Cleaning House

In attempts to raise some money for this whole adoption thing I've decided to have a yard sale. One of the things that has resulted in is hours spent cleaning out my house along with my parents house. There is something that I find very satisfying about removing unnecessary stuff from my house. Spending so much time cleaning out the material parts of my life left me with time to reflect on the need we all have to occasionally clean out our lives. Sometimes it is necessary for me to remove all the spiritual and daily clutter that builds over time and just spend time with my heavenly Father and Friend. It reminds me of an older Shaun Groves song called Welcome Home. I love the imagery of this song as it parallels our hearts to that of a house. It continually played through my head as I pysically worked through the rooms of my home.
On the adoption front, I'm still waiting for my home study agency to get my home study written. I got the last few documents needed for my dossier notarized this week so once I have my home study report approved I will be able to send in my dossier to my placing agency. I have high hopes that I will receive a copy of my report this week for review.

Embrace

I spent this morning worshiping with a group of believers at Embrace church. It is a church that meets in the KY theater whose primary focus is to embrace God and embrace others who have "been hurt, rejected, broken and burned out on just looking religious." The reason for my being in their midst was to listen to Shane Claiborne speak. His approach to peaceful, simple living and following the ways of Jesus is a unique voice in the Christian community today. He had just returned from a trip to the holy land and discussed how many of the areas there are walled up. He showed several images of paintings on these walls that depict what it could be like on the other side. To me this is symbolic of our world. Jesus seeks for heaven to come to earth and for us as his followers to help bring that to a reality. To peer through the world in which we live and see the reality that could be - a world without war, poverty, hunger, and hate; a world where we truly embrace one another!
My favorite quote from Shane this morning was this, "The closer we are to God, the less we want to throw stones at other people."
Although this isn't related directly to how my adoption is proceeding, it is part of the story of the things that continue to inspire me to follow after Jesus and try to do my part to make our world a better place.

Hard Stuff

First off my homestudy and dossier responsibilities are almost complete. All the reading and meetings are done. I am now just waiting on them to write up the documentation and then I will be able to send off all of my documentation and begin the waiting. I received a newsletter this morning from my placing agency that gave an update on several families that had just received their referrals from Ethiopia. Just reading it caused me to be hit with a new wave of how real this is. One of the things that my homestudy worker said to me in our last meeting keeps playing over and over in my head. She was talking about how quick my FEI Clearance came through and she said, “God must have your babies ready for you.” Knowing that my little boys are out there and God knows who they are, what they look like and all of the details that have to be worked out so that I can hold them in my arms makes me glad that I believe in a big God.

Although the past months have been extremely exciting on many levels in regards to the adoption moving forward, they have also been hard. Tonight I will be going to the second visitation in as many weeks for a close friend’s parent who died from cancer. Another close friend was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier in the summer and is undergoing treatment and the mother of another close friend was diagnosed with leukemia. There is an incredible song by Josh Wilson called “Before the Morning” that brings me hope in the midst of being sad for my friends. My favorite line from that song is “Would you dare, would you dare to believe, that you still have a reason to sing, Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling it can’t compare to the joy that’s coming.”

The closest I can come to that joy on this earth is knowing what God has called me to and running with reckless abandon towards that. This includes not only following this whole adoption thing through to its finish but also striving to know God more every day and mold my steps to follow after Him. Even though I fail at this frequently I find peace in knowing that He is continually there with arms open wide. The Starfield song called “The Hand that Holds the World” speaks to this – “No greater joy is there than this, to know for what we’re meant to live; to hold your hand, to touch your face, to find ourselves in loves embrace; I want to stand before the King, Join in the song that heaven’s sings, I want to hold the hand that holds the world.”