Piano, Pictures, and Prayers

I just finished a long practice session with my old buddy Bach:)  I have to say, I’m loving my new piano space!  We have this beautiful bay window in our living room, and during the day I like to keep the curtains open so the sun can shine through and light up the house.  It’s an absolutely beautiful, sunny day today, so as I was practicing the warm sun was shining right into the room.  Lucy had her duplos out and was happily playing on the floor next to me while I practiced.  Such a nice, relaxing afternoon...which was just what the doctor ordered, because I’m sick again:(  (DH was at the doctor earlier this week, so I suppose it was just a matter of time for me.)  I guess I can say all day long I’m not stressing out about things, but my body is telling me otherwise.  Thankfully, our weekend looks pretty calm, so hopefully rest is in store for all of us...and then it will be time for our homestudy!

Tuesday is the big day!  We sent our scrapbook in today for review and they said it looks great, so we just need to make copies of that and our birthmother letter, and then we will be ready for approval (as long as all goes well Tuesday)!  I’m really pleased with how the scrapbook turned out--it’s 20 pages long, and I think it’s a really good representation of who we are, our personalities, etc.  I’m praying that the pictures are able to jump out and tell a story to the birthmother so she will be able to feel a connection to us.  I know God has the perfect baby and birthmommy picked out to be a part of our lives, and I can’t wait to meet them!

Here's a peek at our Scrapbook.  This is the front and back cover.  Lucy and I did some chalk art yesterday afternoon, and our sweet friend, Lisa, came over and took our cover picture for us. The last page is our family Christmas photo.

Cover of our Scrapbook

Last page of our Scrapbook

Make room for baby...

Make room for baby...

“Give and it will come back to you; pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap.” Luke 6:38

Many of you have probably heard a sermon preached on this particular verse in regards to tithing.  DH and I have seen so many times in our lives how when we didn’t think we had enough money to make it, we still tithed and God provided for us.  It’s always so amazing to see the creativity in God’s provision for His children, and I am so thankful to Him for that!  And, He showed His provision to me in a really unique way this week...

Our homestudy is coming up on Tuesday.  It’s funny how adoption mimics pregnancy in so many ways, because I swear I’m in “nesting mode” right now!  LOL:)  My sweet mama came in town this week to help me get the house like I want it for the homestudy.  Those of you who know my mama know that she is amazing with anything having to do with decorating, cleaning, arranging, etc.  We spent Monday afternoon getting things to clean up my flowerbed (we had the most gorgeous flowers in our flowerbed when we moved here, but the crazy heat last summer was not kind to them:( and then we got to work on Tuesday.  Ironically, Tuesday was the first official day of spring, and we certainly took “Spring cleaning” literally this year!  I now have organized EVERY SINGLE CLOSET in our house!  (The baby’s room closet, two hall closets, L’s room’s closet, and our closet.  I also cleaned out the kids’ bathroom cabinets and drawers.)  We also got the flowerbed cleaned up thanks to my mama’s magic, but the most surprising item checked off of the “to do” list was rearranging furniture...

I’d really been fretting with where we were going to put my piano.  It was occupying the the guestroom in the house, which will (hopefully soon!) become the nursery, but I knew I needed to find a new place for it if we were going to be able to put a crib for the baby in there.  Plus, since I teach piano, I need a “studio space,” and I don’t think the baby is going to nap very soundly sleeping right next to the tickling ivories!  However, a piano can’t go just anywhere in a house--it needs to be on an inside wall.  Also, because the movers damaged one of the legs on my piano, I wanted to be careful where it was placed-most of the available “inside wall” spaces were right next to doors that could open onto it or right next to walkways in the house where it would probably get bumped.  The most logical place in the house to place it was the living room...but where was it going to fit in the living room?  Mom and I began moving furniture around in the living room (don’t worry--I made her behave and not push or pull on anything heavy!), and I was getting frustrated that the placement just wasn’t working out.  DH came home for lunch, so we took a break.  I remember sitting at the dinner table and found myself praying silently.  I realized that possibly the reason we weren’t making any headway was because we were trying to do it on our own.  I began to ask God to show us how to best arrange the furniture and to help us make room...and, as I’m sure you guessed, He did just that!  I’m SO please with the results!  But what’s so amazing is that it doesn’t feel like we lost any space at all, yet we now have an open spot for furniture for the baby’s room!  I know it may sound kind of silly, but it’s almost as if the Lord somehow increased the square footage of our home!  Once again, I’m reminded that He cares about every detail of my life...

