The Importance of Prayer

"I'll pray for you..." How many times have we said these words, or words like them? Prayer is often looked at as such a simple thing. A quick and thoughtful uttering from our lips to God's ears. When we don't know what else to say, we say we'll pray. But how long do we spend in prayer? In our hurried, everyday lives, what priority do we make prayer? The average Christian prays 60 seconds a day. If that's not a testimony of what an afterthought prayer has become in this modern generation...I don't know what is!

At the end of 2016, God convicted me about my own prayer time. As a work at home mom to 5 kids and a woman married to a husband with a high-demand job and involved in ministry...my days can feel so rushed. Sometimes I feel like it's all I can do to catch my breath. God called me to slow down this year. To take time to spend in His presence. Specifically, "get your house in order."

When I began to seek God about what he meant about getting things in order...the Holy Spirit impressed on me that a foundation of that would be prayer. Prayer and communication with God. Building time from the ground up in our lives spent in His presence. Let me tell you...prayer is powerful. It is transformative. It isn't for the weak. It isn't for the hurried. It is for me and for you.

Today I took God at His word. I stopped in my busy day and called my oldest child into the study and we began to pray. I set the tone with worship music playing in the background. And we began to just speak and proclaim whatever the Spirit put on our hearts. God showed up. He met us where we were. My youngest, who has been fighting sleep lately just sat back in my arms with very little fuss. He fell asleep in my arms as we just cried out to God. My 10 year old son came into the room. I spoke words of confirmation over his life about the calling God placed on him from before the time he was born. My son is very sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He began to weep under the anointing and prophesy. My daughter also broke down and had a word from God about having a spirit of fear, and trusting Him more.

I prayed for the things God laid on my heart. One thing specifically being a new house. We have a lot of kids ya'll. We need a big house. An even bigger house than we already have. I prayed and asked God to give us a bigger house. We've been working on our house we are living in now to get all the repairs that need made done and improvements. We have an awesome house. But we know we need to sell it in the next year or so.

Well, wouldn't you know it but not 10 minutes after we had spent time in prayer, Phil comes and tells me that the man who had come to deliver a utility building to our property today told him that he wanted a house like ours and wouldn't mind buying it from us in 6 months to a year. WHAT. Come on now...tell me God doesn't answer prayer and give confirmation?????? All glory to God!

Whatever he wants with this life, I want God to have it. God showed Himself true to me and He just continues to bless and increase my faith. I challenge you to spend time with God this week. Don't spend 60 seconds. Spend 30 minutes or 3 hours! God is moving and He's just waiting to bless obedience.

Family Pics, at Last!!!

We have been notoriously horrible at updating our family photos. So it feels like a huge milestone for us to finally have updated pics of our kids on the wall. And there's one that Daddy ordered at the bottom for our newest blessing that we just don't have home yet. All the feels!!

More of you, less of me.

This has always been one of my favorite verses. You know, one of those that you read and it just jumps out at you from the page. That's John 3:30 for me. I didn't know that God would give me more understanding of it the longer I walked with Him.

You see, in 2012, I was going through an awful time in my life. Everything felt like it was just falling apart. I was holding on by a thread to my faith. And then, God allowed me to suffer a miscarriage. I was devastated. Angry. Confused. Why had God taken even this from me? I wondered. It felt like my life became a re-enactment of the book of Job because my family and I were walking through a time of so much heartbreak and despair. I couldn't see why God would let this happen. I had served Him almost all my life. I had never doubted Him before. But now doubt was all I knew.

I begged God to let me just get through it. I wanted to turn against Him and just walk away. I even tried to do that, but God sent someone to me at that exact moment to minister to me to let me know He still heard. And I just needed to hang in there a LITTLE longer. So that's what I did.

Fast forward to 2014. God gave me our youngest child. My child of promise. You see, even while I had miscarried, God told me he had rainbows for me. He even gave my sister a dream of a child that would come to us during a season of overflow.

Our child of promise...sweet J. 

God, in His goodness, was faithful. Not only did He deliver us out of a terrible situation, He did much more. He gave us not only enough to get by, which was my prayer, but He gave us extra. You ever hear that old saying, "the devil has to pay you double for your trouble?" Folks, I am here to tell you. IT IS TRUE! God started crazy blessing us. We started dreaming again.

