Learning While Waiting

Hey everyone! So many of you have been asking about new updates with the adoption and as of now we are just waiting for a call for when a birth mother has chosen us. We received our approved home study paperwork and we received a letter informing waiting families that a few new  mothers early in their pregnancy have come to them and that they are showing the waiting families profile books as often as possible. So for now we will continue to pray as we wait for the long-awaited call. But there were a few things I felt that God wanted me to share that He has dealt with me about. So much has happened within the last few months as we finished the last part of the paperwork, starting one of my busiest seasons with photography, and well of course staying busy with teaching. During this time God has opened my eyes to various areas in my life that I needed to work on. Waiting can be so hard especially when you seem like you have waited forever, I will say that receiving our home study was huge relief and eased the anxiety some but some days are still difficult! I recently started one bible study called "Wait and See" by Wendy Pope and it has definitely helped in encouraging me on how to make the most of my wait. One of the first things she said early on in her book was ....

One of my prayers during this time is that God would show me what I need to change in my life before we are matched with a child. Like Wendy Pope said "Don't let the object of your wait, replace the object of your faith." I know there is a reason for our wait and while we do not understand at times, I wanted to make the most of my wait. I don't want "becoming a mother" to consume my life to a point that it effects my walk with God.  So instead I wanted to make use of this wait time and allow God to deal with me about an area in my life and well a major struggle I have is not slowing down.  I've had many tell me this over the years that I needed to slow down but unfortunately I have a problem with taking on way too much and then find myself in over my head sometimes and I just seem to be always on the go. I somehow had it in my mind that I was "Super Woman", that if what was asked of me was something I knew I could do, I agreed to it. Sadly though I have to acknowledge the fact that I am getting older (cringe) and my body does not handle the stress of taking on so much like it used to. I learned this a few months when my knee locked up on me (just walking in the parking lot at church) and I was down for three weeks. Afraid surgery was inevitable thankfully God came through and I realized I needed to slow down, my body can't just "walk it off" anymore. Something else big happened, my last exam results came back in September with "Failed" once again. Funny thing is I started noticing a shift in my priorities after I received my results. What is strange is even though I was disappointed and discouraged, there was something inside of me that was also somewhat relieved. Considering that my anxiety attacks that week had reached a point that I was having serious symptoms, I realized that I needed to take a break and seek God about what I needed to do. As I prayed over this very confusing time I asked God why have I not passed? Why has the adoption process taken so long? Did I misunderstand your calling? Am I supposed to do this? And His response... "Trust Me." Have you been there? Maybe you are in a season of waiting now and everything either seems to be falling apart around you or nothing is moving in the direction you think it should be moving? Well that is where I was at.

Waking up in the morning was difficult after receiving my results, Satan constantly bombarded my mind with negativity and would beat me down about how I was just a failure at everything. I felt like I was hanging on by threads but there was something else that had changed before all of this happened. I had already declared war (or as I put it to J.R., I'm going "War room" on Satan) and was fighting back in prayer against all the anxiety in my life. Even the mornings where I felt like I was going to break, I turned on my worship playlist I had created with my fight songs. Starting off with "Not Today" by Hillsong United. Repeating over and over "Not Today Satan!" Followed by "The Breakup Song" By Francesca Battistelli, "Freedom Hymn" by Austin French, "You Say" by Lauren Daigle, etc.

Sometimes I still question if I had missed something? Or did I misinterpret God's calling on my life? It seems like the longer the wait, the more I would either get impatient and look for an alternative route or I would start questioning if it was supposed to happen when it didn't happen according to my timeline. Can you relate? Considering our society is to a point that everything is pretty much at our fingertips or is available to us within in minutes, waiting can seem impossible. Even just getting caught by a red light can irritating. So then we avoid all the high traffic areas by taking the "back way". Unfortunately when we try to take the "back way" while waiting on God's timing we end up at a dead end or getting off track completely. One verse that really spoke to me while reading "Wait and See" was Isaiah 43:18-19

                        "But forget all that it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. 
                           For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! 
                          Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. 
                         I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."

