Faith of a child…

Date: 2012.02.26 | Category: Family Life | Response: 0

We heard the song by Sidewalk Prophets called “You Can Have Me” yesterday and Gracie started singing.  She stopped to ask me, “Does that mean to leave everything and follow Jesus?”  I said, “Yes!” and she went back to singing with the song.  I must say there is nothing better than hearing a 6 year old belt out a song from 107.1.  When the song was over I asked her, “What would you do if Jesus asked you to follow him?”  She asked, “Would that mean I had to leave my family and everything?”  I said, “Yes!  Benjamin, Maisey, all of us.”  She said, “Well, of course, I would follow Him if He asked me to.  I have all of eternity to be with my family.”    The faith of a child is an amazing thing.  I would like to think I would say that, but I’m not 100% certain and I don’t like that at all.

Today in church Pastor talked about taking up the cross.  Luke 9:23     Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

I have been pondering this a lot lately.  I do a few things right, but I do so many things wrong.  So many of the choices I make are made by the world’s standards.  I’ve dealt with these conflicting thoughts a lot.

Forgiveness. People who have hurt me – I have forgiven.  That one is easy to understand.  Christ forgave me for my sins – who would I be to not forgive others.  Before you say, some things are easier to forgive than others, believe me I’ve had horrible things happen.  I get that!  It’s taken me years to talk about being molested as a child.  I somehow thought that the act reflected poorly on me.  No one talked about it as I was growing up and I felt shame.  It wasn’t until Cassie was 10 (the same age I was when it happened) that I was able to say, “I was just a child!” and forgive myself.  The light bulb moment  in my healing was when I realized that sin is sin and just as Christ died for my sins, Christ died for his sins.  I forgave and I healed.  It didn’t make it right, but I was able to turn it over to God and let it go.

God’s grace.  I can understand that one.  I try to implement it.  I often tell the story of running into a lady with my cart at Wal-mart right after Kyle died.  She was so angry with me.  I said I was sorry and sat there and cried.  She must have thought I was crazy. I didn’t even see her. I was so caught up in my grief and my thoughts.  I think of that often when someone cuts me off in traffic.  Are they on their way to the hospital?  Are they grieving?  Did they even see me?  Some days it’s easier to do than others, but I try. God’s grace is giving us what we don’t deserve.  During this time of lent, do that for others. Give up what you want for Christ, but also honor Him by giving what He has given you – grace and forgiveness.

Faith & trust.  Believe me.   God has tested me on this one over and over again.  I can honestly say I’ve pretty much got it now.  That’s not to say I don’t get nervous or worry, but it doesn’t last.  Codey was still in the hospital when I found out I was pregnant with Zach and it was not planned.  God knew what He was doing, but I was so fearful.  I miscarried right before Cassie – that was hard to handle because I had sworn I’d never get pregnant again.  That’s a lot coming from a girl who once believed she wanted 12 kids.  Then came Cassie and being monitored the whole pregnancy.  Hope’s story – full of trust & faith.  Then Gracie, felt it to my core that God was telling me to have another child,  fertility doctor said he could do the tubal reversal but the odds of getting pregnant were slim – something like less than 20%.  I was 40, tubes had been tied 12 years, but I had the utmost faith if God was truly wanting me to get pregnant, then I would.  The very first month I was blessed with Grace.  I have never been so full of trust and faith in a loving God then I was while I was pregnant with her.  Then came her emergency delivery, I had a vessel rupture and they just happened to catch it at a routine ultrasound.  God was in control. I’ve been asked numerous times why I’m not upset – like when they said they were sending me for a bone marrow biopsy for Grace.  The doctor took me into the hall to ask me if I understood what he was saying?  He was worried because I hadn’t fallen apart.  How can you not have faith and trust in a God that has showed himself to you so many times?  God’s plan is perfect.  God’s timing is perfect.  God is holy and God is love.  God loved Gracie before me.  His plan for her is perfect.

But taking up the cross and following Jesus, what does that really mean?   Does that mean giving up all worldly things.  Is any t.v. ok?  How much money is okay to spend on frivolous things?  How much is enough to give?  I know I can do more, but what is enough?  Does any of us know?  These are the thoughts I’m pondering.  I know I do so much less than many and a little more than some, but God is placing this on my heart more and more.  In the immediate future He is leading me to China, but I anxiously await where He leads me next.  Praying that I too can have the  faith of a child.

