We meet at church. Our mutual friend Gordy introduced us. We both weren't attracted to each other at first. Then with our friendship we realized we both had a lot in common. We got together a lot with mutual friends playing card games and watching movies. Then Joe and Gordy called me one day to ask for a double date...problem was I didn't know who exactly I was going with...Joe or Gordy! It was Joe who showed up at my door!!! That was May 29, 1993...fast forward 7 months more and we were married. Did we understand that marriage was an example of Christ and his church...NO. We understood it more fully 8 years later.
As I reflected today of 18 years of marriage I told Joe that even with those years of rough spots I would not trade a thing. Yes Joe and I had our first 8 years with some rocky times, but though all of it God was working and it is and was for our GOOD! We both came through it all stronger and wiser. Now when we talk to people that are struggling we can say that we have been there and the God is faithful though all of it!
Another thing as I have looked back today I have really come to the realization that love is a choice especially when you have those struggles. When I married Joe I drove my friends nuts talking about him ALL the time. I was love sick! What I realized very quickly was that kind of love does not have strong roots. Do I still get those butterflies at times and feel overwhelmed with emotions for Joe....YES! Because of God, because of HIS faithfulness I love Joe more than I ever did 18 years ago. Each year I am astonished how much more love, commitment, and joy I feel for Joe and it is only because of GOD!
Some day in GLORY we will totally understand all of God's Word. Here on earth we get to learn, grow, and bring God glory. Marriage is a teaching ground and I am so joyful that God choose Joe for me to go through it with! To God be the GLORY!
Sarah and David made a Christmas craft...
they had lots of fun together!
Adoption. That one word can stir many different emotions and
responses with people. Before we adopted I was intrigued and had lots of
questions. I’ll admit it I was a little scared. When God made it clear we were
to adopt and we obeyed I was excited, but I still had MANY questions. Now that
we are in the post adoption stage I still have many questions, although
different. Now they are just full of parenting questions. Like is this behavior
because of past experiences or purely just disobedience? Or should I be firm in
this moment or over look the behavior?
I took a walk today just to clear my head with all the
frustration I was feeling over disobedience. During my walk I came to the
conclusion that with our younger children we are just still in the simple
obedience stage. What I mean is when I say don’t touch the light switches,
quiet during quiet time, no running in the house, and other little things. A lot
comes with age. My adopted children are taking longer to mature through many
stages and this is one of them. They must learn to trust me to obey me. They
need to learn that when I say something I mean it for their good. This will
take time and a lot of consistence.
Yes, it was good for me today to see even though Beth is 6
and David is 4 that we are still in the simple obedience stage. This week has
been challenging with so many episodes of disobedience. I pray soon they
graduate to obedience without challenge and from blatantly disobeying me. Then
we can jump into the “obey NOW stage”…I
think I am still in that stage at times in my walk with God. I end up obeying,
but sometimes it takes me too long to do it.
I know that questions will still come. More than I did with
my birth children and different ones than them too! God is constant, God has
all the answers! It is amazing how God gives to me those mother intuitions with
children I did not birth. How I can decipher when someone lies is from God. How
I know when Beth is trying to manipulate someone into doing her desires is only
from God. With God all things are possible and to my amazement at times…for my
good!
Celebrating Beth’s birthday tonight got me thinking. This is
the second birthday she has had in our forever family. Three more years and she
will have spent more birthdays with us than not! Unfortunately Beth has had more
negative history than positive. I look forward to the day we change that!
She
has grown and learned so much, but has more to learn. She struggles so much to
trust anyone. We have tried to point out how she needs to put her trust in God
because all things work for our good, even when you don’t think so. God uses
time to heal and I look forward to the day that positive memories flourish and
turn the negatives to ash!
Praise be to God for this opportunity to raise a
beautiful, precious girl. I pray for wisdom to know how to show her God’s infinite
love and trustworthiness! Through all the trials and victories, joys and pain in these past 16 months I loudly say: THANK YOU JESUS FOR MY MANY BLESSINGS!
