Stepping out in Faith

Wow... it has been a full year since I have been able to blog.

It has been a challenging year.  After our second miscarriage, I struggled for at least a few months to feel like myself again.  I think my husband was really worried.  I didn't know how much I struggled until now when I can look back upon the whole thing.

If I am honest, I haven't blogged this past year because I haven't known how to answer the questions about the pause in our adoption process.  I kept thinking we would get back to it soon.  We wanted to get back to it.  I think we both believed we would get back in the grove much sooner than this, but we both felt so much fear in the process.

Most of fear came from the fact that we had no idea how to pay the enormous expenses of adoption.  We know that most people fundraise to at least help pay for their adoption, and that has always been our plan... but somehow we have still held onto this almost unspeakable fear of asking people to help.

When I step outside of myself, it sounds silly even to me.  I am person who naturally trusts that God provides (this is not a compliment to me at all, but just part of my natural, God-given personality).  However, somehow stepping out in faith in this has felt really scary and awkward.

Where do we begin?  We still aren't completely sure...

I think we have some good ideas, but we still need to nail everything down.

But I can say that the Lord is doing a huge work in our hearts and it is really incredible to know He is working... and also a lot of fun. I am excited about the anticipation of it all.  I can't wait to see how His plan unfolds.

At this point, there are still a lot of unknowns but I just wanted to share a little bit of how you can pray for us right now.  We are planning to begin the fundraising process in the near future.  Right now we are researching and making some decisions about where to begin.

There are so MANY options!  Pray that God would guide us through these scary and humbling decisions.  Pray that we would be willing to step out in faith wherever He leads.

There are so many reasons to wait... but we desire to be obedient.  So please pray that we would not wait any longer than He wants us to and that fear would not be an issue.

My hope is that we will have some fundraising news soon.

We know that God doesn't call everyone to adopt but he does call us all to care for the orphans.  One way you can do this is by praying for us as we begin this process (again).

This morning my Bible study just happened to be over this verse (don't believe for one second that I thought this was a coincidence):

Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.  James 1:27

He is doing BIG things and I can't wait to share more of it with you later.