FINISHED!

Y'all. Finally, I'm feeling hopeful again. The Lord is gracious in our sadness; He gives me time to grieve-pout, then grieve-rage, then actually grieve-mourn, then (finally) accept His comfort and hope. He's so good.

It took me long enough, but I'm finally feeling like we will adopt at some point, that we're not running on a treadmill, and that God isn't withholding our deep (and godly) desires like a bully putting stiff-arming your forehead. I know, sometimes I believe crazy things about God, but He's so gentle in guiding me back to what I know to be true about Him.

Are we for sure about our direction? No. Not at all. I really wish I could say, "THIS way is THE way!" But I cannot. I really, really wish money wasn't the only thing holding us back from moving forward tomorrow, but it is. But, finally, I believe again that God will provide in His good time.

In the meantime, I've been at work. First it was a little desperate, like I must keep swimming or I'll shark-die! But now that I've remembered that it's good to have God in control, I'm just glad there are things my hands can do to help.

Y'all know I make jewelry. Honestly, I do it for fun, because pretty! But I want to sell it to raise funds for our adoption. So Jenni Olowo of Jenni O Photo was gracious enough to lend her photographic prowess to photograph two of my friends wearing my jewelry. Then Jenni sent me ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE photos of FORTY EIGHT different pieces. It was a lot of work! But I finished YAY today I finished!

Stay tuned for a sneak peek on tomorrow's Fundraising Friday!

Colorado

I'm writing this post from chilly Estes Park, Colorado! Ezra's napping, Stephen's at his LT orientation, and we're alllmost settled into the Rainbow duplex. Perhaps I'll take some pictures and post 'em. Y'all, it's rustic. But I think it'll be a great little home for us for the next 11 weeks. Boys have already taken over our house in College Station (prayers for our a/c are appreciated), and the summer is officially underway.

Do you ever feel like you've been telling yourself to "just make it to [insert point in time here]" for a long time? Man, I've been doing that for SERIOUSLY months now. It would be nice to know if things really will slow down, or if I need to somehow just make a change to this being my new normal.

I don't have an actual update for our adoption because we've been cleaning and organizing our whole house, packing what we need to live somewhere else for 11 weeks into our Ford Focus, and driving across the country. Also, we currently don't have the funds to act on a decision (probably), even if we'd made one. So I'm focusing on getting this little "house" in order and trying to start processing my feelings again (because it's been a "just keep swimming" past few weeks).

Update

Well there's no big news or something like that, but I will give you a lil adoption update. Since we're most likely parting with our current program, the fundraising countdown doesn't really apply anymore. :(

But we've pretty much narrowed our focus down to adopting from Democratic Republic of the Congo or Hong Kong. There are positives and negatives with both; I can tell you we'd rather adopt from DRC. There are children (lots of children) waiting who have no special need (and some are infants; many are toddlers). As soon as we collect the money, we could move forward.

Man, what a bitter pill to swallow, that the only thing keeping us from adding to our family is money. It rankles. [that's what I say now when I want to say something sucks]. You know what's a similar word and also a great one? Fester. Just sayin'.

Where was I? Oh yes, festering. I'm sure this is me being whatever personality I am [ENFP], but I really dislike that something as arbitrary as money is what's holding us back. Then again, I've never had much respect for it. I'm not sure how healthy it is; money just feels like tennis shoes. Sure, there are a number of things you can do without tennis shoes, but there are things you just can't without an athletic shoe, and there's no real getting around that. And I'm sure some people are desperate for and in love with athletic shoes, but I cannot whip myself into any sort of excitement over tennis shoe shopping. They never fit perfectly and I'm often not enjoying myself when I'm wearing them. Money. Tennis shoes. I mean, who gets giddy over paying bills (or fees, as it is)? Who adores keeping the budget? It's tidy, but it's not fun like a good cute pair of sandals. Is all I'm sayin'.

Anyway, if you'd be praying for us (for money to rain down from the sky, or for a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to guide us in the direction He wants us to go), we'd really appreciate that. In the mean time, I've been working up some new jewelry to Etsify hopefully in a little over a week. I'll share that when it's done.

Direction Change?

So, you may have noticed that there's been no movement whatsoever on our waiting list since January. We got news on Thursday that the main orphanage our agency works with is not making referrals for international adoption until October. The main reason is that our Western understanding of adoption is not the way adoption is viewed or usually done in Africa. Their plan is to make a documentary of how Ugandan children thrive in their American homes, in hopes that it will change hearts toward our process of adopting. Which is great, honestly; I hope desperately that it works.

However, our vision for adopting was just as much about bringing home a child who has little chance of thriving without being adopted as it is about the joy of adding to our family. We never intended to sit on a waiting list; we were okay with it not because there were so many families and so few orphans, but because the process is slow slow slow in Africa (as viewed through our Western eyes, lol!).

So, we're seriously considering a change in plan, possibly even in country. I cannot express to you in blogwords how rocked our world has been. But, after a day of "why me?" the Lord successfully gave me a kick-in-the-pants-slash-pep-talk, and I'm back. Back to having hope that He knows where our child is and that we will bring him/her home, with His help.

His heart is for orphans, more than mine. His heart is for my child, more than mine. He knows what He's doing, and I am choosing to trust that. If you'd like, we'd love prayer for direction as far as what to do from this point (please, speak loudly and clearly, Lord!), and for increased financial provision, as we will almost assuredly have significantly more than $7,500 left to raise, with the change in plans.

Hi. My name is Michelle

And I'm addicted to sugar. Like, the-same-as-I-was-addicted-to-cigarettes addicted. If you've never been addicted to something other than food, you may think this is kind of silly. But I remember quitting smoking, and this is just like that.

[An aside: sometimes I feel like I'm airing out my dirty laundry on my blog, but, truth be told, food addiction is pretty tame laundry, even though it's wrapped in shame.]

You know, I limited myself to one or two cigarettes for months before I was able to completely kick the habit. Months. Miserable months. I just didn't know how to let go of that sweet, sweet nicotine. [Stephen laughed when I used that phrase earlier this evening. He just doesn't know.] Honestly, I was only able to quit because of the patch and a big reward for being smoke-free for a month. I still had a few slips since then.

I even tried a cigarette a while ago (it had been years since my last slip), and the hunger to smoke again returned, almost fiercely. Man, something in me is set to addiction mode.

So I really am that kind of addicted to sugar. The hide the goods, be controlled in all other areas, contain it as much as you can, that kind of addiction. It's open-and-shut; I need to get rid of this. I can't contain it. I don't have the self-control. I have to go cold turkey and be okay with maybe never being able to have sugar again. Oh sugar, I love you! How can I leave you?!? There is something wrong with me.

Jesus, here's my mess. I just can't even anymore.