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Undaunted!
That is how I want to live my life….UNDAUNTED! I watched Christine Caine talk this weekend at Women of Faith and was so moved. I want a little of that. I want people to see my passion for what I believe in. I want people to be encouraged in their lives and by being encouraged in their own lives start to help others. I want them to see how much they really truly have to be grateful for (Ann Voskamp covered that one). We have so much in this country. We are so blessed even if all we have is a little.
For years my mom, daughter and mother-in-law have joked about me getting up on the Women of Faith stage and speaking and I laughed. What would I have to talk about? My life to me is just that….my life. It’s not exciting or news worthy….it’s just my life. I realize it is not the journey that most people end up on. Although, everyone has a story. It’s just that we spend our lives talking about the trivial, afraid to really share our pain or what is going on in our lives. I know it took me quite a while to talk about my life story. I wouldn’t talk about Hope’s adoption because people would comment that “You are a saint!”. I hated that. I’m not a saint, far from it. Who wouldn’t take in an abandoned baby and give her a chance? Ok to be fair many people have told me that they would not have signed up to take a baby home to die, which is where we started. I get that but if you had asked me years ago if I would have done that, I would have declared NO too! But Kyle’s death (the worst day of my life) gave me the strength to proceed. I had been through it once and I knew with God’s help I could go through it again. No baby should die alone and without a name.
You never know what you are capable of doing until you are presented with it. I finally got to the place where I trusted God’s plan so much I quit looking at what it really looked like. I realized that if I didn’t share Hope’s story, then God wasn’t getting the glory that He deserved. Hope’s story is a beautiful story of trust and faith, which is what Hope means and why we named her that. We went into it knowing that her life had weight (a point Angie Smith made clear this weekend) whether she lived a day or 20 years. Her life mattered. We proceeded with the surgery, filled with fear of the unknown, but trusting God’s will to be done. Now she is 13 years old and a beautiful, sweet, artistic, girl. I don’t know what her future holds. The reality is none of us know what our future holds. We like to think when we get pregnant all will go well, but the truth is women still die in childbirth. We like to think our children will stay healthy and live to be at least 80, but the truth is many will die from accidents, cancer, etc. I think we have to proceed with life forgetting the bad that can happen or we would be so overcome by fear of the unknown that we wouldn’t be able to proceed. We’d curl up in a ball and hope that nothing could touch us.
This years Women of Faith weekend was specially designed for me. I have been filled with fear about talking to churches about adoption. I want to spread the word. I want people to understand they can do something to help children. There are so many ways and different organizations that help. I want to spread the word about Love Without Boundaries and the story of New Hope Foundation (the people who saved my little Maisey). The work these organizations are doing is amazing. There are so many good organizations out there doing all they can for children. I want to shout the information from the rooftops so that all can hear and be motivated to do something. I think Christians want to help. I’ve seen people come together to help others over and over again. I think they just need to know how to help. They need to see it and feel it. They need to know they can make a difference. I believe the problem remains hidden to them and if they heard it, they would respond. They just need the information.
What will your life say when you stand before the judge? When it’s all said and done what will you be able to say that you did for the least of these? Matthew 25:40 I love Francis Chan’s video – it says it better than I ever could.