You see, my piano is very special to me.  I began taking piano lessons in grade school, but we rented a piano, so when we moved from California to Texas, I didn’t have a piano anymore.  It was months before we were able to get me an old, upright piano so I could begin lessons again.  It was a beautiful piano--the keys were actually made from ivory!--but it was not in great shape.  Keys were continually getting stuck and breaking, and the sound was not good.  We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we couldn’t just go out and buy a brand new piano.  We began checking the paper though and found someone nearby with a nearly new Kawai upright.  It was a beautiful cherry wood with decorative french legs, and it had a great tone and sensitivity.  The price they were asking for it was RIDICULOUS (as in crazy cheap considering how new it was and the shape it was in), so my parents purchased it for me.  Now that my father has passed away, I cherish that piano even more--it truly is irreplaceable and such a gift to me.  So, maybe it makes a little more sense now why its placement in our home was such a gift to me from my Heavenly Father.  He continues to remind me that He cares for every need and desire I have in life.  If I get this excited over the placement of a piece of furniture, just think how ecstatic I’ll be when He brings our baby into our lives!

The (hopefully soon!) baby's room!  That bare wall on the left is where the piano was.  We also had two little filing-type cabinets in this room that we were able to find other spots for in the house.

 

 

I took this when it was getting dark, so it's hard to see, but Mom and I added new mulch and more soil to the flowerbed and also put three plant stands up with ferns in them.  I'm hoping the bricks we put in the bottom will keep them from toppling over from our strong West Texas winds!

Our newly rearranged living room!  The storage unit on the left used to be where the TV is now, and the TV used to be where the piano is now.  The telephone cable is on that middle wall, so we decided to save the money and cancel the satellite which freed up that wall for the piano.  Is it sad that I'm going to miss getting to watch America's Next Top Model and Dance Moms?  pathetic, I know...;-)

Interview Update

We’ve had a VERY full weekend, so I really haven’t had a chance to sit down and write a blogpost.  I realized people might be thinking things didn’t go well at our interview since I have posted though, so I figured I better give the good report:

The interview went GREAT and our homestudy is scheduled for March 27th.  MARCH 27TH!!!  As in less than two weeks away...which means I have less than two weeks to clean out my flowerbeds and organize the closets!  LOL:-)  More importantly, this means that, potentially, we could be approved NEXT MONTH...which means we could be matched starting next month!  HOLY COW!! 

(Yes, Emily, I just used that many exclamation points in the above paragraph.  I know you are shocked;-))

Please please please pray that things continue to go as easily, smoothly, and quickly as they have so far.  I am filled with such peace for this whole journey, and I praise God for that-truly that is such a blessing to me being a person who tends to freak out about every little thing.  I am continuing to pray boldly for this process though, but know God will prepare my heart for whatever He has for us.  Most of all, I’m just over the moon excited at what He has in store.  It’s starting to feel more and more real that we are going to have a BABY!

I’ll post more soon about our crazy weekend.  I just wanted to at least give everyone a quick update with the good news.  More soon!:)

Another step on our journey...

