Second Hearing for Little Man

We went back to court today to finish what we started a couple weeks ago.  We still have Little Man (henceforth referred to as LM) with us.  Our next court date is late January so we will have LM with us at least until then.

Google is a very interesting thing for finding out all kinds of info you wished you didn't have to know about someone.  I've been able to find out quite a bit on most of the players in this situation and it's not been pretty or comforting.  It's made me very sad, to be quite honest.  I'm very much the "play by the rules" kind of gal and don't get it at all when people totally go against what is right.  This is a situation where I'm feeling very torn on exactly how I'm supposed to feel.  On one hand, I'm super glad we finally have a child in our home and that we're able to make a difference to him for whatever time we're allowed to have him.  On the other hand, I'm so sad about what all has gone on in this family for YEARS!  It is generational sin on display.  I'm praying the cycle will be broken with LM!

As for how LM is doing and how we're doing - oh my GRANNY it's a challenge having a 9 month old at my age!!  Especially since I've been thrust straight into it!  I'm right now taking about 15 times longer to type this than normal because I'm having to check on LM every 2 seconds to make sure he's not into something he shouldn't be in to.  And the diapers.  God helps us all - the diapers.  Wow.  This kid can POOP!  And he's not sleeping through the night every night.  I like sleeping through the night.  Once I'm out, I'm out. And I don't like to be getting up during the night.  Not so with LM.  Oh no.  He likes to be up at, oh, say 1am or 2am.  Oh yes.  I think he's doing it just to torture me sometimes.  But last night he slept long and hard and I was so grateful! He's cutting some teeth, which any mother knows is never a super fun venture for eating, sleeping, or pooping. :)  But over all, he's doing fantastic!  He's such a good little kid!  He loves to explore, to eat, to play peek-a-boo, and to snuggle and give "kisses".

I'm excited to know for sure that we'll have him for his first Halloween, his first Thanksgiving, his first Christmas, and his first birthday!  I'm a planner.  I like to know things way in advance.  I buy clothes at the end of one season preparing for the next year.  That's just how I roll.  The last couple of weeks with LM have been a challenge for me simply because of the uncertainty of the future of it all.  For now, I know I can prepare for the next 3 months.  It's not a lot, but it's something.  And several fun somethings to plan for in the next 3 months!  And for those of you who haven't seen this GORGEOUS little dude, I will be happy to email pictures, because those of you who HAVE seen him can testify - he is FABULOUS!! :)

Our Foster Child

Yeah, eons since my last post, I know.  Been a bit busy. :)

To make a super long story as short as possible... with more details to come later....

We have our first foster placement as of Friday, September 30.  It's a little 9 month old boy.  He is honest to Pete one of the cutest things I've ever seen!  We're already completely in love with this little one!

Mike is out of town this week on a business trip, so I've been a single mom for a few days. **And let me just interject here that if you are a single mom with more than one child, GOD BLESS YOU and I have no idea how you do it!!  I can handle one for sure.  Two is a bit more demanding, but still doable.  THREE, with that 3rd being an infant, and doing it without my husband.... shoot me now!!  My hat's off to any single mom.  Those are brave souls there, folks!! ** Trying to learn a baby who I just got  has been more challenging than I was prepared for.  When you are pregnant, you have 9 months to prepare for a baby to arrive.  Once the baby is here, at least a woman gets some maternity leave.  Not so with foster care.  Nope.  I had less than 18 hours notice that I was getting an infant and was back to work in 48 hours.  And thank the good LORD that this kid has decent sleep habits!  He's gotten even better over the past couple of nights.  That is a blessing for SURE!  You would think after doing this twice with my own that I would have some sort of memory of what to do with a 9 month old.  Yeah - I didn't.  It's been a learning process for sure, but we're doing well.

Today was the first court hearing.  We didn't get to go full out into the adjudication hearing today.  They had to reschedule for a couple weeks from now.  I'm here to tell you, this straight and narrow girl doesn't do well in those sorts of situations.  I have been a nervous wreck since I found out just yesterday that I had to be there with our little guy.  I have been an emotional basketcase since the hearing.  So many thoughts have run through my brain, I can't even articulate any of them well enough to do them justice here.  I know after today how I will specifically pray over the next couple of weeks.  I can't go into a lot of detail, but if you're reading this, please pray that the judge presiding today would remain the judge over the whole deal.  There's a chance another one will be requested, but I'm praying heaven down that this one stays.  Pray our little guy will get to stay with us.  I know I need to pray that whatever God's will is, that is what will come to pass and ultimately I know that's what needs to happen.  However right now, I can't get past my selfishness of wanting to keep our baby.  Pray that I can see these people involved how Jesus sees them and not how my flesh wants to see them, because after today, I need the eyes and the heart of Jesus more than ever before.  Pray that someone will be able to reach this family with the Gospel.  It breaks my heart to see people so far away from the Lord.  I don't understand it at all.  Today just reaffirmed all the more that Jesus is the ONLY way to have any hope or joy in this life.

