TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!!!

God has given us a giant blessing!!!! He now has a full-time job!!! We can finish our adoption!!!!!!!

It’s been a rough, sweet, heart-breaking 6 months, but the dog-days are over!!!! God has shown Himself to us in a very real way, providing for us in dramatic fashion, just at the right time, even to the point of catering to our prayer requests (a la Gideon). He’s opened our eyes in a big way to new things He might be calling us to, and we’re totally excited about them. It’s been hard, but it’s been good. Thank you Lord!!!

We are beyond excited to be doing things that our hearts long to do. Not only do we have jobs, but he’s going to be working for Young Life and for a sweet, sweet church, and I even have the special opportunity of working part-time at a job that has me loving on and ministering to teen mothers in the area. AND obviously, it looks like God is providing for our HEART’S DESIRE to adopt a child in Ethiopia who needs a family.

Basically, I haven’t slept since Saturday because I’m so excited.

Just a little paperwork, a little fixing up the apartment for our home study, and we’ll be right back on that waitlist!!!!

Let’s BTBH, people!!!!!

James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

On top of all that, we're celebrating together with a blog friend who just got a referral (you know who you are)!!!  Congrats you guys!!!

5 months

Tomorrow makes 5 months on the waitlist.

Stats: we're #9 for a girl, #7 for a boy, #5 for either gender, and so #18 overall. Now, if all the either genders ahead of us are boys, that makes us #11 for boys and #9 for girls, but if they're all girls (not likely) that makes us #7 for boys and #13 for girls. The possibilities are endless... :)

In the mean time I got a part-time job at a book store, he's participating full-force in no-shave November, and we both spent the night at Chick-fil-a for 104 free sandwich coupons (don't be jealous!!).

It continues to be an uncertain time in our lives in some ways, which can make it hard to be very excited for fear of disappointed hopes, but we're praying and trusting. We're super thankful for all the friends that have and are gathering around us to pray and encourage. Y'all are the best :)

Barring any craziness, our baby is somewhere between a 4 month old fetus and 3.5 months old infant right now. So, somewhere in here:

 

(pictures randomly selected from a google search, and do not depict our actual child)

  That visual right there makes my heart ache to have our baby. It feels like "we're missing out" on part of his or her life. Part of me looks at these pictures and wants to hold him/her as soon as possible, but at the same time, it makes me think of our baby's birth mother, and what she must be going through. Nothing in me wants for her to have to give up her baby. Her emotional and/or physical pain I'm sure is beyond intense, and I pray intensely that my Lord, her maker, would draw near to her, comfort her, and show Himself to her.

What now?

This picture is from the first time I ever went to visit my wife after we met. It's one of my favorites because Mrs. Landingham, the cat, who she can't stand, was in the perfect place for me to pick her up and be in the picture. She is looking up as if to say: "I own this picture"

So we have been playing the waiting game for some time now, wondering what to do next with our lives. Some answers have come up to the surface, but mostly there are still questions. Finding a job that fits what I want to do has been hard to do. The recurring unhealthy thoughts that go through my head are full of self pity or bitterness toward other people. Even when I try to take a step back and look at the situation through the eyes of my relationship with Jesus, I just end up saying "what are You doing?"

I think that people generally have a concept of what they want for their lives. In the end, on the last day, we have a way by which we think we'll be able to judge whether we have gotten what we wanted or not. Some just want to have experienced happiness or pleasure, others want to have been counted as "good" people, and some would only be satisfied if they had made a name for themselves in some way. I'm sure there are other things that might be considered important, but lately, for me, it has been just one thing: I want to be useful. This is why my cry to God recently has consistently been "don't waste me!" As I've been thinking about this I have realized that it is an almost comical request for a couple of reasons; two things I have forgotten:
The first is that God has already promised that He will take care of me. He takes care of the birds and flowers, and I'm more precious to Him than these. And the moment I ask God to prove His faithfulness to me, He already has. He is the Creator of everything, of all things good, of me and everything good in my life. He has made my life so full in Him, but if I still don't believe I only have to look at the Cross. God has already given the very best thing! He gave Himself (God!) as a substitute on the Cross for all who believe. How can I think that God will not take care of me and use me in small ways when He has already done so in the very best way? If you believe the gospel message is true, and I do for several reasons, then this is a pretty good argument: Romans 8:32. There is no more fear that He will only be good to me when I am good to Him. Isn't that our immediate thought after we do something bad? 'Oh, God is really going to have it out for me now.' Or our thought when something bad has just happened to us? 'Well, I guess I had it coming this time.' The truth is that we always have it coming, and deserve the worst %100 of the time. It is common grace that God gives us which allows us to breathe, smell, taste, laugh, and all of the other things that we love. But those who are believers in Jesus stand on higher ground. We have grace available to us, based not on our own merit, but on the merit of the very best; Jesus! I don't get what I give, but what He gave. Booya!

This leads me to the second reason demanding of God "Don't waste me!" is comical: it's the exact thing that God has been saying to me all my life! I have been given the standing that Jesus has with God; I am His son, heir to the throne, possessing full life. I once was a slave but now I'm free, and I was dead but have been made alive. So the real issue is not what God is doing or needs to do in my life; He has done the most important thing in the world, and He will continue to take care of me. The real issue is am I wasting His gift by worrying and acting as if it wasn't given? When I begin to remember God's infinite, personal, and fatherly love for me I start to remember that I'm not wasting away; He is doing something great in my life, and I have the option to trust that and start living for real. It's up to me to take hold of that thought and trust Him, to take off my grave clothes, and not keep acting like a slave. If I do that then I get to experience joy and peace while He takes care of the stuff He was going to do anyway.

Favorites of the week
Food: chocolate meringue pie
Song: electric feel
Fact: earth's large ocean allows lubrication for earth's plates and plate tectonics. This allows for carbon dioxide rock cycle, greenhouse effect, and steady temperatures in our atmosphere.

Helloo out there!

This has been the craziest summer ever! We moved to the beach, which we love! We're not really sure why everyone doesn't live at the beach, it's the coolest. But in all of that beachin' we didn't want to lose touch with you, friends. And most of all, we didn't want YOU to lose track of US, because, then your life might just be an empty hole of despair :) So.... here's our blog. So far I think it rocks, and I hope you do too.
We're doing pretty well here. We have an apartment, and we sleep on a real bed, and I have a job so we're eating and everything. We have found the sweetest community here, and we really feel like this is where we're supposed to be. Yay! If you pray for us, please pray that we would continue to trust God with everything, and have confidence that He is able, that He loves us, and that His plan is the best thing, cause we're waiting to see what's gonna happen with our lives. We'd like to start a family soon, to find jobs we can love, and we're living a little bit like vagabonds (though we are getting a dining room table and chairs from friends!!) Thanks!
If you're reading this, we love you! and we miss you! and we'll be home for Christmas!!!