dangerous. So arduous, in fact, that the doctors sternly warned my mother against having more children.

And then, on a day near Thanksgiving in Chicago, where my parents were visiting family, my story began: I was conceived in my mother’s womb. And I have to believe that my mother, Grace, had very mixed emotions when the doctors confirmed that she was pregnant.

After all, as she looked into the future, she saw another arduous delivery and maybe even death. But she went ahead and had the baby, the one she named Lorraine with Grace as a middle name.

Obviously, St. Luke could have begun the story of Christ’s life with his birth in the stable, rather than nine months earlier at his conception. But it was not by accident that he opened the narrative where he did.

He was following God’s plan when he wrote the narrative of Christ’s life, and was guided by the Holy Spirit to tell the truth with a capital T.

And that Truth is this: Christ’s life started just like every life begins. The Word was made flesh not in a hospital room, not in an inn, not in a stable.

Instead, God became man in a womb at the very moment Mary said “yes.”

And that womb had to be nurturing and protective, just as the wombs that brought each of us into the world.

Perhaps a reason that Christ’s story begins at conception is to bring a message to a world in which the womb is no longer a safe haven.

Perhaps it is to remind us that the most beautiful words in the world are not those spoken at the birth of a baby when the doctor pronounces the child alive and healthy.

Instead, the most exquisite words are the little veiled conversation that goes on in the heart of the mother many months earlier, when she first learns that she is pregnant.

The loveliest words of all come despite inconvenience, despite having other plans, despite being too young or too old, despite being too poor, despite being scared, despite being unmarried, despite being afraid of death.

The most beautiful words of all come at the moment when the mother whispers to God: “Let it be.” And that’s where the story begins.

Ultrasound pictures!

Well, we got the big news! We're having a boy!! For the fuller story, please click here to read Paul's post and see some ultrasound pictures.

Tiller Going to Trial Today

Tiller is going to trial today for illegally aborting many, many babies. Oh, how I remember praying outside his abortion clinic and outside his home as a teenager that God would put an end to his atrocities. Lord, answer our prayers! And in Your kindness, lead him to repentance!

Keep praying!

19 Weeks

Here's me at 19 weeks, along with my girls who love their new baby so much already.

Broken

I have always been a bit clumsy, but it seems like lately there has been a rash of breakages and losses in our house. From the broken serving bowls a couple of weeks ago, lost cell phone and charger (finally found after three weeks) and other miscellaneous things, to today when I broiled the bread rising in the oven, along with the mixing bowl ($50 to replace) and plastic wrap covering it.

This brings up so many emotions ... fear of rejection, frustration, hopelessness, anger ... I don't even know how to respond. What are You showing me in this, Lord? I feel helpless on the outside, and with every break and loss I feel more lost and broken on the inside. So I am coming to You to be mended, healed, and found. Please help me.

Apart for Now

I miss my husband tonight. He is away on a business trip this week, and while I do much better these days than I used to when he is gone, I still miss him a lot.

So I just want to say that I miss you, Salt Racer. I am glad that we got to talk several times today. You are my best friend. And the best cook! Today we enjoyed eating all the food you had prepared for us yesterday. I don't really want to go to bed because there is no one there waiting for me. But I will, because you just might call me in the morning and I want to be awake for that! I love you.

Home Study Complete!

I am very excited to announce that our home study is finally complete! We started our adoption process last summer, started our home study around September I think, and finally (officially as of Feb. 19), we are legally cleared to adopt. Hallelujah!

Now, I don't think home studies have to take that long. But we were kind of moving slow due to our own choices and then our pregnancy slowed us down a bit more.

Nevertheless, we are now able to receive a child whenever God should bring one our way! The next stage can now begin ... we will continue to put money into our adoption fund, and we can also begin to apply for grants and such. And as God brings situations our way, we will continue to be open to them. We are in no hurry. Our home study lasts for three years, and we are willing to wait on God's timing.

One thing that I am continually in awe of is this. Over the past year, Paul's income has increased 36%. Nothing in the natural can account for this. The economy is doing poorly, Paul has only worked for this company less than two years, and he works for a ministry that relies on donations. It can only be God's provision. So we continually ask ourselves, for what purpose has He given us this provision? We continue to seek Him for wisdom in this area.

Please continue to pray with us that God will open doors that no one can shut and close doors that no one can open. We are putting all our trust in Him.