Adoption

I lay in bed a few nights ago holding my daughter as she calmed from a bad dream.  I marvelled as I considered where the time had gone and when she had gotten so big that her legs seemed as long as mine.  I remember the day she cuddled in bed with me and her toes barely reached my stomach as her head lay in the crook of my arm.  As I lay awake thinking of this I considered how easy it is to put all of our hopes and dreams in the lives of our children.  Especially as a mom I have battled the desire to pull close and savor with selfishness the lives of my girls knowing they will soon be grown and stepping into their own lives.  Yet as I continue to seek God's leading in my life I am challenged to see that God wants us to give our children to Him from the very beginning.  The difficulty for many women including myself, is that our identity and who we are can be in our kids, which is not where God wants our identity to be.  He wants our identity to be in Him the love of our lives.  For a few years in my life, having more children meant great temptation to replace my relationship with Christ and my fulfillment in Him, with being a Mom and being fulfilled through my kids.  This is not God's plan or reason as to why we should have children.  As I recognized this sin in my life I began a journey of repentance and renewal of who I am in Christ,  apart from my kids or my husband.  As I did this the Lord helped me to see and begin to pray daily to live and share Christ with my girls, being an example to them as well as to others.   I never lost the desire to have more kids, which I believe is how God made women to desire to bear children and raise them. Yet I began to understand that regardless of how many kids I have, my life must be set in Him alone.  Seeking to honor the Lord and draw close to Him, he has placed the desire of adoption on our the hearts.   Josh an I made this decision knowing that adoption is not to fulfill any of our desires or needs but purely because it is one of the best ways that we can show Christ and be Christ to others.  Adoption is not because we want to have a bigger family or we want to have kids in our home longer but because we have been adopted by Jesus Christ and want to demonstrate our love for Christ through the shadow of adoption.  We were chosen by Christ not because of anything we have done but because he loved us.   As we step out in faith we are trusting God to provide for each and every aspect of this journey. Everywhere we look in scripture it leads us to selfless living, sacrifice an love.  Giving all that we have to share Christ with someone daily for the years they are in our home and letting God take care of the rest.  The questions one may ask when looking at adoption can lead one to give-up.  We have found the problem with these questions are that they are not ours to ask or answer.  God will take care of the details.  He just asks us to be His hands and His feet.  I have been faced with challenges again and again living in Mexico.  Learning to communicate in another language has been one of the hardest challenges and yet continually I am reminded that, when I am weak then He is strong.  I want to find the places in my life that I can't do it on my own because then I cling to the only ONE who can carry me through.  Without weakness and difficulty and a need for Him it is hard to see God at work.   As we are on this journey of adoption we covet your prayers.  We have finished all the paperwork and classes to adopt here in Mexico.  We are excited but know that the waiting will be hard and for that we will need patience.  We know that God is in control and even though we know nothing about our girls we will pray for our two precious daughters because God knows them.   We were told we could be waiting anywhere from 6 months to 2 years!  As this is a government/ state adoption we really don't know much beyond that.  We are preparing our home and family to add two more girls and we appreciate your prayers.  

 James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
 Your encouragement and prayer is greatly appreciated.
Heather