Pleased with the Cross

Pleased with the Cross

Posted by Candace

Good Friday.  A day that we set aside to honor, mourn, and contemplate the death of Christ.  The death that makes it possible for us to live.  The Son of God, in humble obedience to the Father, choosing to suffer...choosing to die a horrific and shocking death...choosing to throw Himself in front of sin...for you and for me.  This is a story dripping with the worst of humanity and the best of the Godhead.

Yesterday I found myself watching a movie called "Anne Frank".  Anne was one of many, many victims of the Holocaust.  I had avoided this story for many years simply because of the heart wrenching sadness that it brings.  Anne was not famous...she was really nothing special.  The only reason that we even know her name is because she chose to keep a fairly detailed journal during her family's time in hiding from the Nazis.  The story is particularly moving because of the sacrifice that the friends of Anne Frank and her family made in hiding them...knowing that it meant death if they were found out.  It is also particularly frightening because Anne and her family were completely innocent of any crime and were simply born Jewish.  They were captured right before the war ended and sent to concentration camps, where Anne and her sister died of disease before their release could be obtained.

As I rolled such injustice around in my head and my heart, I got stuck on a verse.  Isaiah 53:10.  Will you go with me for a moment into some really difficult Biblical territory?  Let me start a few verses up so that you will feel the weight of verse 10.

But He was pierced because of our transgressions,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on Him,
and we are healed by His wounds.
We all went astray like sheep;
we all have turned to our own way;
and the Lord has punished Him
for the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet He did not open His mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter
and like a sheep silent before her shearers,
He did not open His mouth.
He was taken away because of oppression and judgment;
and who considered His fate?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
He was struck because of my people’s rebellion.
They made His grave with the wicked
and with a rich man at His death,
although He had done no violence
and had not spoken deceitfully.

Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely.
When You make Him a restitution offering,
He will see His seed, He will prolong His days,
and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished

 

"Yet the LORD was pleased to crush Him severely."  Let me say it one more time..."Yet the LORD was pleased to crush Him severely."  Can you stop and close your eyes and let it sink in for a moment?  Jesus...Son of God...innocent and perfect...walking the earth in total obedience to God...living completely for others...healing...loving...giving all He had...yet the His Father was pleased to crush Him severely... to punish Him for our sins.

 

At fleeting glance...if you don't know our God intimately, this is intolerable!  Such injustice!  It's not only not fair, it is fairly sadistic.  If you are acquainted with our Great God, however, you will look a little bit deeper.  Let's zoom out for a second...

 

God was pleased because He alone knew the plan.  He alone saw the big picture.  He saw that what was happening to Jesus...every stripe on his back...every nail in his flesh...every accusation and oppression...His hurt...His pain...EVERYTHING was working together for our good.  What gave Him pleasure at the cross was that He was already standing at the empty grave!  As His Son was being desecrated by the creation of His own Hands, He saw a reconciled relationship with you and with me.  The cross was not the end... it was a new beginning! 

 

The offense comes in with the application of this passage to our daily lives.  If God was pleased as He watched the suffering of His Son because it accomplished His Will, then He is pleased when He watches our suffering too.  When all is going according to the plan, He is pleased.  I don't mean to say that He does not walk, oh so closely to us through our sufferings.  I am only saying that He sees the big picture.  He sees the Glory this will bring Him on the other side...He sees how it will all work together for good and He is pleased.  The same God who offered up His Son to the world for shame and contempt so that you and I could be in relationship with Him, is the same God who allows suffering to mold us and shape us...not only us, but those around us.