I hope to update this blog a bit more now.  I need an outlet to get out some of this info, and some of you may want to follow along on out journey, so I will do my best.

Pray for our family.  We will have our baby at least until October 18th.  We have a long road ahead of us.  None of the steps are easy.  We will need Jesus to walk very closely by us all in the days ahead.  Any time you think of foster families, adoption, the justice system, anything like that, pray for us. We are desperate for the Lord to show Himself might in our family.

Old Testament Thoughts & Questions

I'm reading through my One Year Bible.  I've tried doing this for the past few years and other studies have come in from time to time and the poor little One Year Bible has been laid on the shelf and the other, bigger one has been brought out for my quiet time or bible study stuff.  I really want to make it my goal this year to read through the entire Bible.  I've never done it.  I'm pretty sure at some point I've read every verse in the Bible, but not straight through, knowing for certain I've read every single verse.  So this year I'm going to try again.

However, I must say, as I'm reading through the Old Testament, I have about 17,000 questions so far.  You talk about not going into detail (or at least the detail I want)!  Wow!  Take for instance today's reading about Lot leaving Sodom.  Hello!  Why in the world did Lot offer his daughters to the creeps at his door?!  Seriously?!  And then there's like one sentence about Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt.  ONE SENTENCE!!!  What was Lot's wife thinking?  What did Lot and his daughters think or do when they saw here as a pillar of SALT!! Really?  There could have been a whole chapter about just that one incident.  But it got once sentence.  I find myself thinking, "And then what happened?" every time I open this book.  I guess maybe I'm supposed to think that?  Maybe I'm supposed to search more on my own.  Maybe I'm not supposed to know any of this until I get to heaven. Who knows.  All I know is that if the Bible had all the info I wanted, that dude would have been about 12 times thicker than it is now! 


Sometimes it makes me a bit sad, too, when I get to stuff like this where I have several questions about the Bible and want to go deeper, I think "I could ask Rich..." (my stepdad).  Oh how I wish I could.  He always knew the answer to whatever question I had.  He lived in his Bible and I think he knew that thing backwards and forwards.  I loved talking to him about anything to do with the Bible.  He went to be with Jesus 3 years ago and now he REALLY has all the answers.

Jesus Calling

My sweet friend Marita gave me a little daily devotional book for my birthday called Jesus Calling.  I love it because the daily readings are as if Jesus is talking straight to the reader, then it gives you scripture that coordinates with that days reading.

Today's was especially good and I have a feeling several of these things are going to hit me right when I need them.  I thought I would share today's devo with you.

"I am leading you along a way that is uniquely right for you.  The closer to Me you grow, the more fully you become your true self - the one I designed you to be.  Because you are one of a kind, the path you are traveling with Me diverges increasingly from that of other people.  However, in My mysterious wisdom and ways, I enable you to follow this solitary path while staying in close contact with others.  In fact, the more completely you devote yourself to Me, the more freely you can love people.
Marvel at the beauty of a life intertwined with My Presence.  Rejoice as we journey together in intimate communion.  Enjoy the adventure of finding yourself through losing yourself in Me."
2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.
Ephesians 2:10 - For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.
1John 4:7-8 - Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
John 15:4 - Remain in Me, and I in you.  Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.

Mid Thirties

Tomorrow, I will officially be 35 - mid thirties.  Not that I haven't been in the "mid" stage for a while, but...

I remember growing up, I used to think that someone that was 35 was really, truly a grown up.

So according to my child-self, tomorrow I will really, truly be a grown up.

And I have to renew my driver's license.  I know.  Jealous, aren't you?

A New Job

It's been a sweet forever since I blogged.  However, I have a pretty good excuse... sort of.

I have a new full time job.  I'm the Director of Preschool Ministries at Cross Church Fayetteville.  Now, our campus hasn't opened yet.  We're still in the building stages, but there is so much prep involved - it's crazy!  Plus, I'm still working Kids Day Out as well as Friday Night Out until the end of this next week.  It's been a wee bit stressful, but it's also been super exciting!

