The "Right-Before"

Psalm 62:5 - Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.

Psalm 130:5 - I wait for The Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. 

Isaiah 49:15-16 - ...I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands...

We are currently on a plane to Ethiopia!  Here's a pic of us this morning :). We were just a little excited!  

For those of you that want to know... we flew out of Peoria a little after 11 yesterday (Saturday) to Chicago. Had a short layover in Chicago & then flew to New York where we got to spend the night!  Major bonus for me as I have always wanted to go to NYC. We only had the evening so we literally put on our workout gear & ran through the sites in NYC. Had a blast!  Here are some pics of our adventures :)

Let's see...Times Square, Central Park, Today Show, Radio City Music Hall, random pic with characters to show the kids (hilarious), cupcakes at Magnolia's bakery (delish), NYPD car (we have watched many cop shows in the past :), & not pictured is the 9/11 memorial.  We weren't able to get in as it closed at 8...we were so bummed, but we did walk around and see some other memorable things in the area...very touching & amazing. If we go through New York on the way back, we may try to go again. So much thanks & respect for the heroic efforts on that day.  Really moving to be there. 

In the meantime, thought I would take some time to reflect on this last week leading up to us going. In my last post, I spoke of the peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4) and how I experienced this throughout our time "in--between."  Beautiful peace. However, this past week I experienced such a battle in getting this peace. I am well aware of spiritual warfare & also very aware that the enemy absolutely hates what we are doing. There was a heaviness that I experienced off and on this past week, and I know a battle was being waged. I knew it was so close, and therefore the heat was getting turned up in a variety of areas. I also live for a God that is so much bigger than all of these attacks and has already won the ultimate battle. Therefore, I have no need to fear. Our lives are in His powerful & victorious hands!  Amen!  BUT the battle is still hard and exhausting.  Praise The Lord that He is strength in our weakness. 

The root of one of these battles was fear. Fear of the unknown. I mean there are so many unknowns surrounding this that I don't even know where to start. On one of my fearful days in the midst of the wait, I had a prayer time of just confessing all of these fears that I was experiencing and asking the Lord to replace them by  verbalizing the truth. One of these fears was the fear of not really knowing Cai. He will be 11 months this week.  Now I definitely "knew" my biological children by this time...I knew them well. Adoption is just a whole different ball game. In my time of confessing with The Lord, this fear came out...this fear of not knowing him or knowing what he will want or being all that he will need. When I was thinking about the truth to replace this with, the Holy Spirit reminded me that I don't need to focus on knowing Micai. My eyes were in the wrong place. All I needed to know is Jesus. Jesus knows him & has been with him this whole time. The question was did I really trust that God would give me the wisdom and discernment needed to be a mama to this chosen boy?  My answer was, yes, i absolutely do. I just needed to start acting like it :) So, the truth is that I don't really know my son yet, but I do know the one who does :) All I need to do is to seek His face...He will guide me. Tears began to steam down my face. Freedom...beautiful freedom and peace that can only come from Jesus. An amazing lesson & truth I know He was teaching me to go back to in this transition.

This last week was a brutal wait. The most brutal that we have experienced. I read Psalm 62:5 at some point this week, and the Spirit prompted me and I found myself asking the question if whether my rest & hope were truly coming from Jesus...Jesus ALONE. No, it wasn't. I was putting my hope in getting an email stating our clearance. Once we got that, then I could rest. Totally not Biblical. I was once again on the line of idolatry. Oh, how I have been here so many times. I needed to flee. I began to ask for forgiveness and ask The Lord to help me to find my hope & rest in Him ALONE...nothing else. Lesson learned :) 

Every morning this past week we knew that if we did not receive an email by 9am, we probably wouldn't get one for the day due to the time difference. It would mean God was saying to wait...one more day at least. I woke up one morning, and we had not received any word once again. I don't think it was 9 yet, but I was hugely discouraged the moment I woke up. I almost felt as if God had forgotten. I knew this was not truth, but it's what it felt like. In my devotional that morning, one of the verses that was referenced was Isaiah 49:15-16 (last verse above). I began to get tears. He flat out says, "I will not forget you!". His word is life to us. I know many of the truths in His word, but sometimes you just need to read or hear it again, and it falls afresh and washes over us.  And sometimes it's some of the most familiar truths. Engraved on the palms of His hands...that's a deep remembrance. It blessed me and left me feeling especially remembered :) 

I was also reminded this week of the beauty of trials. There are so many things that I don't understand and so many things that I don't see...why they need to happen in the timing that they do, but I don't need to. The Bible teaches us that we don't need to and we can't understand. His thoughts & ways are higher than ours. Would we really want to serve a God that we could understand...then He wouldn't be God, would He?  Nope. I am gloriously ruined by trials. The ruined part...all of the yuck comes out and to the surface during them. I am talking about our sin. We often find out things about ourselves that are ugly as we react in ways that aren't God honoring. BUT the glorious part is that we are drawn closer to Him during this time...realizing our need for Him every hour, every minute, every second on those tough days. We are conformed into His image...glorious!

I really wanted to wait well. It was a fight to do this on some days and some days I did not do this well.  I truly felt what the verse above speaks of...my whole being waiting...I felt this to the core this past week.  I strived to put my hope in his word, and I hope with each opportunity to wait, I get a little better :) 

Thank you to all of you that stormed the throne on our behalf for us to receive clearance!  We cannot wait to reunite with our son...in awe thinking about it :) I will be posting frequently...as long as we have good Internet :) 

Here's a pic of us at the Dubai airport...for sure the most beautiful airport we have ever been to...this is inside the airport...not outside :) seriously a beautiful airport!

 

For now...Love from Dubai!