barefoot

in a funk

lately i have been in a funk.  and i don't mean a play-that-funky-music-white-boy kind of funk.  i mean a walking around in a fog, feeling sorry for myself, generally making everyone around me miserable kind of funk.  i've been tired, and worn down, feeling over worked and under paid and persecuted.  i have been feeling discouraged about the general state of our finances, feeling hopeless about ever being able to pay for our adoption.  in fact, i'm fairly sure that the home study agency is going to laugh at us. (you have to list the amount in your savings account.  i almost laughed myself when i wrote it down). 

never the less, we are going to try to go get finger printed on wednesday, and then i think we're going to head over to the parsons' house to pick up some donations they have for our garage sale.
hey--did i tell you guys about that?  amy is making me have a garage sale to help raise money for our adoption.(an excellent idea that i would never pull off by myself, so thank you, amy)  so, if you have any stuff that you'd like to get rid of, we'll come pick it up.
which brings me to my next topic--can anyone help me on wednesday?  we should have thought ahead and picked up the stuff BEFORE mike had his carpal tunnel surgery. but, (partially due to my funkiness and partially due to poor planning) we did not.  so, any help would be appreciated.

back to the topic at hand.  lately i have been reading one of my favorite books, carried safely home by kristin swick wong.  it is the story of her family's adoption of their two sons from vietnam. 
i finished it today, and it had the effect of shaking me out of my funkiness.

the author paints a beautiful picture of not only her adoption story, but also how we are adopted by God.

her honesty about her spiritual struggles during her adoption processes jolted me out of my self pity.

here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the book (which is a good read, whether you're thinking about adoption or not):

"All who choose to enter adoption choose to open themselves to pain.  We can choose to embrace the grief inherent in the journey, letting it mold us to be more like Jesus.  We need not deny pain.  We need not oversimplify complex questions.  We need not fear when something in God's word or world is difficult to understand or embrace.  These heart-struggles can push us to new ground in our relationship with God.  May we be given grace to accept such struggles when they come, and not shrink back from where the Lord wants to bring us.  In both joy and grief, may we recognize the gifts he offers us." (page 91)

"Do I feel that I have been left on my own, that i need to manipulate situations to get what i need?  "I will not leave you as orphans; i will come to you," says Jesus.  Sons and daughters of God are not alone, nor will they ever be.  Secure children of God know that their Father is with them.  So they do not resent surprises that surface in a day, or feel flustered or fearful when whisked from one new place to another.  They know they are well cared for, and so are released to enjoy life and to serve others." (page 140)

I couldn't have said it better my self.

miracle

yesterday, the most amazing thing happened.  i'm still trying to wrap my head around it.  a couple from our church offered to pay for our home study. as i say it, it sounds unbelievable.  it's such a huge thing. 

i was starting to wonder if maybe calah would be an only child.  i thought maybe God had plans for us that i had no idea about, and that my dream of more kids would need to be put aside.  i was trying to become ok with that.

i rushed home and got the paperwork in order.  it's basically done, except i have to get financial details and we need doctor's forms filled out.  i made appointments for all three of us today.  after practiacally a whole year of nothing happening, i feel like progress is finally being made.

i'm amazed. i'm stunned.  i'm so, so grateful to God and to people who are willing to be used by God to help us.  i'm hopeful, for the first time in a long time.  my heart feels about 1,000 pounds lighter.
its a miracle.

doing my part

i can't remember where i heard it or read it. but it has really impacted the way i've been thinking and praying lately.  it's the thought that, if i do my part, what only i can do, God will do his part, what only he can do.
for instance: in our adoption process, only i can fill out the paper work. (it would be nice if he zapped the answers into the forms while i am sleeping).  only God can provide the money to pay for all the adoption expenses.  only God can orchestrate the timing and the perfect match of the child(ren) who will join our family.  sometimes i get so frustrated that there are so many orphans, and here i sit with no money and a willing heart...but that's me trying to do God's part. i do my part, he does his.
it's working the same with getting pregnant.  i do my part, taking my vitamins and folic acid, reducing the stress in my life, enjoying calah and what i have now, trying to make and keep my body as healthy as possible to prepare for a pregnancy, and God does his part (and mike does his part!)  because no matter what i do, i can't make myself get pregnant.  only God, in his wisdom and plan knows when (or if) that's going to happen.
also with our house.  i'm doing my part by checking the real estate listings, talking to realtors and bank people, we're trying to pay our bills on time to keep our credit scores going in the right direction. we're thinking and talking about renting vs. buying, calling on different apartments that we see for rent.  God is going to have to do his part by providing the right place to live in the right location for the right price.  be that renting or buying, mchenry, crystal lake or woodstock, it's going to have to be God who orchestrates the timing, the real estate market and all the other factors that drive me absolutely INSANE when i try to control them.
this my part/your part philosophy has given me alot of freedom in my thinking and my praying.  i don't feel that desperation when i pray, like, "God, how is this going to work out? you HAVE to do this, i NEED this RIGHT NOW!"  i can trust that God will do his part, in his time, and i will do my part. i'll try to be prepared, so when God says, "go, there, i found just the right thing for you", i will have been watching for it, praying for it, keeping it in mind. hopefully i'll be listening for the gentle nudge of the holy spirit when he's nudging me in the direction that i should be going.
but, until i feel that nudge, i don't have to worry about what's going to happen, if God's going to take care of me, how the timing will work out, because i know that God is busy doing his part.

