I want to be a woman who...

I'm a pretty selfish person, really. And I'm not really very giving. I like to hoard stuff for a rainy day, to make sure our booties are covered. I'd prefer for our savings account to have thousands of dollars in it, so in case something happens I know we can cover ourselves. Sure, there's some wisdom in that. But ultimately, it reveals that my heart doesn't totally, trust God every day to provide for me/us.

As we've become closer to our financial goal line, I've found myself praying that God would still allow us to receive all 3 grants, and tons of money from them. [You can tell a lot about your soul's health by what you pray for!] I want all that "extra" money to make sure we have our travel expenses paid for, rebuild our savings account after we've annihilated it through this adoption, have enough saved up to take time off work, and buy all the baby stuff one needs. But a couple days ago, I got a little reality check from Jesus.

Daily bread. Manna. Radical dependency. Paradoxical giving. Ruthless trust.

This whole adoption thing is causing even my selfish, hoarding financial side to be changed. I've been sabotaged by others' generosity and how God's provided the right amount of money - from our bank account or others - at exactly the right time for the right need. And I love experiencing in the depths of my soul that God's not forgotten me and he is for me and he wants to bless me.

So the other day as I was praying for a landfall of additional grant money, God prompted me differently. He said, "What about that trust factor again? What of your needs won't I meet? How about if I simply take care of your needs and not provide a landslide of resources? What about others' needs?" Hmmm...good point, Provider.

Here's a manifesto, of sorts, about the kind of person I want to be:

• I want to be the kind of woman who will trust God for my next provision, not have it all worked out so I'm mistakenly deceived that I can do it all myself.
  
• I want to experience God's blessing through his people, not just be able to take care of myself.
  
• I want to be the kind of woman who is a blessing to other people, too, who can't just take care of themselves.
  
• I want to be the kind of woman who blesses others the way that countless others have blessed us - radically, sacrificially - through our adoption.
• I want to give to people who wouldn't expect me to care, act, or serve them.
• I want to be the kind of giver that people will cause people to worship Jesus for how he's provided for them through one of his people.
  

I think that's more of the way it's supposed to work. Thank you to those of you who've taught me about this through your selfless, sacrificial giving. Now, I'm just praying that God would provide our daily bread so we are forced to radically depend on him and ruthlessly trust him in this journey. It's scarier for me this way, but it feels better in my soul.

Deep Breaths Today

Today I had to breathe deeply a couple times for 2 very different reasons.

Breath #1 :: I shared my infertility journey with our high school ministry today. This weekend marks 5 years that I've been on staff at Newsong. Hooray!!! As I sat in front of Fusion students today, I realized that many of those students I've been with since I came to Newsong. Emotional moment for me. As I shared my pain over the past couple years, I felt like I was sharing with friends, loved ones, young leaders of this world. It was a beautiful moment for me to share my life - my deepest pain - with the students I've lead for 5 years. A Circle of Life...

Breath #2 :: We finished our dossier paperwork!!!!!!!!! Read that sentence again because it's a big one. It was my goal to complete it by the end of August, and I win! I finished putting everything together & the dossier is over 1 inch thick. That's been my life for the past 3 months. Quite an accomplishment.

So tomorrow the dossier draft heads to our case manager. Once he approves it, we get it authenticated by the state, then authenticated by the U.S, then authenticated by the Ethiopian embassy, then sent back to CWA. After all that authenticating finalizes...our dossier is headed to Ethiopia and we're on the wait list!!!! Of course, our financial balance has to be paid and parent training completed, but I'm sure it will happen. I'm just praying it all happens at once so we don't have to sit on the dossier before we get on the wait list.

Please continue to pray for the 3 grants we are applying for (one grant already denied us because they are only supporting Chicagoland families): Shaohannah's Hope, Lifesong for Orphans, and ABBA's Fund.

30 Year Old Momma

I always wanted to be a young momma, probably because my mom was 21 when she birthed me. I always loved having a young mom, and I wanted to be like her. After Brian and I got married [August 2001 - I turned 22 on our honeymoon], we wanted to wait for 3-5 years to have babies. 3 years quickly turned into 5 years before we were ready to start thinking about adding Diaz ninos to our family. But since the beginning of our marriage I wanted to be a young mommy and be done having babies by my 30th birthday. If you're doing the math, this isn't adding up.

Today's my 30th birthday. I've been thrilled about it for months now for several reasons, but God's surprised me with another unexpected reason. I'm not a mom by my 30th birthday. But there's a really good chance that I'll be "done having kids" before my next birthday. I never expected it would be from adoption, but it's just another funny way about how God works.

We tend to have a picture in our minds about how life is going to work out. Rarely it does [I'm much wiser now that I'm 30]. Yet it seems like sometimes God takes our heart's desires, reworks them, and surprises us with a better version of our original dream. Kinda like Dreams 2.0.

I'm grateful for this new decade. And that I still get to be a young momma to our little ones. Thanks for the birthday surprise, God. You are so good to me.