I realized I never posted here about the exciting news we received last week:  Our interview for the start of our homestudy has been scheduled!  This means that the huge mound of never-ending paperwork actually did have an end--and we reached it!!  It has ALL been turned in and has ALL been received, so that means we get to move on to the next step of our adoption journey!  (I'm learning that each "baby step" in this process feels so monumental.  Picture me in a hotel room getting ready for a conference DH and I were at last week.  He yells (I could hear a smile in his voice:) into the bathroom, "Guess what I got in my E-mail, PB?"  I look out and ask, "What?"  He replies, "They're scheduling our interview!"  Now imagine me RUNNING out to hover over him at his laptop screen and then start skipping and screaming excitedly through the room!  Yes, I really did that:)  I can't even imagine the flood of emotions we will feel when we are actually holding our baby and bringing them home if I get this excited over an interview being scheduled! LOL:)

The "big day" is March 16th, so it's just a little over a week away now.  (For all of you Apple fans, it's a date I'm sure you can remember easily;-)  It's probably going to be about a three-and-a-half to four hours long interview that will take place at the agency's office.  It's weird because when we first started thinking about adoption, so many things made me really nervous, and the homestudy was one of them.  (It seemed very invasive to me, and there's that fear in the back of your head saying, "What if they don't think you're good enough to be a parent...")  But it's been so neat to see how the Lord has been guiding my emotions through this process.  I'm naturally a VERY easily stressed out person, and I tend to live in fear of a lot of things.  But with each step we've taken on this journey, the Lord has given me the most overwhelming peace.  It's so incredible, and so NOT me, that I know it has to be the from HIM.  And with this interview being scheduled, he really did an amazing work in my heart...let me go back and try to explain what I mean...

As most of you know, my father passed away just a few months before Lucy was born.  For years, I had committed to praying for him DAILY to have a close relationship with the Lord.  I wanted to see him live a transformed life, because he was just always busying himself so much.  (He was such a hard worker, and he worked hard because he wanted to provide a good life for his family, and also because I think that's where he thought he would find worth.)  So when he passed away so suddenly, and I didn't really witness that transformation, it really impacted my spiritual walk.  How on earth could my daddy passing away like that be God's answer to so many hours spent in prayer to him on my daddy's behalf?  I just didn't understand, and it really effected my prayer life.  I found it really hard to fully truly trust Jesus with my heart's cries, because I was so afraid with what He might do with those requests.  As we've struggled to conceive, I found myself again just not understanding what the Lord was doing.  Why would He place a desire in my heart that He wasn't going to fulfill?  I was heartbroken, month after month, and felt myself asking God again and again, "Why, Lord?  What are you doing?  I just don't understand."  Moving on to a few weeks ago as I was praying, I realized I was praying very boldly.  I was being very specific and just honestly presenting my requests before the Lord...and then I found myself stopping suddenly thinking, "Maybe I shouldn't be praying this way..."  But then I felt the Lord telling me that this was exactly how He wanted me to come before Him--with my WHOLE heart and exactly as I was...but to TRUST Him with the outcome, no matter what.  I was reminded that I serve a mighty God who is capable of ANYthing.  He wants me to approach Him boldly with great expectation and with a confidence that He WILL answer.  But God's ways are so much higher than ours that we can't always understand why He answers the way He does, but He still wants us to pour our hearts out to Him and trust Him.  So that's what I have committed to doing.  I began to pray very boldly concerning our adoption, and I prayed specifically that we would receive word by last Wednesday that we were going to be moving on to the next step of our adoption process...and then the Email from our agency came on Tuesday.  I can't tell you what a blessing that was to me.  I felt as if God was saying, "Yes, PB, you can approach me boldly.  It may not always turn out exactly like you envision, but just know that you CAN trust me with your heart's desire.  I'm here.  I'm listening.  And I'm WORKING!"

So, please join me in praying boldly as we continue our journey to finding our precious child and their birthmother.  I am praying for a smooth and straight road, but I'm trusting God to lead us through any twists and turns that may come along the way...and yes, you may see me jumping up and down along the pathway in excitement for what He has in store!:-)

A Fight to the Finish for Life...