to be or not to be

disclaimer: this blog may contain more info about me than you really want to know. (nothing gross, just intensly personal)

i haven't been writing alot lately. i haven't felt very good. mentally, i mean. i've been feeling tired and down, crying at "the drop of a hat pin" (as my dad would say). i've been feeling sick and tired at work, sick and tired of people and their drama, sick and tired of the life i've been living, letting myself become caught up in unimportant, stupid stuff. i've been sick and tired of being sick and tired, but too tired to do anything about it.
i've also stopped taking my anti-depressant. due to the holidays, the way pay-days have been falling, and my own laziness, i have not gone to the pharmacy to pick up a refill. i'd been feeling pretty good, and so i thought maybe i can skip a few days.  a few days has turned into a few weeks.  i really hate taking the pills, but i really hate who i am with out them. i also hate that i'm so dysfunctional without them.
for anyone who has recently gotten to know me, i apologize in advance for what i'm probably going to be like. if you've recently met me or gotten to know who i am, you've met the "me" who has been on the pills.
now, at least for a little bit, you'll get to know the drug free me.  i've always struggled with the decision to take them or not.  it all started after calah was born. (actually, the anxiety and the obsessive thoughts started while i was still pregnant, but i didn't recognize it for what it was).  it took me about 5 or six months to figure out what was going on. by the time i asked my doctor for some medication, i was a nervous wreck.  i was crying all the time, i hated my self, i felt so guilty because i didn't feel the way about my baby that i thought i should. i was having these horrible scary visions of the people i loved dying in horrible fiery crashes.  everyday activities like driving and feeding the baby had become these terrible ordeals.  i don't remember very much about calah's early days.
when i figured out what was going on, i thought maybe i could fix it my self.  i thought i could pull myself up by my boot straps, as it were.  i tried being happy, praying more, pleading with God to fix my brain, i felt so guilty about taking medications, i thought no good christian would take medications, i felt like a failure as a mother, a person, a christian. if i just had more faith, prayed more, loved God more, i would get better. but i didn't. i finally got so desperate i got my doctor to prescribe me some medications.
i took them for about 5 or 6 months.  then i went off again.  i thought maybe it was just a short term thing, now that she was older, i was less sleep deprived, etc, that i would be ok.
i played the on again off again game for a while alternating feeling psycho and hating myself and feeling normal but hating that the pills were responsible for my normalcy.
this june i went on them again, feeling overwhelmed with the whole adoption/infertility thing. i took them faithfully, until about two weeks ago. 
now i feel like a basket case. that's good, though, because at first i didn't feel anything.  if there's anything worse than feeling crappy, it's having no feeling at all.  i understand why people may cut themselves--feeling the pain and seeing the blood reassures you that you are actually alive.
so now what? i don't know. since i made it through the no feeling stage, maybe i can just tough it out. this is,though, a bad time of year for me anyways, with the greyness of winter and the lack of sun making me feel yucky anyways.  initally i was going to try to get off the meds after winter, but then i just let the prescription run out and didn't refill it. so now what?
do i try to tough it out? am i choosing the easy way out if i start taking the pills again? am i just choosing depression over joy? if i was a good christian wouldn't God heal me? do i need more faith?
or are the pills God's way of helping me feel better? i feel like a loser either way.

opening your eyes and breaking your heart

normally, when i hear the news of the bad stuff going on around the world, i just shake my head and sigh, sad for how far people have gone from God's original plan.  but now, now that we are working towards international adoption, news headlines take on a new significance.
nuclear testing in north korea, jihad declared on ethiopia. sometimes it seems like the whole world is just going to blow up. 
but now more than just a fleeting sadness and disgust at what corrupt men have done to the world, these headlines break my heart.
families waiting to travel to bring their children home, children and families torn apart, generations destroyed, cultures ripped to pieces.
unstable governments do not make for good adoptions processes. courts shut down, laws change, policies become different--almost in the blink of an eye.
it makes me pray differently.  instead of just praying selfishly (please help me save enough money, please give me favor with the social worker, please send the right kids for me and my family), it makes me pray globally. please intervene in the hearts of world leaders, please protect the poor and the orphans who are going to suffer the most from the bad decisions of their leaders. please encourage the hearts of waiting parents who have the fate of their families resting in the unstable courts of faraway countries.
sometimes the lack of light at the end of the tunnel makes me feel so hopeless.  its most definitely out of my control, though. there's nothing i can do but pray, and watch the headlines flicker past.