 

I could give so many examples of this, but we would be here for hours and God woke me up at 4am to write this, so I will keep it short.  It is not easy for me to put any of this on paper.  Every word has been weighty and difficult.  I don't want you to think this was easy for me to write to you...those of you that are suffering right now.  Here I am with this amazing family and this great story and in many eyes living "happily ever after"...whatever that means :).  I am here to tell you that I have suffered.  I have suffered privately and silently, but I have suffered.  Those closest to me would be my witnesses.  Many, many, many nights and many, many, many days spent "innocently" suffering.  And can I just tell you that the thought that God has been pleased with my suffering makes it just a little bit easier to take?  Doesn't that sound absolutely crazy?  Our God is such a paradox.  The thought that my suffering has, even in some little way, accomplished the plan of God makes it seem worth it.  No, I don't want to suffer ever again...and I don't pray for suffering, but can I tell you that the most sacrificial prayers...those like "Conform me to Your Will" and "Make me more like Your Son" and "Use me for Your Glory" and "Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done." are all prayers that lead to some kind of suffering.  Suffering, my sweet friends, is part of the plan.  Suffering shows us our deep, unquenchable need for this amazing Savior.

 

I know this has been a hard one.  It is still hard for me to flesh out...and hard for me to accept.  There is so much more I could write, but let's just think on this today.  Let's bring it before the throne as we contemplate the cross.  Many of us have not counted this cost, and I think we need to hang out here for a while to make sure that we are really on board with this Christ following thing.  Jesus said to His followers right before the cross..."Whoever does not eat My flesh and drink My blood has no part in Me." In other words, if you can't suffer with Me, you can't rejoice in resurrection with Me either.  Many of the people following Him went home after this.  It wasn't what they had signed up for.  I LOVE this passage.  Jesus turns to the rest of the disciples and says "You wanna go home too?" and Peter says "Where would we go, Lord? Only You have the Words of eternal life."

 

 

 

 

 

Why the Gay Marriage Debate Still Matters

Why the Gay Marriage Debate Still Matters

Posted by Candace

Every now and then, a subject comes to the forefront of the media that endangers the freedom of Christians in this nation.  It is usually something that, at first glance, seems innocent enough and even like none of our business.  Nonetheless, often these harping points of the media must be addressed by the Christian community even at the risk of the labels, name calling, and misunderstandings.

Gay marriage is one such subject.  As the battle has continued over the past several years, the world has chosen to ignore the fact that many of us do not consider this a "main stream" concept and are in fact, against it for many great reasons.  Last week Chickfila owner, Dan Cathey, simply answered a question truthfully...with an answer that quite frankly had to already be obvious...and suddenly he has put himself and his business right in the middle of the firing line.  Why???  He never said that he hated gay people or that they were not allowed at his restaurants or that even that they were not welcome to apply for a job.  The media took his support of the family and twisted it into hate mongering claiming that Chickfila is a restaurant right out of Westboro Baptist Church.  By the time the loud people with the agenda were finished, anyone with no point of reference would imagine Chickfila with "God hates Gays" signs in their windows.  Since when does it mean that you hate someone when you disagree with their actions?  But this is what the media does, oh so well.  They determine the culture.  Did you notice that there was not much question in the media throughout this debacle about whether gay marriage should be allowed?  Only accusations that anyone against it hates gays and is narrow minded and a bigot.  They acted shocked, appalled, and surprised at this "revelation" of Mr. Cathey.  This is what they do...they try to end the war and advance their agenda through bullying tactics like we see in this instance.  They act like only a super small, super right winged, super stupid, super backwoods group of people are against it...when truthfully at least half of America is. And the sad fact is... we buy it.  We start thinking "Maybe I am being judgmental." or "Maybe I should mind my own business." or "Well, it wouldn't affect me if gay marriage was allowed, so who cares." or "It's inevitable, so we might as well just sit down and shut up."

If you know me, you know that I have my Biblical reasons for being against gay marriage, but I wanted to point out a few reasons that have little to do with the Bible for why I think it is ridiculous that we are even in such a serious discussion about this.  It would be very easy for me to crawl back in my shell and mind my own business on this, but how bad of a person would I be if I did that believing that future generations are at stake.  Before I state these reasons, I would like to say very clearly that I don't hate homosexuals. I do not shun them or act strange around them.  I love them just as I would any other person that I meet.  I believe God loves them just as much as He loves me... and I do not take lightly that He created us all.  I do, however, believe that just as much as lying, murdering, cheating, and stealing are sins, homosexuality is too.  I believe that it is a sin that can be cleansed and overcome by the blood of Jesus, just as every other sin can.  I do not think that homosexuality will go away, just as I don't think that society will ever stop lying or cheating...

