This Gift

"A gift opens the way
    and ushers the giver into the presence of the great."

~Proverbs 18:16

I've been struck lately by so many things that seem to be gifts to me.  Gifts God has blessed me with.  Three in particular right now I wanted to briefly share with you.

1. The gift of God's Presence.  The month of May was really hard for me.  I was so focused on the frustrations of the process of adoption I was forgetting to be blessed during the process.  Out of much pain I chose to do some things God was encouraging me begging me to do in order to follow Him and receive the gift He had for me.  Let me be clear that following God in that moment was the last thing I really wanted to do because I knew it meant sacrificing some very precious things personally--sacrificing what I had deemed "right".  However, I wanted to follow Him because I have grown so incredibly much in my faith and trust in who God is and knew He would help me do what He was asking of me.  After the pain of the sacrifice wore off a bit, I found myself in the Presence of God's grace, mercy, love, peace, and joy once again.  Not just the way I had been in the past, but in an even more illuminated way.  I can not describe the amount of peace and joy I have in my heart right now.  Following Him, even when it hurts to the 100th degree, truly is a gift if you are willing to go through the pain of the sacrifice to gain the Presence of the Lord like you have never experienced before.  A priceless gift indeed.

2. The gift of God's "best".  One thing I've struggled with along this journey is not really knowing about Nora's day-to-day life and developing personality.  It is hard to know others get to experience her every day while I wait to know anything of significance.  Our director is an amazing woman who cares deeply for these children.  She and the nannies meet their needs the absolute best they can and their efforts are helping to make Nora an extremely well-adjusted little lady.  I'm so blessed by their care for her.  The "down-side" (if I have to call it something) to the amazing care Nora receives is that it there is not much time for emailing us and letting us know what all is happening with our sweet little girl.  When our director is not hands-on with the children, she is busy, busy, busy working on the process of paperwork for all the families.  She just doesn't have spare moments to gush out news for us.  As much as I understand this, it doesn't mean this hasn't still been hard to accept.  Being independent in our adoption (without an agency rep to fill us in regularly on Nora), we just miss out on regular doses of information.

One of the things God was asking of me recently was to give up the hope that our director would finally find a moment to spare and tell us about Nora.  He was specifically asking me to allow her to do what she does best--be the orphanage director, not what I was still wishing for--her to also be the "agency rep" for us.  Allowing her to focus more on what I know she is amazing at, frees me from expecting too much from her.  Instead, God also asked me to write down any questions I would normally want to ask of our director, and ask them instead of Him.  I had no idea how, but I felt He was reassuring me that somehow, in His way, He would answer those questions or give me a peace that would have never come before.  This was HARD for me to do!  However, friends, God is so amazing and has done just as He said He would!  He has certainly given me peace and even answers to my questions in such a unique and unexpected way.  He is so cool!  Recently the orphanage was blessed by the presence of an American pediatric physical therapist named Mary for 6 months.  While reading through her website and blog about her time in Haiti, I was able to find a way to contact her personally.  I wanted to thank her for serving Nora and the rest of the crew there and tell her we value her expertise she was willing to extend to these precious kids.  In response, she has been able to give us the most detailed report to date on what Nora is like and her day consists of.  It was a priceless gift.  God used this precious woman to answer my questions.  Not only that, but He used her to pass along beautiful photos of our baby girl and a video as well, which we have not yet figured out how to play, but just knowing she sent it was a gift in and of itself.  I'm so in love with the Lord--when I place my trust in Him, He not only delivers what I hoped for, He goes so far beyond my wildest imagination and gifts me with His "best" instead.  Oh how humbly I accept His love for me.

3.  The gift of Nora.  How can I not be thankful for the gift she is already in my life?  Just look at these precious photos of her.  Her inner beauty radiates out of those eyes and gifts anyone who sees her.

As I have released so much of my frustrations to the Lord, the joy of receiving the gift of Nora has returned 10 fold.  I have been able to focus on how excited I am for her to enter our family.  To dream about the ways she is going to enhance our home and family in ways I can only imagine.  To thank God for the gift she is already and will continue to be to my life.  I am beyond ready to hold her daily, show her love, guide her in knowing more of the Lord, and watch her grow and blossom into what God has created her to be.  Nora is such a gift to me and I thank God for her every day.

