Prone to Wander
I took a break from blogging for the last week or so... and honestly not sure how much I'll be doing in the next few weeks. Life has had lots of twists and turns.... mostly good but a LOT of life lessons.
Honestly, the Day house has been filled with grief the last two weeks. This past Sunday marked 2 months since we said good-bye to the twins and also marked the end of the first week of real grief over that loss.
This is really hard to explain if you haven't adopted or are not waiting for your child/children. We only knew those girls for 5 months but they were our daughters in every sense of the word. They were our daughters after the first time we met them actually. In the adoption world you have to guard your heart but also be willing to feel pain and open up to any and EVERY situation that comes your way. The last thing you want is to shut your daughters out the first few months they are with you because it might not work out... how ludicrous. That would be like giving birth to a baby but not actually loving him or her or letting them into your heart until they had passed the SIDS danger... it's impossible.
So the last few weeks Steve and I have been dealing with our grief. There have been a lot of tears, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of asking God if they're ok, why this happened, what they are doing now... the list goes on. We're past the anger of things and just sad now. This pain has been far worse than when we had a miscarriage.. it just is.
I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. I'm just being real. It's been a painful few weeks and Steve has been dealing with some sleep issues on top of it all and it has made for an intense time in our life.
At the beginning of processing all of this God really started to work on me about my pride, my possessiveness and my idea of what being a Child of God really is. I'm really just at the beginning of this journey but my heart has been pricked so many times over my selfishness, my wastefulness, my spending.. essentially God brought me a book that targeted all those areas and more in my life and just brought me low over how wrong we get it sometimes.. how wrong I get it most of the time.
I began reading this book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.
When I found it (on Pinterest... my OBSESSION) I thought it sounded interesting and would be a good read since in the "quick look" part on Amazon I was laughing out loud by Jen's writing. So I bought it ready to enjoy the story of how this woman took 7 months and fasted from a different thing each month (clothes, food, money, wasting...). Each month she could only have 7 items of whatever she was fasting from... so for the "food month" she could only eat 7 specific foods. It sounded fascinating.
As I've continued reading though God really is starting to gently chip away at my heart and open my eyes to a lot of ideas I have about living the Christian life or living a life in America as a Christian.
One of the big things is that being a good steward of my money doesn't stop at tithing. I can't say I tithe and that money is God's and the rest is mine. No, it is all God's and when I go out and blow $100 on the boots I really want because I WANT them there are some questions to be asked about where my heart is. Don't get me wrong... I love boots, I love clothes and it is a constant battle between what is spending my money wisely and what is just me spending to spend... (and honestly Steve didn't let me buy the boots but I'm STILL not convinced it wasn't a great deal!! They were LEATHER :)... ok so I still have some learning to do.)
I'm not saying this for anyone else but this book has really started me thinking and I think the thrift stores are going to become a very good friend in the near future.
So I recommend the book, highly recommend it.. but don't read it if you don't want to be challenged about how we think in America and how we interact with the "poor" and what it means to love our neighbor and well... it's a lot of amazing points in one place!
Anyway, so that's a little bit of where I am these days. A lot of emotions, a lot of learning, a lot of tears, a lot of molding. It's a good place... I don't always go to God with all of my feelings like I should but I'm learning. Like the song says "my heart is prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love". But thankfully he always takes my wayward heart back.
Be blessed friends!
Honestly, the Day house has been filled with grief the last two weeks. This past Sunday marked 2 months since we said good-bye to the twins and also marked the end of the first week of real grief over that loss.
This is really hard to explain if you haven't adopted or are not waiting for your child/children. We only knew those girls for 5 months but they were our daughters in every sense of the word. They were our daughters after the first time we met them actually. In the adoption world you have to guard your heart but also be willing to feel pain and open up to any and EVERY situation that comes your way. The last thing you want is to shut your daughters out the first few months they are with you because it might not work out... how ludicrous. That would be like giving birth to a baby but not actually loving him or her or letting them into your heart until they had passed the SIDS danger... it's impossible.
So the last few weeks Steve and I have been dealing with our grief. There have been a lot of tears, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of asking God if they're ok, why this happened, what they are doing now... the list goes on. We're past the anger of things and just sad now. This pain has been far worse than when we had a miscarriage.. it just is.
I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. I'm just being real. It's been a painful few weeks and Steve has been dealing with some sleep issues on top of it all and it has made for an intense time in our life.
At the beginning of processing all of this God really started to work on me about my pride, my possessiveness and my idea of what being a Child of God really is. I'm really just at the beginning of this journey but my heart has been pricked so many times over my selfishness, my wastefulness, my spending.. essentially God brought me a book that targeted all those areas and more in my life and just brought me low over how wrong we get it sometimes.. how wrong I get it most of the time.
I began reading this book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.
When I found it (on Pinterest... my OBSESSION) I thought it sounded interesting and would be a good read since in the "quick look" part on Amazon I was laughing out loud by Jen's writing. So I bought it ready to enjoy the story of how this woman took 7 months and fasted from a different thing each month (clothes, food, money, wasting...). Each month she could only have 7 items of whatever she was fasting from... so for the "food month" she could only eat 7 specific foods. It sounded fascinating.
As I've continued reading though God really is starting to gently chip away at my heart and open my eyes to a lot of ideas I have about living the Christian life or living a life in America as a Christian.
One of the big things is that being a good steward of my money doesn't stop at tithing. I can't say I tithe and that money is God's and the rest is mine. No, it is all God's and when I go out and blow $100 on the boots I really want because I WANT them there are some questions to be asked about where my heart is. Don't get me wrong... I love boots, I love clothes and it is a constant battle between what is spending my money wisely and what is just me spending to spend... (and honestly Steve didn't let me buy the boots but I'm STILL not convinced it wasn't a great deal!! They were LEATHER :)... ok so I still have some learning to do.)
I'm not saying this for anyone else but this book has really started me thinking and I think the thrift stores are going to become a very good friend in the near future.
So I recommend the book, highly recommend it.. but don't read it if you don't want to be challenged about how we think in America and how we interact with the "poor" and what it means to love our neighbor and well... it's a lot of amazing points in one place!
Anyway, so that's a little bit of where I am these days. A lot of emotions, a lot of learning, a lot of tears, a lot of molding. It's a good place... I don't always go to God with all of my feelings like I should but I'm learning. Like the song says "my heart is prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love". But thankfully he always takes my wayward heart back.
Be blessed friends!
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And I'm sorry I'm not there right now...but maybe God's calling you to go to Him first about everything. I think that's what He's calling ME to, anyway. xoxo