...But this gay marriage issue is a slippery slope for our society for several reasons.

First, I think it is dangerous for any people group to be defined by their sexual preferences.  This has made "sex" almost a household term and we just have to deal with it.  Sex is a private act that needs to be kept in the bedroom for many reasons...most of them pertaining to our innocent and impressionable children.  Now the gay agenda is pushing for this stuff to be taught in schools to children as young as Kindergarten...KINDERGARTEN!!!  Like our 5 year olds!! If gay marriage is allowed, you can be sure that this agenda will be advance under an umbrella of teaching tolerance. Yes, for the time being, I can protect my children from this by homeschooling or sending them to private school, but alot of people can not...and one day, my children are going to come into contact with children that have been taught things that they shouldn't have to think about until they are adults.  We are destroying our children's innocence by saying that this is a necessary lesson for them.  Learning the "ABC's" is necessary...learning numbers is necessary...learning how sex between 2 men and between 2 women works is completely unnecessary..  Learning about sex in general should be up to the parent to teach when they feel their child is mature enough for the discussion.  We have already had that right taken from us, now we are having to define people by what they do in bed and explain that to our children. 

Second, where does this stop?  We now have people comparing homosexuality to race, even though it has not ever been proven that you are born homosexual.  So what about the man that feels that he was born to be attracted to children?  Are we now going to legalize pedophilia and put our children in grave danger?  What about the weirdos out there sleeping with animals?  Are they going to be able to marry them someday?  The polygamists are already petitioning for their "rights"?  In the next generation or two will it be acceptable to have 6 wives?  what about 3 husbands?  What does all this mean for our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren?  We are sliding right into a muddy pit and we didn't even see it coming.  Many of you reading may be scoffing at this point thinking that it could never happen, that we are smarter than that, that we know better.  Are you sure??  Cause it seems to me that it only takes a few really LOUD voices with a little help from the media and hollywood and a few screwed up "studies" to make these things an issue.  We should be very afraid.

Third, if you are alive on this earth, you are not the product of a homosexual relationship.  This is by design and is the biggest obvious clue that this is not a natural relationship. If we all "chose" to be homosexual, the human race would cease to exist in one generation.  One of the calls of the marriage relationship is to replenish the earth.

Last thing I want to point out, as much as the people with the agenda would like to hide it, it has been proven in several studies that the traditional family, when done the right way, is the best environment to raise children.  Gay marriage not only attacks this environment, it kills it before it gets started.  Children need a Mom who is a real woman and a Dad who is a real man.  I know in this broken world that this is becoming fewer and farther between, but that is only reason to fight harder for it, not to give up on it all together.  A nation is only as strong as its families.  Ours is quickly disintegrating.  

Is this enough of an argument without the truth of God's Word added to it?  I do not know.  I'm sure this post could be easily called a "hate crime" in a few years and get me sent to prison, but I can't quit speaking out about the mistakes we are trying to hard to make. The children we are raising now are the next generation of thinkers, deciders, and leaders.  If that doesn't scare you, nothing will.

Meet Naomi Grace...

Meet Naomi Grace...

Posted by Candace

So it had been two weeks since we submitted our LOI (letter of intent) for Yang Jieling, so I decided to email our agency this morning and ask if we had heard anything yet.  I really didn't expect anything to come of it, because these things are fairly uncontrollable for the agency and this is a waiting game, but I was pleasantly surprised when I just received an email back a few minutes ago with a PREAPPROVAL ATTACHED!!!!  Yay!  Yang Jieling...Naomi Grace...is OURS...or will be ours in a few months.

