Day 3

The fun thing about God is that each day brings new adventures and surprises. Today as I tried to connect w/the depth of God's love, I found it in a friend and time w/my children. My friend is a brand-new Christian and come to find out, in our conversation today, that we're both looking to make the most of the time we have w/our kiddos. We decided today to hold each other accountable and I think she's going to join me in this 40 day challenge. Isn't it just like God to bring you a workout partner for the things you're most wrestling with?!

The most precious, though, today, was experiencing God's love through my girls. I've been feeling dehydrated all day, despite a large intake of fluids, and ended up w/a migraine that hit around dinner time. Jim took care of the girls while I laid down and my precious Lily came in and covered me w/one of her dolly blankets so she could make my headache "happy so it will go away." How precious is that?! I just marveled at my precious girl's little heart and her desire for me to feel better and thanked God for the privilege of being her mama. My other moment was with Jasmine and going into her room to get her back to sleep tonight. I just stood there for about 10 minutes and gently stroked her sweet, soft face to help get her back to sleep. I smiled down at her trying not to close her eyes and just melted as she gave me the most precious little smiles. God is so good to give me such precious girls. I couldn't help but think about the lyrics to "How He Loves" by David Crowder.

"He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,
Oh! how He loves.


We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way He Loves"

I can't wait to see what Day 4 brings.

Update on the girls

Hi everyone! In the midst of me doing my own 40 day challenge to journal God's love going deep in my heart, it occurred to me that it's been a while since I've updated on the girls. Both girls are doing really well. Lily completed the "Eel" swimming class at the rec center and will be ready for the next level in swimming. She's really come a long way in getting more comfortable in the water. She's still using a swim belt but has been holding her breath under water and jumping into the water, which is huge for her. We've got her signed up for a soccer class which will start the end of August, that she's really excited about. We've been trying to slowly introduce her to different sports and activities over the last year (only 1 at a time) to see what kinds of things she would enjoy doing. Last year it was swimming, gymnastics and ballet. This year we're trying soccer. She starts school 8/9 already and will do 1 more year of preschool. She's been really starting to show more of an interest in Jesus and has started asking more questions about God both at home and at church. We've been thrilled with the children's ministry at our church and have been excited to see her begin to grow more in her faith. She still has moments of grieving over her birth mom and we continue to support that process as we know what it's like to lose a loved one and have God bring healing from that loss. People always focus on the good parts of adoption but often skip over the tough stuff - like the grieving & loss that is very much a part of adoption. We have found, through the loss of our baby via miscarriage that grieving that loss was not only healthy and brought us healing and closure but it also brought us to a place of being open to God's plan for our lives. We never would have adopted if we wouldn't have grieved that loss. Thank God for His healing and His plan for our lives because now we have 2 of the most amazing little girls! We pray for that same healing for Lily and trust God to make all things new and bring good out of the loss.

As for Jasmine, she's walking more and more! She's still pretty tiny, so it's a trip to see her stumble around on those bitty legs. I'll try and get some footage to post soon. She, like the rest of our family, LOVES music and is fascinated w/the touch/feel books we have. She is curious about everything and so we've had to make sure that everything is as baby-proofed as possible. She is either ridiculously cute when she smiles and laughs or crazy annoying when she whines so we might just have another feeler in the family. Poor Jim! 3 feelers! She's started to say "Up", "Ball", "Dog", "hi", "Bye" along w/ "mama" and "dada". She still shrieks alot but it seems to be decreasing as she's learned some words so perhaps that's been her communication up 'til now. She also loves the water in the pool and has a fantastic time splashing. She's starting to do a little kicking as well when Jim or I take her in the deeper water.

This summer hasn't been as fun as last summer but we've still been able to get to the pool as a family and do a few things here and there. We're continuing to wait and see what happens w/Jim's job and will hopefully know more in the next several weeks. Either way, we're trusting God to take care of us and lead us to where He wants us. We're still incredibly thankful for our church and how God has used them in our lives. It's hard to believe that almost a year ago, our lives were turned upside down but God has been SO GOOD! He provided for our adoption through so many of you and has brought us so much healing and overwhelmed us with His love that we are often in tears. God is so good and we are so incredibly thankful for all that He has done for us and in us in this last year especially. I wouldn't trade this last year in for anything! Thank you for walking with us and we can't wait to see what God has in store for us next!