In the fall of 2007 our pastor preached a sermon series that really affected Joe and I. During one of the sermons Joe whispered to me that we should adopt in the next few years.We had been praying about adopting for several months. Of course I started getting very excited and began searching the web, calling agencies, and requesting information. Joe’s heart was for local kids and so I narrowed my searching to domestic and foster to adopt.
Together Joe and I decided at that time we needed to wait to bring a new child into our home. I still yearned to add to our family and I continued to pray for that child and for God to make it clear to Joe when it was God’s time for us to adopt.
In the fall of 2009 Joe and I read together “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby. When we finished the book, our church was hosting a Perspectives class that would start in January 2010. We decided to take the class to see where God was working. Blackaby’s book had us praying even more for Him to show us his timing in regards of us adopting. In addition to starting the class Joe had applied to attend Moody Bible Institute to receive his Masters of Ministry degree. When he got accepted we figured that adopting would again need to be postponed. Is it not wonderful how God has His own plans?
Right before we started the Perspectives class we found out our friends had a new foster child. We took a doll house over to their home that our girls had out grown. That was the first time we meet Beth. She had these big brown eyes, excitable, full of drama, and very cute. During the 16 week Perspectives class Sarah our oldest at 13 babysat Beth while her foster parents and us attended the class.
One night when I was talking to Beth’s foster mom she told me Beth’s story. I was very overwhelmed by what I heard. After I hung up the phone I privately talked to Joe and told him about our conversation and told him Beth’s tragic story. To say the least we were both very overwhelmed with emotions for her. So vividly I can remember Joe’s face when looked at me and said, “I thought we would adopt a boy first.” I started bailing my eyes out and Joe joined me.
That next day I was on the phone to set up our foster orientation class. The class in our area was not for another month. Praise the Lord I asked about classes in other districts and sure enough a class was on that Monday! They thought they would not have enough time to send us the paperwork we needed tofill out along with fingerprint cards to get done before the class. I looked in my pile of paperwork that I had requested on adoption years before and sure enough it was there from January 2008. All the paperwork and the fingerprint cards! The following day which was Friday I was able to make an appointment with the jail to get our fingerprints taken. When we were there the deputy shared that it was not normal for us to get an appointment that soon.
Are you seeing a trend here? God kept making it clear He was working in all of this! The very next thing God did was push our paperwork through quickly. After the orientation we got a call less than 2 weeks later to say our fingerprints have gone through fine and that we could sign up for the 10 week classes. The classes started on that next Tuesday night. Wow! God continued to make in evident that He was working…not by our power but His MIGHTY power. He continues doing so to this day.
There was a glitch to the first night of our classes. Most importantly is that you cannot miss the first class, however the first night landed on Awana award night. Joe is the Awana Commander and our daughter Hannah was getting a big award that night. The last glitch was easy. Hannah wanted us to go to the class and we had friends that were willing to take her and take lots of photos. Any of you who know Joe knows how dedicated he is and also knows that when he says something he sticks by it. He did not want to go back on his promise to be there. Since we did not see eye to eye on this one Joe proceeded to seek wise counsel from Pastor John whom he partners with in Awana and greatly admires. Pastor John was very gracious and pointed out to Joe that even if taking these classes only gives us a slim chance of getting Beth it was worth it to go now instead of waiting for later classes. Everyone in Awana supported us that night!
The classes began and so did the home study visits. During the first few weeks into the classes (Iowa’s classes are 10 weeks) we found out Beth had two siblings. Two brothers age 2 and 8 months. The foster mom for the boys had hired a lawyer and was fighting to keep the baby and made it sound like there was no way they would keep the children all together. We meet David at McDonalds in Muscatine for the first time. We didn’t stay long, but I wept all that way home…David had stolen my heart already. We decided to go forward with the process for both of them. I called the boys’ foster mom and set up times we could take David on the weekends to visit with him.