To back up a bit, I interviewed for the job in September.  September 21st, to be exact, was my first interview.  I remember because I was praying for God to give me some sort of confirmation on what I needed to do for sure.  I was torn in so many ways over this opportunity.  I had some time before I was to meet for the interview, so I grabbed my Bible and sat down to read.  Not having anything in particular that I needed to read, I just went to Proverbs as is my habit if I don't have a reading plan that I'm following - cause, you know, there's wisdom in that there book. :)  I usually go to the chapter that corresponds to the day of the month.  Which was my intention that day.  But all morning long, I kept thinking it was the 22nd.... which is what chapter I turned to.  I began to read and got to verse 6.  I read it and it was, like my sweet friend Marita described to me, like a neon light blazing off the page at me.  It reads, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I just wept.  Literally.  It still brings tears to my eyes to think about it.  I was so humbled and so overwhelmed that the God who created the universe chose that moment to speak to me.  He cares enough about me, about the details of my life, to lead me to that verse... on the "wrong" day... that was exactly the scripture I needed to read. That was to be my job - to help in training a child in the way he should go...and to help build truths in the hearts of these precious tiny humans that would be with them forever.  I stayed on that verse and couldn't move past it for a long time.  Then Satan started talking to me again, as he has a habit of doing.  How in the world was I going to pull this off?  Wasn't "so and so" better for the job?  I would probably get in trouble a bunch for just not doing a good enough job (which I hate, nay LOATHE being in trouble).  How was I ever going to be successful in this?  Oh, but then.  But then.... I was able to get past verse 6 and read on through that chapter.  And God did it again.  He spoke loud and clear through verse 19 and said straight to my heart, "I have instructed you today - even you - so that your confidence my be in the Lord."  He instructed me that day - EVEN ME - that I shouldn't worry about what I could do on my own and that my confidence didn't need to be in my abilities, or lack thereof.  My confidence that I would do a good job in the position that God was leading me to should be in the Lord.  If He would choose to put me in that place, He surely would equip me to do the job and if I do a good job, it's only because of Christ and the gifts He has given me - certainly not of myself and of anything coming from me.  By the end of that day of my first interview, I realized that I'd read the "wrong" chapter and was even more overwhelmed that God didn't let me read chapter 21, as was according to the date.  He led me to the perfect thing I was to read.  And God led me to be hired in that position.

And then Satan went to work IMMEDIATELY.  I got the job.  I was on such a spiritual high.  A couple things happened that just completely made my week.  And then BAM!!  Satan was on the attack in a hurry!  Less than 24 hours after it became public info that I was the person for this job, I got slammed to my knees.  For three days, I was in hell.  I literally felt like I was doing battle with the devil.  I felt stripped of anything good in me.  I was miserable.  But God used that time to draw me so close to him.  I remember at one point just closing my eyes, putting my head in my hands, and imagining crawling up into the arms of God and letting His wings cover me with His peace.  Occasionally Rachel will do that with Mike - just crawl up in his arms and let him hold her.  What a sense of peace and belonging to be a small child, covered and protected in your daddy's arms.  That's what my God did for me during those days.  He let me be covered and protected in my Daddy's arms.  Satan was eventually defeated in that battle (to which I totally stuck my tongue out at him over it!) and things went forward from there.  But the whole experience reminded me that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.  He is good.  All the time.  Regardless of our circumstances.

soooo much!!  My prayer daily is that God will use me.  However I need to be used.  That He will lead the right people to come alongside and help teach and lead these tiny humans.  I can't wait to see lives changed and people come to know Jesus!  I'm so excited!!

"But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14

Keep Up With Me...

On the right side of this blog is my Twitter timeline.  Follow me on Twitter, username is miss_jilly_bean, or become my friend on facebook - or just read the timeline on this blog to keep up with me.  I can spend 2 seconds updating Twitter more than I can find time to sit down at my computer, log in to blogger, type out a big message with pictures, etc, etc, etc.

Hopefully this weekend, there may be time to update the blog and get all of you who still might be interested a picture or two from our trip to Las Vegas.  It was fabulous!!

On the adoption front, we have some inquiries in on a few kids from Arkansas and some other states.  All I can say at this point is, this is a frustrating process dealing with the state!  There is not one single person that seems to be an advocate for US.  If we left it up to someone contacting us about available kids that might fit in our family, we would wait for years and maybe still never hear anything.  It's really maddening sometimes to think that there are families like us that are ready and willing to take these kids who need families and yet no one is helping us!  We are doing all the leg work.  There's not one soul that has said, "Hey, it looks like we have a possible match for you" or "what about these kids, would you be interested?"  Nothing.  But we're not quitting.  We're calling.  We're emailing.  We KNOW there are kids out there and we have a place for them and we WANT them!  I know it's all just a matter of God's timing.  His timing is perfect.  His plan is perfect.  There is a child or children out there that God has designed to be a part of our family.  I'm constantly reminding myself that God is in total control, even when I think these people working for the state are all crazy.