Day 1 & 2

So Day 1 was an interesting day. It was a tough day w/the girls acting out and it really seemed like the enemy was doing whatever he could to distract me. Fortunately, it didn't work but it did make things tough to focus on. My goal was to see if I can open my heart enough in my every day life "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." I want my spiritual life and every day life to collide on a deeper level. I want to see my belief that God loves me pervade every aspect of my day-to-day activities and see my heart change and go deep w/this "unknowable" knowledge.

So on day 1, I found myself wondering throughout the day, how this change in my heart would look. Would I be more loving, more attentive to my friends & family? Will I be more at ease & less critical w/myself? How will this affect how I interact w/my children? How does the grasp of "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ".....how does that look in day-to-day life? I didn't come to any answers that day but I must say that being able to reflect on this scripture and aspect of God really did pervade my day and had me really thinking about my every action & reaction. I especially thought about my precious girls and that if I could get this down in my everyday little stuff, hopefully my girls will begin to get how God is in the details of their lives. Next to my relationship w/God and my husband, my girls are the most important thing in my life. I want my girls to fall in love w/Jesus and not just grow up to be Sunday-go-to-church Christians but instead become women who live every moment serving and loving Jesus and impact the people around them because of that love. I want to see them live out their faith and not just proclaim it w/words. So how can I model that for them and what does that look like?

That evening a friend posted a chart on facebook that was comparing "Super mom" and "Abiding mom". A handful of the points were:

Super Mom Abiding Mom
Does Is
Tries to impress others Pleases the Lord
Is controlled by an agenda Is controlled by the Holy Spirit
She teaches her kids to be good She teaches her kids to be Godly
She does things w/her children She builds a relationship w/her children

There were quite a few others along w/scripture but these were ones that most impacted me. Without getting off point, one road that God's love led me down was modeling his love to my children and giving me some ideas for what that needs to look like.

Day 2 gave me no new answers until the middle of the day and then it led me to realize that what I may need to do to kick off some of this change is very similar to how we take steps of faith or steps towards security. I need to make the decision in my mind first, take action and TRUST God to make the changes in my heart and feelings. I need to look for the opportunities in my day to day life and be purposeful in my actions and trust God for the rest. That is what I've purposed to do going forward. So I took a few opportunities that day to try and focus on the relationship w/my girls. I picked moments when we were all together (Lily had day camp in the morning) and tried to do things w/them that built the relationship between us. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Day 3....

Jesus Loves me, this I know!

I wonder what the world would look like today if all of us believers in Jesus, actually believed Him that He loves us fully and completely. Would poverty still exist or would it become extinct because people, so radically changed by Jesus' love, actually tithed to their churches & gave to charities because of gratitude & worship to God over that incredible love? Would children continue to languish for years in foster care or would there be a waiting list to adopt children out of the foster care system because of Jesus' radical love impacting potential parents? Would the divorce rate among Christians continue to be at least as high as the secular world or would men and women, radically changed by the truth that Jesus loves them fully & completely, strive to work out their difficulties in marriage? Would the world still be skeptical of the "hypocritical, right-wing, conservatives" or would Christianity be embraced because Christians radically loved the people around them into the kingdom instead of being known for judgementalism, selfishness & hypocrisy? What about me? If I can even remotely get how much Jesus loves me, how much will that change how I interact and treat my family, friends and neighbors? Will I continue to think about the cost to me or will I be so radically transformed that every time I give, it's out of sheer gratitude and worship for the God who gave His only son for me?

Our pastor has been going through Ephesians over the past several weeks and "Jesus Loves me, this I know" was the topic for this past Sunday. I feel like over the last year, we've really begun to see and believe that in our own lives and it has radically changed our faith in that short amount of time. We have believed God for things that we had never entirely trusted Him for before and our lives have taken on a depth that we had always wanted but never quite had. After this message totally wrecked me on Sunday, I started thinking about how life could be different if we all actually believed that Jesus loved us and, more importantly, how can my life continue to be different with BELIEF of this all-knowing, all-pervasive, radically-changing love? How will my life look if I let this belief affect other areas of my day-to-day life?

As I type this I feel prompted to try a little 40 day experiment. For the next 40 days, I'm going to strive to know the unknowable...to let Ephesians 3:17-19 pervade all areas of my life. "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." I can't wait to let you know what God does! Day 1....