I am so excited to introduce this precious girl to you.  She will be two on April 19th and we may have just enough time to send her a birthday present :).  Her "special need" is microtia which is the missing ear that you see in these pictures.  She may or may not have a fully developed ear underneath that precious skin, but either way we are sooooo excited to welcome her into our family.  She was actually left when she was 3 months old which makes us wonder if maybe her family just could not afford the medical care that she needed.  She was left with a note that stated her name and birthdate.  Please pray that this note will be given to us when we go get her.  What a precious thing to be able to give our daughter when she is older!  As grieved and saddened as I am that adoption is necessary, I am just as privileged and humbled and excited that God has once again chosen our family for this precious gift.  Kate is SO EXCITED to have a sister.

We fully expect God will provide for this call financially, so if He lays us on your heart and you would like to be a part of Naomi's redemption, you can click on the link above this blog to contribute via GoFundMe.  We are grateful for any contribution you can give, but above all else, we need your prayers and we continue on this adventure of building our family.

Thank you for your prayers.  God is working through them in our family to prepare us and to prepare Jieling.  We have other news that we can't share yet, but in a couple of months we hope to be able to.

Love you all!

The Scare of Special Needs

The Scare of Special Needs

Posted by Candace

I find myself tired today of labels.  Those little things that follow us around like our shadow.  The things that allow the world to group us together into categories and put us out of their minds as "understood", checking us off their to do list as taken care of.  Whether it is mentally unstable, conservative, red neck, religious, loser, smart, beautiful, perfectionist, or loud mouth...we like to put people into a category thinking that we have figured them out. "Special Needs" is one such label that is riding on my patience and one that is also near and dear to my heart.  Can we open up this category for a moment and see what we find stuffed inside?

I was not always open to delving into this label and allowing my heart to be changed by what I found when I let out the people inside.  If I am honest, I was terrified of what would be found.  I remember days at the ball park when I would walk by the Miracle League field and almost turn my head away as I thought about what it might be like to raise a child with "special needs".  I would thank God for my healthy boys, all the while crossing my fingers that I would never have to venture into this portion of society.  My pride was as great as my fear in this area.  Hopefully I would never have to sit on a bench with other parents and watch my near adult child struggle to first base.  Hopefully I would never have to wait on my child with a limp to catch up.  Hopefully I would never have to go home to cabinets full of medicines that kept my child alive or special devices that were needed to assist in daily care.  Hopefully my child would never have only one ear or a disfigured face. Hopefully I would never find myself associated with this label... with "special needs" people.

When David and I started our adoption research.  He was much more open than I was to the group of children in the adoption world labeled "special needs".  Whereas I limited my research and dreaming and planning to a perfectly healthy child, he jumped at the chance to enter the world of these precious children who had been assigned to this category.  When we realized that God was leading in this direction, I completely panicked.  I scrambled for control.  When I was given the form to fill out choosing which special needs we felt like our family could handle, I hesitated over and over again...box after box...I didn't want any of these imperfections.  I didn't want any extra issues... I wanted a child who would fit into my perfect vision of life and my perfectly controlled and safe world.  I am being completely honest because I know there are people out there like I used to be.  I know that you are scared to death of anyone that has been grouped into this category whether infant or old person.  You want to put all these people in a box, close it up, wrap it really tight with the ribbon of "let somebody else deal with them", and hide it in the furthest corner away from your life that you can get it.

And ya'll, we are ALL special needs to God.  EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. US.  Some of us have a prettier face to put on than others, and many of us never let our guard down long enough to be cast into the category, but we all have "special needs".