melt down

i am about to have a melt down. i mean, a grade-a, cuss word yelling, dish and vase throwing melt down.  i balanced the check book when we got home from the baggo tournament this afternoon, which always makes me stressed--we have WAY less money than i thought we did. then i paid the bills and went grocery shopping.  i came home to a huge mess, football blaring, 2 year old bouncing off the walls at 8:35 (i looked at the clock), her toys all over the frickin place. then mike got a PHONE CALL, during which he mysteriously dissapears somewhere. i put away the groceries, cleaned out the fridge, TOOK OUT THE GARBAGE (a totally mike job), AND put the kid to bed. he's STILL on the phone. i feel like i'm going to go through the roof.  it's like road rage, but i'm not driving. i'm sure it sounds very mundane and silly to all of you out there in computer land, but for me, right now, i may just explode.
i just got up to check on the taquitos in the oven (a total impulse buy), and he's still talking. he's in the bathroom, talking on the phone. i'm married to a teenage girl.
it's a good thing he's still on the phone, i guess, or this melt down would have happened very differently, and you probably wouldn't have gotten to hear about it (although, if you live close enough you may have heard it).  i guess mike will  have to read about it, just like the rest of you.

custom made problems

today, after my sunday afternoon nap, i was sitting on the couch in the livng room.  it was a really nice afternoon, and the sun was streaming in the windows.  and there they were...cobwebs. now that it's dark, i'm looking in the same place, and i can't see them any more.  when the sun was shining on them, i could see them, plain as day.  that's how church has been the last few weeks.  shining light on the cobwebby parts of my life.
today jim said something that caught my attention in a big way.  he said that all the problems i have are custom made from God.  that's kind of new perspective, instead of God saving me from my problems, or helping me through my problems, he's giving me problems.  the purpose of giving me problems, then, is so that my life gets cleaned out and all the cobwebs get cleaned up.  all the junk gets drawn out by the way i learn the lessons God is trying to teach me from these custom problems he's sending my way.
thinking about that lead me to think about what my problems are, and what, exactly, is God trying to remove from my life?
so, welcome to an in-depth look into my ugly parts.
first big problem (as i see it): i can't get pregnant.  why, i often ask myself, can't i just be normal, have babies until i want to stop, and not spend so much time and energy thinking about it.  i'm pretty sure that God is trying to teach me to trust his timing and his plan for me, instead of plowing ahead with every half-cocked idea i come up with. 
next, i don't have any money, so i can't move forward with our adoption process.  this time, God is probably trying to teach me discipline, because we're really not all that good with our money, we are not good savers, we eat out too much and buy frivolous things.
lastly (not my last problem, i'm sure, but the last one for now), my husband's brother is a JACKASS! (excuse my french).  now, at first glance this may not seem like a character issue for me. but it is because he and his druggy girlfriend produced a child seven years ago and she is being traumatized by their stupid antics.  this makes me VERY ANGRY.  partly because a precious child isn't being loved in the way she should be.  also, partly because i have very little tolerance for people who go around popping out babies and then don't take care of them.  but, there's nothing i can do. i have absolutely no recourse to make the situation right. and that is what God, i think, is trying to teach me. i don't have control of everything, and i never will.  people won't always listen to me (even if i do have good ideas), i can't right every wrong or save the world from injustice.
i just have to trust God to be in control.  sometimes that just kills me.  i am trying hard to remind myself that God is in control, and that he loves my niece even more than i do, and has a plan for her life.

its soooo early

i'm sitting here with my 2 1/2 year old watching "the doodlebops".  if you've never had the pleasure, it's about these three singing dancing clown type people.  it's kind of like a bad accident--it's so horrible but i can't look away.  but calah loves it. she sings along and dances. 
all i want is to sleep in one day.  unfortunately, cal didn't consult the calendar to see that it's saturday.  at moments like this, i can't believe i want another kid.
...sorry, i keep getting distracted by the doodlebops...
for about 2 years now all i've wanted is to have another baby. (we've been working on it as much as possible).  when it started to become clear that i wasn't going to get pregnant, we started thinking about adoption.  now we have to save the money to get our home study done, pay the agency fees and travel expenses.  it's kind of discouraging.  as my mom would say, i'm not getting any younger.  i keep praying for God to help me be patient and to trust his timing. 
maybe i'm not meant to have more than one kid.  that thought makes me very sad, but right now my life is so messy.  i never have time to work out, my house is a mess, i eat like crap, i work four days a week and feel guilty for not spending enough time with the baby i already have.
i don't know why i have to make everything so complicated.  it's probably sleep deprivation.