A Journey

Refer back, if you would, to my initial post entitled "So you think you can blog?" Apparently, I can't ....at least not consistently anyway. The writing part comes easily for me, but I don't naturally walk around with my camera waiting for a photo op. And so many precious moments slip by, stored in my mind (which is fading everyday) instead of documented forever. I'm going to try and be better about capturing the images of this journey we're on. A journey that is constantly changing paths.
The past year has been up and down. A new house. Brent makes partner at his firm.  A difficult diagnosis of a chronic back problem. A suspicious mammogram. A car accident. Tornadoes strike. The Lord delivers relief to me and I exhale the breath of thankfulness. I'm going to the Czech Republic! Friends marry. Babies are welcomed. Rejoicing. Suffering is still worn on the faces of those around me. Pain is still the reminder that this is not our home. And through it all, the ups and downs, is the strongly rooted person of Christ. He stands with His arms outstretched to the side, acting one day as a buffer and the next as a Father waiting to embrace.
 There's no photograph that can capture the internal change of my heart over the past year. It's still a heart blackened by sin, but softened by a realization of God's mercy and grace to me, His daughter. It's a heart that is beginning to break for the things that break His. It's a heart that is beginning to surrender to what the Lord has for me in life. Another journey begins.
 I've posted before of our desire for more children. It's a desire that will go unfulfilled, at least biologically anyway due to the instability of my back. Another down moment. But the Lord dropped a seed in our hearts months ago and has been cultivating it ever so slowly. The heart that has always said no to adoption is now saying yes. We can never fully understand the Lord's ways and how this seed has come to grow so strong remains a mystery. But here we stand, aching for a child and knowing that adoption is the cure.
 In the recent months, we have applied for a Chinese adoption through All God's Children International adoption agency in Oregon. We are waiting for our official review next week where we will hopefully be approved and be able to move on to our home study. A particular young Chinese beauty of a boy captured our hearts and we were taking steps towards adopting him specifically. However, yesterday we learned that another family was ahead of us in the process and secured him first. Heartbreak. Through the tears, I do feel the Lord working. I absolutely know that He has a plan for us and I'm going to walk towards it trying not to grieve what I had chosen for myself, but joyfully anticipate what He has chosen for me instead.
So journey with us through the journey of adoption. I promise it will be a difficult one as it has already proven to be. But I also promise that God will find a way to bring glory to Himself and isn't that what all the journeys of life are ultimately about? Deep breath. Bring on the ups and downs. Bring on another cuteness!