I visited the doctor on Monday with David to update our physicals for this home study.  I haven't had an xray of my spine in YEARS and I do mean years.  I hide from them whenever I can...and it didn't take my doctor long to find out why.  "Candace!" she said. "Do you know what your back looks like?"  Yes, I knew.  I know the sharp curve in my spine by heart...the one that makes the right side of my rib cage stick out like a hunch back.  The one that I see first in every picture of me...that I have become a pro at hiding in my clothes and in the way I stand when I am thinking about it.  The one that I am quite sure many people notice, but stay far away from mentioning out of sheer politeness.  I was born with scoliosis and we never noticed it until my growth had sealed my plight for life (barring major, major surgery).  My doctor practically begged me at this appointment to get it looked at by an orthopedic.  On the way home, David mentioned the xrays again and I groaned. "That's exactly why I hate getting xrays.  I don't want anyone to see that... to mention it... to know that it's so bad."  And David answered me profoundly and he wasn't even trying.  He said something to the tune of, "I don't see what the big deal is, Candace.  It is no different than the problems that we have to take care of in Kate or will have to in Naomi."  You see, I have always viewed my scoliosis as making me less of a person...weird...different...unacceptable.  In that moment it was like Jesus was saying, "If you keep thinking of yourself this way, you are going to have to think the very same thing about your daughters."  If I had been abandoned in China, I would be "special needs"...less adoptable...one of the children that people have to "pray hard" about before they accept or turn down.

Katherine Hope is the furthest thing from the"special needs" label that will undoubtedly follow her around while she walks on this earth.  She is healthy and happy and strong.  She is light and joy and peace.  She is beauty and love and laughter.  She is redeemed...just like me.  And no physical disability, no mental issues, no label can change that.  Yes, we are special, and yes, we are desperately needy...for Him.  We have a Creator who formed us and shaped us in the womb for maximum effect and purpose.  He knew exactly what He was doing.  He made us perfect in every way. EVERY WAY.  No, we didn't ask to be different, but He saw the job we needed to do...He saw the ways that He would get glory...He saw that nothing...none of our tears, our hurt, our pain...NOTHING would be wasted.  And He knew the moments that we would need to lean on Him the most...He knew the intricate details that would require a desperate cry for help...He knew that perfection in the eyes of the world was no kind of perfection at all.  So He twisted a little piece there and left out a little piece here...He worked His skillful hands into our bodies, our souls, and our hearts and when He was done, He said to Himself, "This. THIS. This is good."

I no longer look at people the same way.  It's almost as if, through this process of bringing home Kate, God has implanted into me a little bit of His vision.  I see the people that we all easily label and cast off as "special needs" and I see their complete beauty... their beauty that surpasses anything a "normal" person could have to offer.  I see how they pray longer, how they worship more fully, how they ask for help when they need it... they are free from prideful entanglements and unrealistic expections.  They carry an innocence that must be sweet savor to our God.  They know the pain of surgeries, of rejections, of chronic illnesses and it shapes them into these admirable people who most walk right past without realizing what they are missing. There is a holiness to their lives and it is a privilege to know them when one lets down their guard and gets close enough.  This is what I now seek out and run after...those closest to the heart of the Saviour.  The people rejected by the world have an audience immediately with Him...those of us with "special needs".

Open up this box to which you have assigned certain people in your life... around your life... that need to be in your life.  You will find that only fear labels and categorizes and ostracizes.  You may not ever understand completely, but you will have more joy in meeting those of us that were created differently.  He hides the most magnificent treasures in the plainest packages.

The Beginnings of Grace

The Beginnings of Grace

Posted by Candace

For those who missed my Facebook post this weekend, David and I received a referral from China on Friday for our 2nd daughter and 4th child.  Appropriately named, Naomi Grace is already showing us the glory of God even from the beginnings of her story.  Hopefully I can do justice in telling it.

Friday, a friend and I had a date to watch a documentary about Chinese adoptees as teenagers.  "Somewhere Between" follows the journey of four beautiful adopted girls as they feel their way through adolescence.  One of these girls actually pursues and finds her birth family in China and another advocates for a little orphan girl she noticed on one of her many return trips there.  Needless to say, emotions came seeping out everywhere and I was a mess.  This country and its problems that cause it to abandon its children are buried in my soul and I daily feel the pull to DO SOMETHING. 

My friend left and I was still drying tears when I checked my email and realized that I had an email from my case worker.  We had a REFERRAL!!  Let me just say that I sat in shock for a moment.  Kate's paperwork pregnancy had been so much different.  So much waiting...and waiting...and waiting.  To already have the file and pictures of our child was more than I could have ever asked for at this point.  It was FAST!  I will digress for a moment to tell you why...just because hopefully some of you are interested in how all this fun stuff works. 