Those were interesting visits. David was on Ritalin and was going through the terrible twos. In the drive from his foster home to church or to our house he would let our very loud screams, yell NO, talk in only 2-3 word sentences, bite, kick, and many other things. Somehow (God of course) we saw through all that to see a wonderful boy that just needed lots of love and firm/structured home. Joe and David bonded almost immediately! He was scared of me at first.
We started to do crafts and sell them to raise money for some our expenses. We had to buy bedroom furniture, sheets, pillows, little kid things like toys and bath stuff, a van, and anegress window for the basement to name a few. We found a great deal on a minivan. Several people bought our crafts and some just gave money. We were able to put hire a person to cut the basement wall to put in the window.
A towards the end of the classes we found out that DHS had no intent of separating the baby from the others. It was a long shot that his foster mom was fighting for him. I found out on a Friday morning before we had our homeschool co-op. While I was gone to co-op a friend’s husband David came over. He was donating his time to come and get the basement ready for the concrete cutter to cut for the egress window and to put in the egress window after it was ready. A few days earlier he offered to build us a bedroom too, but we told him we couldn’t afford it.I came home from co-op with our three girls to find drywall in the garage and David’s truck in the driveway still. I went in the basement to find a bedroom being framed in. I asked David why he was doing this. He told me that the Father told him to build us an extra bedroom and that he happened to have all this extra stuff around. We would just need to put the shelves in the walk in closet! To say the least I was crying again. I called Joe immediately to share the unexpected good news. “God just made it clear we are to adopt all three children!” he exclaimed with emotion in his voice.
I made sure that DHS knew we were willing to be a forever family to all three children and that we would have room. Remember there still was no guarantee that we would get to become a family to these beautiful children. Their case worker could not even talk to us because we didn’t have our foster to adopt license yet approved. Messages were only getting to her from our friend who was Beth’s foster mom. DHS were getting ready to look for homes to take them. June was to be the date parental rights were to be severed. Our classes didn’t end until June 29th.
We just kept praying that God would postpone the court date to sever the rights and delay DHS for looking for other parents. We gave it to God and a peace that I can not explained came over us. He answered our request with a yes. Our license was finalized on August 3rd and David and Beth were placed in our home that day. Parental rights still had not been severed. The foster mom of Wesley continued to fight for him. Our friends had an adoption shower for us and many more items we needed were so graciously given to us. The older three girls each got something too that totally made their day. Sad thing was I had to leave Wesley’s things in our closet just in case they separated him from his brother and (now) four sisters. We had to wait for DHS who later postponed their decision on the matter until the parental rights court date.
On August 30 the parental rights were severed and Wesley was court ordered into our home! It was kind of a weird feeling waiting in the DHS office for them to pick him up from daycare to give to us. He adjusted very quickly to us as did David. Beth had a hard time because her foster parents were so loving it was hard for her to leave them and she still was dealing with her lose…and still does at times.
August was a joyful month. We were now a family, but had to wait 180 days + for the adoption date. Through those first six months we learned a LOT! We had good days and a lot of bad days or should I say days with opportunity to grow days? God had a way of making us (all 8 of us) grow…and still is. Some days it seemed the adoption date would never get here. Finally the day came…March 8th at . It was over with like a flash. Our attorney asked Joe questions like do you promise to provide for these children? Questions took maybe 2 to 3 minutes then the judge pronounced us a family!
Wow we now were a family. Joe finally has a SIX PACK. I am a mom of six. There are days I could not do it without my Lord and Savior. Our older three girls have been amazing! They have really taken more responsibility. Some days they need to stop being the mom, but their intention is noble most of the time. Joe is such a great dad. His love for all six of them is evident. He always fits in time for them and me even with his studies and work. Thank you Jesus for your many blessings you shower us with and give us wisdom as our story continues.
Well I guess I am going to start blogging. Hopfully I will get better at this as I go. Most that I will be blogging about will be our journey as an adoptive family. Our joys, struggles, and issues that arise with having a large and blended family. God is so faithful to us and has blessed us more than we deserve.
