Dear God, thank you for food.

I was unloading my groceries today and while I was putting them away it just struck me how blessed I am to have food. I stopped and stood at the open door of my fridge and thanked God for allowing us to have food. I then wondered why I have a fridge that is too full while millions can't find enough food to even sustain life. I prayed for these people and just felt so overwhelmed with how blessed our family is. I fear my little Jane will be a part of this statistic and while it is such a painful thought, I am so glad God has made me so aware that something as simple as an apple is something to be extremely thankful for. When you really stop and take time to thank God for things that we consider "little" it is really overwhelming and humbling. Thank you God for food.
P.S....the ice cream and waffles are totally Lances hehe! :) 

Check this out and pray for these people.

• 925 million people do not have enough to eat — more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union combined.

• 98% of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.

• Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.²
• Where is hunger the worst?
  • Asia and the Pacific: 578 million
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: 239 million
  • Latin America and the Caribbean: 53 million
  • Near East and North Africa: 37 million
  • Developed countries: 19 million
  • 60 percent of the world's hungry are women.
  • 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.
  • 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.
  • Malnutrition is the key factor contributing to more than one-third of all global child deaths resulting in 2.6 million deaths per year.
  • A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.
  • Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.

Should we be asking "why" or "what"

This has been my question lately. I have been asking "why....why....why" about 100x a day over the past month or so. The adoption world has been very very quiet. Like kind of freaking me out quiet. I have found myself just getting so annoyed at the process. Why does it take so long? Why have so many orphanages closed down in Ethiopia causing programs to shut down. Why did we feel led to change from Uganda to Ethiopia and now Uganda seems to be moving quickly (however, we have learned that can change in a second), why did God place this life long desire on my heart and then just leave us waiting for something that seems like it will never come.

Then the pregnancy thing comes into play. With each passing day I become aware of another friend who is pregnant. And at this point it is more often than not their second baby. Its a great thing. God made woman to have babies. It is normal. Even mundane when you look at it from the standpoint of how often it happens every day. But why not us? Why can't any doctors figure out why we can't have a baby? Why can't someone just give us a teeny, tiny little diagnosis instead of this horrible term "unexplained infertility"! I have come to kind of hate the word. In one way I am thankful that no one is looking at us and thinking our hope of a child is small. But on the other hand, no one can tell us why. I mean doctors perform heart transpants and brain surgery and do crazy things that take SO much skill. Why can't they figure out why we can't have a baby!? So to say the least the baby thing is another huge "WHY" in my life!

I met a friend at a conference that said she prayed and asked God to take away her desire to have a baby is it was not in God's plan for her. And he did. He totally took it away and their family is growing 100% through adoption. Awesome! And I think I could be 100% ok with growing our family through adoption only. However, here is the thing. I pray and pray this prayer and with each day I feel like my desire to have a biological child grows larger and larger. God is NOT taking away this desire, He is growing it. Why!?

So here is where I have landed. I NEED TO STOP ASKING "WHY" AND START ASKING "WHAT".

The fact of the matter is that we are not anywhere near having our little Jane home and we are not pregnant. Instead of asking God 1,000 times a day "why" this is happening I need to start asking "what" I am supposed to be doing in this season! I do know for a fact that God is not calling me to get up, mope around, google "unexplained infertility" for hours and then obsess over our adoption timeline. He is not calling me to feel "less than" because I don't have a baby.

I have felt it before and am constantly convicted that blending in and being just like everyone else is not how Jesus lived. I am different than almost ALL of my married friends in the fact that we are childless. My day in and day out looks very different than everyone in my family due to the fact that I work outside the home. But it's ok. I am setting a personal goal for myself and every time I want to ask "why" I am going to switch it and ask God "what"!

I am excited to see what He reveals and tells me to do!!

Nothing better than a nephew!!

I think Aunt KK needs some better toys! Regardless, I LOVE having my little weltie over to play!

He did love this little doll, he was having a full out conversation with it!!

5 fab years!