We had to start from scratch with Kate.  We had nothing... no home study, no dossier, no forms to copy information from.  So we had to gather all the paperwork for the home study (which included a little bit of our whole life), then we had to have our home study social worker appointments (5 to be exact), then we had to file our immigration forms to get approval from the US government to adopt, then we had to compile more paperwork for our dossier and get it notarized and authenticated (it is so easy to type all of this, but believe me it includes plenty of hoops), then we had to send our dossier for translation and logging in China, get our referral, be preapproved for our referral, then approved for our referral, then file more forms with the US government to bring home that specific child, and then get our visas, and then finally our travel approval.  This time we are able to reuse our dossier that is already logged in China as long as we get an update to it sent in before Kate's gotcha date (which is May 7th).  This means that we are on a fast track...so we actually got this referral before we even have our home study updated.  We now have to finish updating the home study, apply to immigration again, and then send our dossier update to China.  In the meantime, we are free to accept a referral and be preapproved for a child because none of this requires China to look at our actual dossier...they only look at that for the final approval.

Even though I had a clue that we could get a referral any day, it still blew my mind that I was staring at one on our computer.  While I attempted to open the file for viewing, Emily and our other case worker bridged me in on a call.  As I opened the first picture, I was sure that they had accidentally given us a boy.  I know that they don't have many options, but I can't tell you how much I hate it that they shave the hair of the little girls in the summer.  I KNOW that it is not feasible for them to take care of the hair of all of these orphans, but for some reason, it feels to me like heaping shame upon shame.  After they assured me that this was indeed a girl, the next thing I noticed is that this little girl had only one ear.  It was not hard to know what her special need was before I even opened her written file. When I opened the file, I thought it was interesting that she shares a birthday with my mom.  Those of you who know my mom's story know that GRACE is the theme running through it. She is also located in Guangdong, the same province as Kate, so we would have easy access for a visit to Kate's orphanage AND we would be at the same hotel for the whole two weeks (a major blessing). As I chatted with Emily and Suzanna, my heart prayed and asked God if this was her, if this was Naomi Grace.  I wish I could tell you that I got a definite answer or that God wrote on the wall, I only know what came out of my mouth.  "How can I say 'no' to this child because of a missing ear???"  How could I leave this child in an institution one day longer?  I could only do it if God specifically said that this was not her...and I didn't feel that He said that.  As I talked to David a little bit later, I heard the same question resound in his feelings about the referral.  This was her unless God said differently.

We kept our hearts open on Saturday asking each other at different times all day what the other was thinking, feeling, etc.  It wasn't at all that we were not satisfied with the referral, it is just that we were prepared to say "yes" to God, even if it meant walking into severe defects and conditions.  We are as fully surrendered as we have ever been and I think that we both felt that God would take full advantage of that.  This just didn't feel like that big of a deal.  It really is even a lesser need than Kate has and we had to verify a couple of times that this child is on the "Special Focus" list which is supposed to be children on the list more than 60 days because of "less adoptable" special needs conditions. 

In order to accept the referral of a child, it is more than just responding to an email and saying "We'll take her".  There is a whole packet of info that must be completed, passport photos that needs to be sent, and a family pic that has to be sent.  I thought that we had until Sunday evening to get this packet in, so we took our time on Saturday and I did some much needed cleaning.  Sunday morning, however, I received a text that Small World needed the packet in ASAP...meaning as early Sunday morning as I could get it in.  I read this text right when I got up and immediately called Emily.  I had planned on getting our passport photos taken right after church because I couldn't find my extra set that I knew I had somewhere.  I had looked for it everywhere on Saturday to no avail.  Emily suggested that we skip church and go get the photos taken and the paperwork turned in.  While I was talking on the phone to her, I pulled out a notebook that I totally forgot I had and lo, and behold, passport photos. I had looked EVERYWHERE the day before, so I really felt that this was God's first "yes, this is her."  I pulled the passport photos out and compiled my other paperwork and went over to my scanner.  It was then I realized that we had not hooked up this scanner yet, so I couldn't scan the documents to email them over.  I called Emily back immediately and asked if I could come over and use their scanner.  She wasn't leaving for church for another few minutes, so she said to come on over.