I realize this is a very sensitive topic, so let me preface this post by saying I am not trying to strike up a debate with anyone.  These are simply my feelings.  I considered not posting this, but it's something on my heart, so this seems like a good place for me to share my thoughts.  So, please don't take my words as being condemning or judgmental.  Instead, I hope you'll hear my heart.  Thanks:)

Yesterday, 2/23/12, marked the start of the 40 Days for life Campaign.  I have always considered myself pro-life and supported the pro-life movement.  I think part of that is just from how I was raised--I remember when I was a little girl that my mother was actively involved in promoting the sanctity of life, so I was brought up with that belief.  And, as I've gotten older, that teaching from my mother has turned into an important focus in my own life.  I think it hit even closer to home when I was pregnant with L.  I saw this little BABY growing inside of me on an ultrasound screen, and I felt this LIFE growing inside of me for nine months...and then I saw her enter the world and take her first breaths on her own, and in an instant, life before her arrival didn't even make sense.  This picture hanging in our hallway describes my feelings so well: 

I understand that some people are not in the same situation I was in, but I truly can't think of anything that is a bigger blessing or a more precious gift than that of a child...yet so many in today's society treat these precious lives as if they are anything but a blessing.  It just breaks my heart to think of all of the precious lives that are never given a chance to live.  They have no voice, but I do, and I will not be silent...

I think because we are in the process of adoption, the subject of abortion has become even more pressing to me in the past few months, so I've really spent a lot of time recently praying about what God would have me do with this passion to be a voice for the unborn.  I heard about the 40 Days for Life Campaign and saw that it was beginning this week, so I felt like it would be the perfect time for me to take some sort of action upon my passionate pro-life stance, and the Lord presented me with a very exciting challenge: in honor of the 40 Days for Life Campaign, I felt compelled to commit to prayer-running 40 miles over the next 40 days.  Maybe many of you have heard of prayer-walking, and this is kind of where this concept of prayer-running was birthed from.  I'll try to explain a little bit...

Running does NOT come easily for me.  I did not grow up a runner, and even though I have trained and ran in several races, it still is a struggle for me pretty much every time my feet hit the pavement.  But there's something pretty amazing about setting out to accomplish a goal, fighting through it, and completing it.  It's been such a great example to me how we are capable of ANYthing when we seek God's help and direction!  Well, I feel like a lot of other things in our lives are struggles as well, and the fight for the unborn is truly a battle in our world right now.  It may sound kind of cheesy, but as I'm struggling to push through my run, I'm praying for the struggle our unborn are facing; I'm praying for the struggle that so many women may be facing on whether or not to choose life for their child; I'm praying for the struggle we face as organizations try to promote "choice" to our world; I'm praying for the struggle we face as our government makes decisions in regards to human life...so many battles and struggles that we are facing, and some times it just seems impossible to push through and finish this battle...but we MUST push through!  So, over the next 40 days, I'm committed to fighting this battle by spending specific time in prayer each day for all of these issues that effect the unborn--not just the babies, but also the mothers, our government and political leaders, organizations that are making immoral decisions that affect the unborn, and also for God to show ME how I can personally make a difference by being His hands and feet.  This special daily prayer time is also giving me a chance to pray for our future child and their birth mommy.  Please join me in praying that our baby's birthmommy will choose life.  Pray that God will strengthen her, encourage her, and give her peace, and that He will keep our baby safe, healthy, and strong...

I'd also love for you to join me in Prayer Running (or walking) 40 miles in the next 40 days!  Check out the Facebook Page 40 Miles of Prayer for Life and share your journey with others who are committed to being a voice for the unborn!

One step closer...