The other night, Micah and I were watching the movie "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and the song during the credits captured my heart.  I knew instantly it was the song of Nora's homecoming for me.  It is the song that will guide me through these last few months until she is in my arms.  And wouldn't you know, God has used a song that is literally entitled "This Gift".  Really, things like this should not surprise me at this point in my relationship with Him, but still...how amazing is that!  I'll let you take a listen and be blessed as well as we go through these last several months together...

So, as far as the process, if you haven't heard the news yet, our papers in MOI had just one tiny little spelling error in Nora's birth mom's name, so that has been sent back for correction and hopefully soon we will be moving on to passports.  At this point in the process we know "soon" needs to be held loosely.  It could easily still be another month before leaving MOI, which is all the more reason to pray for those papers to move as fast as God can make them.  Passports should just take a week or so at most and then we will move forward to the US side of the adoption process.  The US Embassy will issue Nora a visa and this has been taking approximately 4-8 weeks recently.  Our newest extension deadline for our visa approval is October 4th.  When I told our director that date she seemed to think we would not need another extension for it because Nora should be home before then.  Our hopes and prayers are focused on getting her home before September 30th, her 2nd birthday.  We want desperately to celebrate that birthday together as a family and we also (selfishly) want to get her home before she turns 2 because we would not have to pay for her flight if we can do that.  The financial strain is potentially coming with the extended time this adoption has taken beyond what we originally thought it would take.  Saving any money in the end would also be a gift!  So, please join us in praying for this spelling correction to be taken care of quickly and for everything else along the road to go smoothly so we can be welcoming Nora into our country, home, and arms before the end of September!  As always, we cherish your prayers and support along the road.

"A gift opens the way
    and ushers the giver into the presence of the great."

~Proverbs 18:16

New Year Thoughts, Questions, and a Heart-focused God...

Before I begin (yep, these all get long, don't they!), let me just share with you a favorite family photo from our Christmas time. I love my husband and kids so much and have to show them off. We enjoyed our time with extended family in Ohio and Nebraska this holiday season, but I also found a deeper level of missing Nora while being around all that family without our little girl in our arms or in her seat in our over-packed mini van. : )

Okay, now back to this long new year blog post...

2012. It's a new year. With a new year comes new resolutions, changes, vows, etc. As I reflect on this new year for myself I have to admit it doesn't really seem to be a big deal this time around. I chalk that up to the fact I had a wonderful 2011 and the "changes" that seem to become the focus at the start of a new year are typically because something wasn't good (or at least as good as one hoped for). People look to this fresh start to make themselves or their life better. Well, where does that leave a person when they had a great year? Not that I don't think I have improvements to make, but I truly am excited about life right now and just want to continue in the great direction I'm already going. It's actually refreshing to have a new year begin this way!

Don't get me wrong, however, there are things I want to see happen in 2012 that didn't happened in 2011 so I started a list (like most people do either mentally or literally) and this is what it looked like:

• Reading four different books I have had on my end table for far too long
  
• Some sort of exercise again since my water aerobics classes have been cancelled and I'm still in mourning
• Reading more Scripture and getting back to a more regular devoted quiet time before the Lord instead of mainly relying on my daily awareness of His Presence to fill me
  
• Be more diligent in my daily routine/tasks so I don't feel like I've wasted the day away
• Live in or discover even more freedom in the areas of my life I know I still have work to do
• Continue exploring what God's true calling on my life looks like and how to live my life in mission (shout out to my WWWC sisters!)
  
• To bring Nora home

Here's where my quiet time of reflection with the Lord about this new year got interesting. As I looked over this list I realized all of those things involved action from me...except the last one.

"To bring Nora home."

Yes, there is action I have already taken and will continue to take here and there to make this happen, but for now, I literally can't do a thing to MAKE that happen. I can make reading books happen by picking them up and reading them. I can make exercising happen by getting my butt off the couch. I can make all the other things on that list happen with effort, but I can't make Nora come home.