Last Saturday me and L celebrated our 5 year anniversary! And I have no other way to put it other than it has just been THE BEST 5 YEARS OF MY LIFE! Lance and I met right around my 19th birthday and we have really had an effortless relationship. We did break up one time for 2 hours in college! I will never forget. Every member of my family called me in a panic afraid I was going to ruin it! IM had actually just come out and my mom was obsessively sending me messages! Poor Lance! But besides that two hour break up (which was over nothing except I figured once you had been dating someone for 9 months it was probably time to break up!) it has always been so natural and so easy. It has been clear from day one that God has matched me with my perfect mate. Marriage is more of a blessing that I ever could have imagined.

We have been through some difficult stuff in our five years, however one thing that has never been difficult is our marriage. And for this I feel so blessed. Adoption, infertility, graduate school, job hunting and all that has only made me realize that the person I am sharing this life with is a gift from God! I know we will have things that will try to tug at our marriage. I am not naive. But my husband has stepped up and been the perfect mate through some of our worst seasons of loss and sadness.

My husband shares my heart for orphans and is so selfless. I know he wants up to have children, but he does not care how. Any child could be His child and I know that takes a special person. He doesn't ever have a bad thing to say about anyone and is quick to remind me that gossip and anything other than unconditional kindness if the only way we are meant to live. We don't have to be best friends with everyone, but we need to be kind. This is my husbands way of life. I am such a better person because of him!

We don't "have it all" by any means by our world's standards. But I have something that is rare and I will never take it for granted!

We celebrated at our fave restaurant, Reef, if you live in the Houston area this place is SO worth a try! Best seafood ever!!

 Oysters

 Fried Mac n cheese

 Great time at Reef!

 Took me some time to slurp that raw oyster down!

Lance would eat 100 of those little creatures if he could!

I Love you L! I thank God for you every day! I can't wait to see what our future holds and how we will end up growing our family. However, I would not trade this past 5 years for anything. I'm glad it has just been the 2 of us!

LOVE THIS

I saw this the other day on facebook and loved it! I have a handful of friends like this. Ones that I am seperated from and not a single thing has changed. And the awesome thing about these friends is that I know nothing will ever change! I am thankful for these friends! Friends like these are one of the best parts of life!! :)

triathelon

So this past weekend I did a triathlon relay with some people from work. We were at a conference a few months ago and someone casually mentioned that they needed a swimmer for their team. Without thinking I spouted off "Oh, I am a good swimmer! I will be on your team!" I figured I had three months to train and it would be the perfect motivation to get my booty back in the pool and get into shape.

Well March, April, and May creeped by and I never started training. I could say it was my super late work schedule and stressful adoption and fixing up the house that was keeping me from working out. And in part, yes that made it harder. But I think I could have found some time in the morning. I mean who needs to sleep until 8:30am every day!

Anyway, I decided to jump in the pool Saturday. YES the Saturday before and see if I had it in me. I knew at that point it wouldn't make a difference, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to drown! It wasn't too bad so I breathed a sigh of relief.

The next morning I got up at 5am and drove alone to this HUGE race. Hard core people in "triathlon clothes" all around me. I stood out like a sore thumb! Who knew that people don't wear swimsuits when they do triathlons. The wear biker shorts and little spandex shirts. Oops. Anyway. I got marked, joined the giant group of relay swimmers, jumped in the lake and swam away at the sound of the gun!

And guess what!? I got 3rd place!!! I managed the entire swim in 10 minutes. Can you believe that!? I think adrenalin must have kicked in b/c when I got home I laid down to take a power nap before church and woke up 3 hours later.

But it was fun and I am glad God decided to give me some supernatural amount of energy!! Too bad he didn't make me look cool doing it....see pictures below! ;)

#29

We moved 1 spot this month and are now #29! I feel like the little engine that could repeating over and over...."It's not about me.....It's not about me.....It's not about me....". It is about THEM. The children without families. The little ones who need the love of a family. And ONE of them found that this month!

When I put it that way it still makes me smile. It doesn't erase the disappointment that we didn't shoot down 5 spots, but it does give me comfort and I am celebrating with that ONE today! :)

It's not us yet....but someone will be kissing the cheeks of a precious little one that has been patiently waiting for their mommy and daddy! It makes me smile!!!