March Madness

January and February went quickly with positive signs, conversations and meetings on adoption. Amazon was delivering books weekly and I may never get all of them read. However, this high speed chase was fixing to come to a hault. I think I overwhelmed and scared Russ a bit with how taken I was over us adopting. He needed to slow down, pray and process. We had a lot happening in March and so I decided not to talk about adoption to Russ and to hopefully not stay obsessed with research for ONE month.

A 7 day trip to DisneyWorld certainly helped the time pass by and it seemed as though we hardly blinked and April was here. Time to move ahead....right? Not exactly. The next few weeks would prove to be some of my most difficult and trying times in this process at least so far...

Russ was avoiding talking about the adoption but assured me he was continuing to pray. We knew we were serious enough that we both wanted to let our families in on what might be going on with us. Russ met with his parents and sister-in-law for lunch and was very tight lipped about the conversation except that they were concerned about us adopting. My conversation with my family although initially semi-supportive (although my dad was great and never missed a beat) I could tell there would be questions to answer and concerns to be addressed. I had several conversations with my sister and sister-in-law .....we are very close and I respect their opinions so much...they quizzed me pretty hard and tried to bring up anything that might possibly have crossed my mind....they are always taking care of me:)

My mom who is honestly the best mother in the world was consumed with worry from the moment I mentioned this to her. She was worried about me handling any more on my plate than I had, worried about the strain it would be on my marriage, worried about financial matters, emotional matters, physical matters, pretty much everything you could worry about. We had great conversations about how blessed I felt and about how my crazy home life was not stressful to me but beautiful, wonderful fun.

Then came Easter weekend. Good Friday brought tornadoes through Murfreesboro and literally down our street. It was very horrible and although we escaped without injury or much incident there were so many families that lost their homes and two people their lives. We did actually lose power and being the non-camping family that we are we decided to pack up and go to our folks houses. We went to Shelbyville Friday night and to Brentwood Saturday night....I know we are total wimps.

Now if you remember I had agreed to not talk about the adoption for the month of March but we are now well into April. Saturday night I was about to explode.....and had to force a conversation with my hubby. It did not go well........he just wasn't ready and although he felt my calling was from God he just couldn't pull the trigger. I was devastated, tired and frustrated. We made it through the night and back to my parents house on Sunday for Easter lunch. Needing to talk about my feelings more than ever the conversation came up with my mom, sisters and me. They were all questioning me pretty hard and my mom was firmer that she thought I might be "crazy". They did not seem to understand that this was not about me but about serving God and showing his love in the way I know best which is loving children........all His children. Seeing as how everything had been negative and no progress had been made I was on a downward spiral that led me to nearly giving up. I cried for two days.......on Monday so bad that Russ offered to come home. My family's support means the world to me and I think it was the first time I ever felt as though I did not have it on any significant matter. My heart was broken, I felt like if God meant for us to adopt that it would not be this hard and let me tell you I was being tested. By the end of the week the turmoil inside of me was nearly more than I could take. There was a meeting of the Ethiopian group the following Sunday and Russ and the kids were fighting me about having to go..............................I did not push and simply went to my room, fell to my knees and asked God to please guide me or more specifically to re-direct me.

Seeing as how I NEVER take naps Russ came into the room to see if I was o.k. He could tell quickly that I was not and we had an incredible talk. He told me that God's work is not suppose to be easy and that there are several places in the bible where it says it may be very lonely and that although he was not ready to send in the paperwork that he did not think we should give up........persevere he told me. I prayed and prayed and then decided to get up and go work out.

The phone rang as I was headed upstairs and it was my mom. She called to tell me that her concerns were fears of hers for her and that she should not place those on me or my decisions. She let me know that she loved me, admired me for my desire to bless a child and try to make a difference and that from that point on that she would support my decision. I cried and cried. I did not have to have my mothers approval but I did want her to understand my motivations and she finally did..........it was great! I count on my mom to be able to talk things through and not having her for this had been very difficult. I love her so much and do not want it to sound as though she was mean or mad for one instant but with a relationship like we are blessed to have you can feel when things are not well.

So as you can see the tide was about to turn.....Thank you God so much. I am anxious to get caught up but it will have to be tomorrow............it's late and I need my beauty sleep.

God will not give us more than we can handle but sometimes he thinks we can handle more than we think we can!