This left me with a lot of questions swimming in my mind and has gotten me to a place where God and I had to have a little heart-to-heart about where I am in all of this at the start of the new year. Will you come with me to that conversation for a moment? I hope by showing you where I am, maybe, just maybe, God will speak to you too.

My thoughts go back and forth like a ping pong game these days about what to pray for in this adoption or, better yet, how to pray (the only action I feel I can do right now to help Nora come home). I want so badly for Nora to be home as fast as possible--like tomorrow really--but I also know the reality of the adoption process in Haiti screams that's most likely not going to happen. So, in my prayers, I want my God to know my heart of hearts and I want to believe that if I tell Him those desires, they will be done (based on Ps. 37:4), but then I risk something huge in my heart by doing that. Do you know what that risk is? It's disappointment. Yep, that's definitely it. I haven't yet figured out how to hope for the miraculous God to show His power and yet separate that hope from potential disappointment. I'm fearful that God is going to disappoint me if He doesn't answer my heart of hearts like I thought it should be answered...that I would pray for Nora to come home miraculously fast and it wouldn't happen. I'm so fearful of that place that it literally keeps me from praying for the most bold things I know the depths of my heart are aching to pray for. Do you relate? Maybe this will help you further connect--here is a snippet of the ping pong match in my head...

God and I have a relationship where I can typically pray my truest heart of hearts. So, here is what that is: to have Nora home as soon as tomorrow. That I could be loving on her here in our home. That our kids would grow up together this first year of her life. That she would be held and cared for tenderly by me and Micah. I also honestly desire for God to miraculously bring her home faster than anyone has ever seen in order to bring witness and praise to Him. We could boldly stand on that witness to say it was NOTHING of what we did but EVERYTHING that God did! It would draw others to the God we serve and build His Kingdom, which is really even MORE of my heart than just adopting Nora. It would bolster our faith and the faiths of anyone following our adoption process. How amazingly cool is that! That is truly my heart's desire...to bring attention and honor and respect to God because He rightfully deserves it and to get Nora into our family's arms NOW because she deserves it!

However, in my prayer life, I find myself S.T.R.U.G.G.L.I.N.G. to pray this way. I struggle to pray for the miraculous in this adoption. I end up trying to rationalize why I should not pray for the miraculous and bold by filling my head with thoughts like this: If our process goes faster than anyone else's then what will that say to the others who's adoptions are taking the normal length of time? Wouldn't it say that WE had God behind ours, but THEY didn't have Him behind theirs? Or maybe it would tell them they just didn't pray or believe hard enough like we did? Wow, that sounds harsh and is totally not true so I guess I shouldn't pray for that. Or, God must need this process to be 1-2 years for those who aren't fully on board with us adopting (yes, they are out there). He must need this extra amount of time to bring them to an understanding of why this is His plan so that Nora will be fully loved by them when she gets here. That's what we truly want--for Nora to be truly loved by everyone when she gets here, so I guess that's worth the wait no matter how hard that is, right? Or, there must be a reason God had us pick Haiti instead of some of the more quickly moving countries--this time of waiting must be in His plan because He has something to teach us in the wait. Whatever that is will be worth this wait...I guess.

I think I rationalize my lack of faith and miracle seeking prayer life because it's simply safer. It's pretty risky to pray for the miraculous--what if He doesn't deliver? What if people think I'm a fool for believing in a God who can do miracles if He doesn't do one for me? What if people think God is a fake because they too were hoping and praying with me and feel failed by God? What if I am so disappointed that He didn't come through for me that I live miserably through this 1-2 year wait instead of just "waiting patiently" like everyone says I should be? It's too much of a risk in my head. It's safer to not pray that way and to rationalize my thoughts to be more predictable and controlled and in line with what everyone else is thinking or believing--the status quo of faithland.