Spring Cleaning

Date: 2012.02.25 | Category: Family Life | Response: 0

Working on the kids room and it is so cute.  Well, cute if you’re 2 & 4.  🙂   I hope they like it.  In the middle of going through old boxes, I found a box of old bills from when Codey was in the hospital.  Wow!  They start in 1987.  You should see the bill printed for 4/30/87 to 1/13/88.  I don’t even want to know how much paper was wasted printing off his bills.  I decided to shred them.  I’m not even sure why I have them still.  In the midst of all the bills was a letter from Methodist about me not paying my bill.  The boys were covered the minute they were born, but because they were 3 months early my delivery wasn’t covered.  1 more month and it all would have been covered, but because I was early Life flight and the delivery weren’t covered.  I remember getting the letter because I cried so hard and then I just sat on the floor and laughed.  It was for $4,500 & they told me they had given me ample time to pay for it because they had waited 4 months.  There was also a letter stating that we couldn’t hold the bill paying $5 a month.  How hilarious is that? How long would that have taken to pay off at $5/month.  They told us we could apply for financial aid if we thought we qualified.  We had both quit our jobs and we were living in the Ronald McDonald house trying to figure out what to do with our lives.  Needless, to say with no income, we qualified for help.  I thank God for insurance and for financial aid.

So many memories came flooding back as I was going through his bills.  Having to leave Codey, who was so sick, and drive Kyle to the funeral home.  We couldn’t afford for them to come pick him up so we drove him up to Fort Dodge.  My mom & Linda with me, sitting there pathetically, holding the shell of my little boy – wishing I could do anything to change it. The chaplain told me that I should take him and that I wouldn’t regret it and she was right.  I remember having to hand him over to the funeral home director.  Having to pick out a little, white casket.  I was so afraid Codey would die while we were gone.  That was such a hard decision – do you stay with your son who is so ill and might die or do you drive 90 minutes away and bury your son?  I don’t know why I’m writing about it.  Maybe because the memory is so fresh and I don’t think I’ve ever put these words in writing.  I journal for the kids, but I don’t often do it for myself.  I don’t remember much about the funeral, except Dan.  I remember him walking to the back of the hearse and picking up the casket and carrying it to the gravesite.  Dan had never been to a funeral before and had never heard of pall bearers.  I carried Kyle to the funeral home and Dan carried him to the grave.  I suppose it was fitting.

Linda recently found a typed up paper of what Dan read at the funeral.  I remember thinking how brave he was standing there and talking about Kyle. I won’t type the whole thing because it’s pretty long and it just restates what was going on with the boys and me.  I had gotten pretty sick after the delivery and he had all 3 of us to worry about.  Here’s what he said…The Lord has a plan for each of our lives.  These plans all come together to form one big overall plan.  These plans are all interrelated and interconnected so that a change in one results in a change in all.  As short as little Kyle’s life was, he was alive for a reason; actually, for very many reasons.  He was here to show us not to give up no matter how bad things are or how many things we have going against us.  He was here to show us how much love we have to give.  He gave my life a purpose and when his little brother is old enough to understand it will give purpose and meaning to his life too.  His death showed us not to waste a moment of life, but to cherish it for the precious thing it is.  It will affect everyone in some way, but there’s one thing I want to make clear.  He was here to make our lives better not worse.  If you let his death affect you in a negative way, then his life will have been wasted.  The Lord is watching over him now, and when the Lord call us home we will have our baby boy there to greet us.  His life can be best summed up by Job 1:21  and said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. 

I just want to go already….

Date: 2012.02.23 | Category: Benjamin, Grace, Maisey | Response: 0

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about going to China.  They have a little girl (who is as cute as can be) that they adopted from China.  Every time I see her I just want to squeeze her.  🙂  We were discussing how sad and scared her daughter was at the very beginning.  My friend said the very next day when they gave their daughter a second bottle it was a turning point.  She was amazed that there was more food.  That just breaks my heart, especially because Benjamin hasn’t grown in the past year. Maisey is 2 and he is almost 4 and there is only 1 pound difference.  Kids with heart defects need extra calories just to grow.  I think about him there in the orphanage needing and wanting more food and it just makes me want to cry.  I hate that my children have had to fend for themselves.  I’m happy that there was a place for them to go.  I’m happy that people have cared for them, but I hate that this world is so imperfect.  I hate that they were abandoned.  It truly breaks my heart.