Wow, I almost shouted after reading that! Even though we can't always see what God is doing He is working behind the scenes. So then how do we go about during our waiting season?

                        "Wait on the Lord and be of good courage and He shall strengthen
                                                                      your heart."   
                                               
                                                                     Psalm 27:14

Wait on God, seek him, allow him to work while you wait. God will do something during that time, if we allow Him to. It doesn't matter what we are waiting for, a new job, a spouse, a child, a healing, a job promotion, whatever you are waiting for take that time to open up your heart and draw close to God. I love that even on days that I doubt myself or worry that I have missed something. God will just send a little sign or just speak to my heart to remind me that He is hearing my prayers. I haven't missed what He has called me to do. Even on the days that it seems like He is silent or that my prayers aren't being heard, He is still working. Yes I get impatient, yes I want to be a Mom, yes I want to pass my exam, yes I still battle anxiety, but I refuse to give up and you shouldn't either. Remember what Jeremiah 29:11 says

                   "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans to prosper
                            you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future."

                                   
He knows the plans, the question is do we trust Him to guide us through that plan even if there is a long wait? Don't give up, Keep praying until things change!

Many Blessings,
Jessica

Adoption Update

It has been a while since I have blogged about our adoption journey and we have had many asking how the adoption is going and what is next. So I figured this would be a great time to reboot our adoption blog and update everyone!

Those who have been with us from the beginning we thank you for all your love and support during this whole process and for those who are just now joining us here is just a quick overview of our journey.

-We started our Adoption Journey June 2016 by attending an orientation at one agency in Dallas with their infant adoption program.

-We started our paper work and began fundraising to raise money so we could pay for our home study with them.

-Unfortunately they did not inform us that the first down payment of the adoption process with them was due within 45 days of purchasing our notebook. The first down payment was $7500 and well we had not raised enough within the 45 days. They suggested that we take out a loan but we did not want to take out a loan so they asked us to step aside.

-Heartbroken we tried a different route. We attended a CPS foster/adoption meeting. Once again my heart was broken as we were informed that if we were wanting to strictly adopt a child in the age group of 6 and under we would be waiting forever.

-Back to the beginning again, it was then that we were recommended Living Alternatives. We attended their Orientation in the spring of 2017 and everything changed after that.

Now obviously it still took over a year to get our home study with Living Alternatives and well I will admit I was impatient at various times when they did not have any mothers at the time interested in adoption which put a delay on waiting families to get a home study. I had a timeline in my head of how this was to go and I wanted a baby ASAP. So as we waited for a home study I looked in to two other agencies and every time we attempted to go somewhere else the doors would just close and we were not being able to move forward. {There was not any problems with the other two agencies there was always a scheduling conflict every time we tried to move forward with meetings}

Just as I was about to give up on the adoption completely (back in May actually). I walked into church discouraged about the whole situation and our caseworker for Living Alternatives walks up to me and says "You need a home study." Shocked I replied "Yes Ma'am, we do!".
Then on August 28th we completed our home study and ordered our profile book.

We turned in our profile book for them to start showing mothers interested in finding a family to adopt their child. So now we are just waiting for a call that we have been matched. We did receive a letter this week letting us know that a few new mothers early in their pregnancy interested in an adoption plan and they are trying to show the waiting families profile books as often as they can. They also ask for everyone to continue to pray that God will continue to not only pray for the waiting families but also the mothers.

As we wait we are fundraising in attempt to adopt debt free. We have just finished a Scentsy fundraiser that was very successful and also a t-shirt fundraiser which we will be relaunching again soon! I will continue to update everyone on our fundraisers along with any other updates. If you are wondering what our newest t-shirt looks like here are examples of the front and the back. We also have an older one that I will try to share later.

Thank you everyone for you love and prayers!

Love,
Jessica and J.R.