Here's the problem though...none of those rationalizations of my head are based on fact. They are not truth. Heck, they are not even positive. Actually, I could easily flip each of them around to be something completely different if I wanted to. For example, if our process went faster than anyone's before, then maybe that would give hope to more families wanting to adopt through Haiti but have shied away from it because of the long wait. Our belief and bold prayers for God to move miraculously quick could eventually lead to many more precious children being adopted from Haiti...wow! Or, what if having Nora physically in the arms of those who doubt our decision to adopt would be what truly melts that doubt away more than any sort of waiting time. Or, what if the message God wants us to learn in this process is to trust Him more and leave things in His hands instead of trusting the system and the "proper" time line of Haitian adoptions? Or, lastly, what if the reason God had us pick Haiti was simply...Nora Josephine. That His decision for us to go through Haiti had nothing to do with the amount of time we had to wait or the lessens we could learn in the wait, but that it was simply, beautifully, and solely about Nora being connected to the Thieszens for our time on earth. Wouldn't those more positive assumptions be better to dwell on? Wouldn't they inspire and encourage a miraculous God to do His work instead of limiting the actions of God by my negative thinking? So why is this such a hard spot to be in?

Well, as much as the first, negative rationalizations of my brain were not facts, these more positive flips on them are also, unfortunately, not facts. They are not truth either. I can not foresee the future and I can not foresee what God will do in our adoption...miraculously bring Nora home in record time or allow it to continue on at a normal snail's pace for 1-2 years. My MIND can not know the outcome of my prayers. My MIND is not what I should be praying out of because it does not always think of the Truth...it thinks of the positives or the negatives, but not always, or even typically, the Truth...and THAT is why I have been struggling with my prayer life. I've been praying with my head.

To find Truth, the only thing I can do is look to God's Word and forget my own thoughts (negative or positive). Only God's Truth brings understanding and freedom and life, but He doesn't necessarily bring that to our heads--our brain--our thinking. He brings that to our hearts, and THIS is the key! Believe me when I say there is a difference between our heads and our hearts. He speaks to me not in my thoughts because His ways are not my ways, His thoughts are not my thoughts--they are higher than anything I could come up with (Isaiah 55:8-9)! He speaks to my heart because that is what He is looking for--He wants hearts that are committed to Him, not brains (2 Chron. 16:9). When I grabbed my Bible, turned off my thought-life, and opened my heart, I was met by the God I love. I thoroughly enjoy how God speaks to and soothes my confused and questioning head by raising up a solid and peaceful heart to take its place.

His Words didn't really give me answers to the questions I still have in my head about Nora's adoption timeline, but it gave me the hope I needed to risk asking of God the impossible and miraculous desires of my heart. It gave me the courage to trust in Him to conquer the fears of disappointment that still hold some space in my head. Did you catch that? Those fears of disappointment I mentioned clear back at the very beginning of this post are not in my heart, friends, I found them in my head. God revealed something new to me today--that my heart is typically NOT what is disappointed when God doesn't allow things don't go the way I think or expect them to go. I still very much love God in my heart when that happens, but my thoughts are what come up disappointed because, in a prideful way, I was proven wrong by God and that hurts when you find out you don't know as much as you thought you did--even if it's by God, right?!? (More freedom from pride found today, my friends...what a blessing!) Anyway, beyond the references already mentioned in this post, here are a few more that my God shared with me today that brought me back to a place of my heart...and perhaps He is sharing them with you too...

• Romans 8:25-27, "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God."
• 1 Cor. 1:18-20 & 25, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written; 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."
• Ps. 77:13-14, "Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; You display Your power among the peoples."
• Mark 11:22-23, "'Have faith in God,' Jesus answered. 'Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them."
• Pr. 16:9, "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps."
• Mt. 17:20, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

So, there you have it. The way I am starting out 2012 is to live not so much out of my head and so much more out of my heart...in this adoption process, as well as in all the areas of life I just don't understand. My mind does not understand the miraculous. It does not understand the mundane. It does not understand the ways of man. It does not understand the ways of God. There are many things my mind just doesn't understand. BUT. I do understand I have a heart that is ever beating for the Lord and that's more important than anything my mind would understand anyway. I will chose, this day, to ask boldly for the God who loves my heart and hears the deepest desires of that heart to work on our behalf to bring our beautiful Nora home in miraculous time. What will you ask of Him out of your heart and not out of your head as 2012 begins? I would love to hear your answer to that question if you would be so willing, bold, daring, and honest to post them in the comment section of this post. To God be the glory!