At this point, I was still in my pjs, I had not brushed my teeth, and my hair looked like I had spent the night in jail, but despite all of that, I did not even stop to put on jeans.  I jumped in the car and drove the 5 miles to her house only to remember that she had hosted the youth event for the weekend and half the church was at her house...okay, maybe just 20 students and 3 chaperones, but it sure did feel like half the church when I jumped out of my car and ran across her lawn in my pjs.  Long story short, Emily and I worked for 20 minutes and couldn't get her internet hot enough to allow the scans.  So I called David and told him that we needed to rush to his office and try to scan from there on some new scanners that he had hooked up the week before.  We went to the office and realized that the scanners were not ideal for photos and would not work for the packet.  By this time, church had started.  I was still in my pjs, but David had gotten him and the kids ready for church, so I told him to just go on to church and I would catch up after I figured out how to get this paperwork over.

I ran home and changed my clothes (because I draw the line at visiting Office Depot in my pjs) and got ready for church.  I also had to make a change to one of the documents and print it out.  When I got in my car to leave, I realized that I had left the most important document in the scanner at Emily's house....a document that needed to be signed by David...who was at church.  I won't even tell you how I fixed this problem, but I did.  I was finally headed to Office Depot...all the while knowing that time was running out.  It was now 10:30pm in China and we needed somebody awake to take my paperwork and lock this file.  So all the way to town, I argued with myself in my head about trusting Office Depot to be able to do this quickly on a Sunday or stop by the office again and try to make it work.  I finally decided to trust myself to figure out the office scanner...wrong choice, of course... within 10 minutes, I realized that I had no idea and time was running out... I drove quickly to Office Depot where they had my files scanned to a jump drive in 5 minutes.  I ran back out to the car (yes, I was really smart and had decided to wear heels to church) and plugged the drive into my computer only to realize that the files were in the wrong format...back into Office Depot I went...running across the parking lot in heels (at least it wasn't in pjs).  The guy fixed the files and I called David to ask him where I could find free wifi in town so I could email everything.  He has a wifi hotspot on his phone so I headed to the church to meet him.

We sat in the car and uploaded all of the files and finally sent them...only to realize the email got caught in my outbox...by this time I was almost hysterical because NO ONE has a morning like this... David made the necessary adjustments and finally the email was sent.  We both breathed a sigh of relief, sent up a prayer that it was in time, and headed in to Sunday School.

After church, we received an email from Small World that they were doubtful that we would get this paperwork in on time to lock the file, AND one of the documents was in the wrong format and needed to be resent before they could try.  I resent the document, but by then it was 3am in China and we had little hope we had made the deadline.  Our amazing people said that they would do their best, but not much was on our side.  Once a file goes back to the shared list and your time is up, you can never be assigned that same file again.  David and I, suprisingly, took this in stride.  We decided that if we lost this file, it was God saying that this was not our daughter.  We told Small World this and we waited and prayed that God's will would be done.

Well, this morning, while we were in the middle of physical updates at our doctor's office in Atlanta, we received an email that we got the file.  WE GOT THE FILE...against all odds and all my paperwork weaknesses, God's grace had once again been faithful...and just because He can, He added a video.  Today I have watched a 3 minute video of our sweet daughter at least 5 times.

Grateful and amazed that despite my failures and shortcomings, Jesus is FAITHFUL and His grace is overwhelming. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Please pray for us as there are still many huge hurdles to jump...and pray for our Naomi Grace as God prepares her (and us) for our family.  As soon as we get our preapproval, we will be posting pictures and the video :).  She is presh and you will love her.

PS. This stuff can only happen to me, I promise!  If you want another example, look up my blog "The Country Blonde Goes to Atlanta"   Only me...