I know this is going to sound pretty ridiculous, but I'm actually excited about getting fingerprinted tomorrow... Ok, before you think I've completely lost it, let me try to explain:). I realized that I was feeing really antsy/anxious this evening and couldn't figure out why. I found myself trying to stay busy this evening-trying out a new sewing project on a whim (which I failed at:(, walking quickly from room to room as I picked things up in the house, and, what should have been the dead giveaway: shining my sink. I don't know what it is about shining my sink, but I can usually tell something is on my mind when I start scrubbing away at the kitchen sink. (Seriously, if you've never "shined your sink" you need to give it a try!) At any rate, it hit me all of a sudden: we're getting fingerprinted tomorrow. I'm not sure how, but we totally overlooked this step of the paperwork process (I now remember them talking about it in orientation, but it must have gotten buried underneath the 100 other necessary documents.) DH was speaking with someone at our agency last week, and they brought up how they can't really move further until our fingerprinting is processed. So, I got online and got the earliest appointment we could! Anyway, I guess I found myself getting really worked up because even though this is one of the little steps in this process, it still is just that-one more little step closer in this process...which means we will be one more little step closer to meeting our baby and their birthmommy. So, I can't help but be anxious and excited for tomorrow, because that puts me one day closer to holding our baby in my arms... ... Dear Birthmother...I found myself having a really difficult time going to sleep last night. I laid in bed for hours, tossing and turning and feeling so unsettled. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't sleep...but then you came to my mind. I found myself praying for you and the baby you may already be carrying in your belly. You are already so much a part of our lives even though we have no idea who each other is. We are committed to praying for you though, and we can't wait to get to know you!

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words...

My Daddy was a man of many trades, from taxes to law work to ranching, but the first job I remember him having was a photographer.  He and his father had an office in town for their photography business, which would later become their tax business.  Even now, I find myself driving past "the office" when I visit my hometown and looking into the driveway.  I think, deep down, I wish that maybe I'll see him just one more time walking towards his truck, only to stop suddenly to go check the locks on the door one more time (he was a *bit* OCD with locking doors and always double-checked.)  I have so many mental snapshots of the 25 years I had him in my life, and I find myself "flipping" through them as I work on our paperwork and try to explain in words who I am and where I've come from.  But a big part of our paperwork is more than just mental snapshots; a huge part of our paperwork is our "scrapbook," where we show actual pictures of our family, friends, etc.  This is what the birthmother will go through as she is deciding who she feels is the best match for her and her baby.  No pressure, right?!  Um, wrong!

I really enjoy taking pictures.  I love looking behind the lens and searching for that perfect shot; I love capturing special moments and being able to relive them; and I love that when I take a good picture, it feels like part of my Daddy is still with me, because I'm carrying on in his footsteps in a way.   But it's funny to me, because while photography is definitely a hobby of mine, the idea of this scrapbook has me pretty stressed out.  In fact, I realized tonight that I've actually been unknowingly putting it off.  I thought DH and I would just sit down tonight and put it together, but I quickly realized this wasn't going to be a short-process.  How do you present yourself to someone through a few pictures?

I received a lot of good suggestions from FB friends on what to include in our scrapbook, with several encouraging us to choose very "real" photos and not to try to paint a picture of the "perfect" sitcom family.  I definitely want to be real and give a proper portrayal of who we are as a family.  I've had several people say to us, "I'm so excited you guys are adopting--you guys are just the perfect family!"  While I totally appreciate this encouragement (we have been so blown away and blessed by everyone's support of us to adopt--thank you all SO much!), I have to admit that when I hear those words, I kind of stop breathing and brace myself, because I feel anything but perfect.  And then all of the doubt starts creeping in...what if we aren't good enough?  But you know what Christ so gently reminded me of this evening as I was searching for those "picture perfect" snapshots?  He reminded me that No, I'm NOT good enough--but His grace is so much bigger than any of my imperfections.  He is my restorer, my defender, my Saviour and my guide.  And that's what I want to convey to our baby's mother--a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin, a friend, a neighbor... who has been transformed by Jesus and who is striving to be all He has for me to be.  I am praying over this process and ask that you would join me, too, in asking the Lord to help us put together an album that will truly convey our hearts to the birthmother of our child.  It seems overwhelming to try to make a photograph portray all of who we are, but then again, a picture IS worth a thousand words... :-)