On a different note, I took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill today.  Did my spring cleaning early because I’m afraid my spring is going to be very busy.  We have stuff in boxes that we carted from Iowa City 10 years ago.  As I was looking at the stuff, I kept asking myself why have you held on to this?  Now was a wonderful time to just go through everything.  My motivation?  Watching my mother-in-law go through her father’s house full of 90+ years of papers.  She found papers from the 1920’s.  I don’t want to do that to my children.  Although, the papers were kind of cool to look at.  As I was dropping off my stuff at Goodwill, I was thinking about all the useless, unnecessary stuff I buy.  The gentlemen at the door was talking to Grace about the clothes that were being packed up and how they send some of them overseas to people who don’t have anything.  Gracie was very touched by that.  Grace & I discussed how it’s hard when you see something pretty and you would like to have it, but you don’t really need it.  We should just walk away and see if we even remember it in a week.  How much better would it be to give that amount to someone else?  I have done so many things wrong with my money.  It makes me want to be better.  Which led me back to Maisey & Benjamin, I’m so happy they will soon be part of my family.  I’m also sad that there are so many hurting kids out there without a family.  I may not be able to adopt any more, because the legal system frowns at adopting over 50 – which I suppose makes sense.  I can, however, sponsor some orphans.  I may get up to that 12 child mark that I once talked about in high school.  Sounds like a good goal to me.

Blessings

Date: 2012.02.20 | Category: Benjamin, Hope, Maisey | Response: 0

I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve had so many people say “you are wonderful to do what you are doing”.  I’m never sure how to respond to that, especially since no one tells you that “you are a wonderful for doing what you are doing” when you get pregnant.

I can tell you without a doubt that my 3 adopted children are my children and have been since the moment I laid eyes on them.  It was love at first sight.  With Hope it wasn’t even first sight. Dan called to tell me that he had to ask another resident to go back to a delivery because he couldn’t do it.  He had heard this story about a little girl with a heart defect, the adoptive parents backed out, and the biological mother had decided not to treat her, which meant that she would die within a week or two.  He had been to many deliveries, heard and seen many things, but he could not go to her delivery.  He was attached to this little girl.

He was supposed to write the orders to stop her prostaglandins.  He couldn’t do it.  Instead he went to the hospitals gift shop.  He called me after she was born to tell me that he had bought her booties and stuffed animals.  He couldn’t stand that her bed looked so empty.  He wrote an order for the nurses to rock her every hour.  He called me and I knew it the minute he said it.  She was supposed to be ours.

The kids, Dan and I decided to bring her home so that she wouldn’t die alone in the hospital.  We had already been through Kyle’s death and knew we could handle it. Cassie said she didn’t care if she was only here for a day she would be her sister forever.  Cassie got on her knees and begged.  Zach said no child should die alone and without a name.  We knew that we could proceed with the adoption after she died because friends of ours had a child die during the adoption process and in Iowa you can still finish the adoption.  So we knew she would die with our name and she would be loved for as long as we had.  We were prepared. Well, at least as prepared as you can be.

Once we had decided on that though, the cardiac  surgeon came up to us and said if we would proceed with the adoption, he would do everything in his power to get her through her surgeries. We decided to try.  Dan’s mom even called me the day after I told her about this baby and she said, “How is she doing?  It’s the strangest thing.  I feel like I’m her grandma or something.”  I laughed and said, “Well, that’s good because guess what we’ve decided to do.”  Someday I’ll have to write about all the God things that have happened with Hope.  It should be a book.  She is a miracle, a gift.  Any wonderful thing I did pales in comparison with the blessings that God has given me by letting me be her mother.

Benjamin and Maisey’s story were my first journals on this blog.  We looked at many, many babies on the CCAI web-site.  I knew the instant I saw them that they were my children.  I can’t explain it.  I can’t explain how God works.  It just was.  I cried when I saw their faces, much like I did after I delivered my babies.  These are my children.  I can’t stand the fact that they were abandoned.  I don’t want to tell them that, but it is their truth.  I can, however, tell them over and over again what led them to us.  How God works and how their lives were meant to be.  They were meant to be my children.  I would do anything for them.  I would gladly give up my life for them.   I haven’t done anything special except love my children.  So if you say, “It’s wonderful what you are doing” and I stare at you like I don’t know what you are talking about – this is the reason.  I haven’t done anything except trust that what God has laid upon my heart is the truth.   I’m so blessed that these children are mine.   Hope is named Hope for just that reason because it means trust and faith.  It’s not hard to trust a perfect God.  When you have trust, have faith, and follow what He lays upon your heart, amazing things happen.

Reminders…

Date: 2012.02.19 | Category: Benjamin, Maisey | Response: 0

I sat in church today and was reminded that God is everywhere.  I know this.  Truly I do.  He is in the big things and the little things.  He knows my thoughts and the number of hairs on my head.  I have seen Him work in so many things during my life.  I have been driven to my knees, at my child’s bedside, begging for “Jesus, Come to My Rescue” (yes, the song lyrics) and seen Him work miracles.  I am constantly blown away by this. I know that He and only He knows the number of days we have each been allotted.  I know that His plan is perfect, as is His timing.  But today the reminder that He truly is every where was just what I needed to hear.  It brought tears to my eyes.  God is not a Father who only disciplines. He is not an angry judge waiting for you to mess up.  He is a Father that can work all things for good.  All things.  That is absolutely, positively mind blowing.