Have you ever been so low that you don't even want to have hope in anything anymore? That was us. I was scared to dream. Scared to plan for the future. God showed me I have to trust Him, even in the hard stuff. Even when things don't work our how I want them to. And suddenly, the fear was gone. I wasn't afraid anymore. Heck, I had already been through hell and back. And God brought me through that, so...what was there to fear now?

Since 2014, it hasn't all been easy. We had another miscarriage in 2015. And while I don't want to diminish that loss, it wasn't as hard as the first one. Why? Because I had really learned to not just say, but believe, "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

I remembered then, that God promised me rainbows. Plural. More than one. So He already had prepared my heart in a way for what was to come.

Since God gave my heart the ability to dream again...I started thinking ahead after the second loss. To the child God promised me. I already had seen that God would fulfill the promise. He did that when he brought us our son. What I didn't know, was that God had dreams for me too. And His and mine were not the same at that time.

Dear little E! One of my most favorite pictures ever. 

This is what I thought that promise would be. ^^ Another beautiful, healthy, biological child. One that would know his or her family from birth and whose life would only add to the family as a whole. My plans were to bring another of these precious ones into the world. 

But this was not God's plan. 

As I washed dishes that morning, I already was thinking of the birthday month for this would-be child. Wouldn't another summer baby or a fall baby be wonderful? That would fit in just great with our schedules and the kids with their school calendars. (Feel free to laugh at me here. It's ok.) 

"What about adoption?" The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart. And then a strange thing happened. My picture started changing. What was that verse again? Oh, yeah. "He must become more. I must become less." 

God had a plan, right from the start to bring my heart to that moment, at that time. The pain of the past just helped to amplify His voice. My steps were already ordered by Him to walk this road. A child, halfway around the world. A child God has already chosen to be mine. A child with a physical need that might very well make her an outcast in her own country. (My belief is that she has a missing or malformed limb.) She already has a name in my heart, and a face that I just haven't seen yet. God chose this beautiful one for my family and I. For us. We have the honor of being her mother, father, sisters, and brothers.

What a God we serve. A love that seems at times so crazy and reckless, but so full and so free. And His promise is that if we just "seek first His kingdom and His righteousness" that everything else will be added to us. Everything we need to accomplish His purpose. "He must become more. I must become less." 

New Year!

I always hate saying goodbye to Christmas. It's so much fun ringing out the old year and spending time with the family and watching the kids have so many exciting moments! And I actually get everyone to take a pic looking so dapper in the new clothes/kicks. hahaha

But the new year rolls on in and I am praying that 2016 will be a great one for us. Lots of small but needed house repairs are underway. The boys got new bunk beds which turned out awesome! I'm also praying that this is the year we are fully under way with our process and maybe, just maybe, EVEN MATCHED!! Fingers and toes crossed.

Today has been a bit of a challenge. Coming out of a weekend and going into the work/school/kids activities routine is a killer sometimes. Thank goodness for coffee.

If you've been following along and wonder what is new with our process:

We have raised enough funds to cover our application fees, parenting/educational courses (yes, even as seasoned parents of 5 kids, we still need special training to assist us in understanding how to help a child bond and connect with us who has experienced abandonment and trauma), and document authentication required by the state. If all pledges come through, we also have enough for our orientation fees as well. Woot woot!

Still more to raise and a long way to go, but it is a start. The biggest monster for us to tackle right now is the home study. So much time and footwork required with that that it almost seems scary. Taking it one day at a time.

We are organizing a used shoe drive, which we think is AWESOME . We are collecting pairs of used shoes of any style or age, so long as they are in wearable condition. Funds2Orgs has partnered with us to buy these shoes and pay us per pound for them. They, in turn, send them to third world countries which helps others who can't afford shoes and otherwise wouldn't have them. AND keeps them out of our landfills. Win-win-win.

Will keep everyone posted on drop-off points and dates/times as we receive them from those who have partnered with us. If you're interested, shoot me a message here or on FB and I'll send you flyers or whatever you need to get involved.

Thanks everybody for your prayers. Please pray specifically for patience for me, and for wisdom in each step of the way. These are waters we have not navigated before, and while that is exciting, it is also sometimes scary. So thankful God called us on this journey.