So today whenever my nervousness or fear raises it’s ugly head, I will hear Pastor’s voice reminding me that God is in control.  That He knows all and would not have placed these children on my heart if it was not meant to be.  I pray that I can be the mother that Benjamin & Maisey need.  I pray that the moment they see Dan & I they can feel all the love we have felt for a year now. I pray that they will be at peace and know that they are loved.

It’s a small world….

Date: 2012.02.18 | Category: Hope | Response: 0

I was at an eye appointment with Hope on Monday and asked the eye doctor when she would need to see the new kids.  We agreed that it’s not emergent and we can schedule an appointment when life calms down….which makes me chuckle.  I’m not sure that is likely to happen, but I’ll schedule the appointment anyway.  Benjamin needs his heart catherization in the first 3 weeks.  Maisey needs her hearing checked right away.  She will be 2 on April 9th.  Totally off the point, but I remember standing in Linda’s kitchen last year and crying because she was going to turn 1 without me.  A whole year has gone by.  How is that possible?  Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  All the literature says that the earlier you get their hearing appliance, the better.  Hopefully, before they turn two.  It helps with their speech.  We will work on that as quickly as possible.

The eye doctor and I started talking about adoption and blogs.  She told me of a blog she follows with a baby with a heart defect.  She describes the heart defect and I chuckle because it is Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.  I point and Hopey and say that is the heart defect Hope has.  She loves that Hope looks so good and you can’t even tell she is missing her left ventricle.

We then talk about a blog she has been following about parents that are in Taiwan getting their little boy right now.  He is almost 4, just like Benjamin.  She tells me that the little boy will go to the Dad and to the older sister, but not the mother.  I can’t believe she has hit on my worst fear.   It’s ironic really.  I don’t remember ever wondering if my babies would love me when they grew up – not even with Hope, but for some reason the fact that they are already little people scares me to death.  It makes me so nervous.  I know, if it happens, that I can’t take it personally, but how do you not take it personally?  Especially when all I want to do is hold them in my arms and give them all my love.  I was recently told by a friend that they will sense how much I love them and they will be fine.  He mentioned my “mommyness”.  I know I tend to mother even if people are not my kids.  I try not to, but I just do.  I want to be able to say I’m at peace but still I worry.  Which is hilarious because I know better than to worry.  God has shown me that lesson over and over again.  You’d think I’d learn.  Whenever I am truly worried about something, some completely different happens & I end up saying, “Well, I didn’t see that one coming.”  When will I learn?   I try so hard to just have faith, to trust and be at peace.  Dan and I have been praying for months now that God would let them be open to us and let them have peace in their hearts as they wait.  I will continue to just turn it over.  Maybe someday I will get it right – hopefully, tomorrow will be the day!

Waiting….again….

Date: 2012.02.17 | Category: Benjamin, Grace, Maisey | Response: 0

I was so happy when they said that we would be leaving on the 29th.  The agency said it was really short notice, but they wanted to get us there as soon as possible.  I didn’t know what to do.  For one thing, Grace has her chemo on the 29th.  I hate to not be there.  In reality, she has done so well.  Her hair has thinned, but she hasn’t lost it all.  She gets a little sick to her stomach, but has only thrown up once.  Thanks in part to Zofran!  Dan will just get back from his work related trip, but we could make it work.  We e-mailed everyone.  We rearranged everything only to have the agency say that we can’t leave until March 7-9.  WHAT?  More waiting? I am so tired of waiting. Yes, I believe in God’s perfect timing.  Yes, I believe in His perfect plan.  Yes, I am still human and am still working on perfecting my patience. 🙂

The truth of the matter is I do want to be here for Gracie and it is only one more week.  An extra 7 more days.  168 more hours.  Though it’s depressing that I won’t be back for Gracie’s birthday on March 23rd.   It’s her 7th birthday and she is so excited.  What a great gift that would have been….well, I guess will be.   We’ll only be a couple days late.  Then our family will be together – well, almost everyone will be here.  That is a whole other story for another time.

We are coming little ones.  We are so close now.  19 more days…

Our littlest girl, Maisey Meilyn (Cupcake)

Date: 2012.02.17 | Category: Maisey | Response: 0

Our little guy, Benjamin Hua Jie (Tigger)

Date: 2012.02.17 | Category: Benjamin | Response: 0

Happy dance!

Date: 2012.02.17 | Category: Benjamin, Family Life, Maisey | Response: 0

Today we received notice that our Travel Approval came in.  We leave February 29th to bring Benjamin & Maisey home!  Praise the Lord!