Grant It Jesus

....Grant it Jesus is my plea....

I've been half jokingly singing this old hymn for the past two weeks.  With the significant increase in adoption costs due to the specific orphanage our twins hail from, we are in quite the financial predicament! We are still waiting to find out about the finances raised from friends and family at the Radiant Adoption Banquet, but the good news is, we picked up a check at Radiant Church today from the Fireworks booth sales!!!! The church very graciously picked up the taxes for us which allowed each family to receive $4,000.00 Hooray!!! Sure, it always feels great to have money, but it has never felt so good to deposit a check.  All the things I ever thought I needed or wanted money for absolutely pale in comparison.  Again, we are very grateful for the many friends who came out to help or purchase fireworks to bring our kids closer to home! We love you!!!

Thank you!!!!

 With the many recent successful fundraisers and the large amount still remaining, we are now hitting the adoption grants hard.  The timing is tricky though.  To apply for grants you have to wait until your Homestudy is complete.  Some of them want it submitted close to your departure date, but we can't move closer to our departure date unless we have the money :/  Many require a referral and picture to submit... I am hoping and believing that now is the perfect time for our family to submit.

So we are now up to our ears in grant applications.  This is no small task and although I can be quite ambitious, I knew I couldn't do it on my own.  Pretty much every grant is crazy intense.  There are several essay questions, personal info, detailed financial info, references, agency info, etc.  I am ambitious, but I am not stupid....and I am also not organized.

The amazing Dee and Zaphire!!! Can you see the halos?

So, I called a couple of dear friends who have "THE GIFT" (Cue heavenly angel's sounds).  They set me up to fly. It had taken me two months to complete ONE grant.  They came to help two weeks ago and since then I have submitted FIVE grants!!! I am so thankful for their help.  Still, my brain feels like it is turning into mush and I am just praying that we will actually be awarded grants!!! Hence the song stuck in my head "Grant it Jesus is my plea..."


We are applying for grants, matching grants, as well as an interest free loan.  We still have a hefty stack to work through.  So please join me in prayer that I would have the stamina to keep going and that our family would find favor with the many gracious organizations that we are applying to.

I have another prayer request, if you please.  As I have been eating drinking and breathing grant apps, and jokingly singing "grant it Jesus" I backed it up today and asked, "What are the actual lyrics to this old hymn?"

I am weak but thou art strong

Jesus keep me from all wrong

I'll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk close to thee.

Just a closer walk with thee

Grant it Jesus is my plea

Daily walking close to thee

Let it be, dear Lord. Let it be.

Man, I get tears just thinking about it.  He is truly who I want, and all that I need. This is my plea.  This is the true longing of my heart.  Not to have enough money to get the twins, not to have all my you know what together, and not to get enough beauty sleep, but to walk ever close to my Savior and dearest friend, Jesus. 

Thank you for taking the time to read....I pray this blessing for you as well <3

Bitter-sweet

Some of my favorite moments as a mother happen when no one is looking.  When I spy out my bedroom window and watch Grace bake cupcakes in the sand box, or listen in the hallway as Elijah saves the universe, or catch my tween flexing and puffing up his chest in the mirror.  It gives me butterflies in my tummy and a lump in my throat.  In the midst of all the chaos and day to day conflict there are so many sweet moments to be captured.  I have always been one to stop and smell the roses; to take note of detail...and to wonder.


The road of adoption has been a bitter-sweet one.  Every thing that we love and enjoy as a family now carries the sting of our little ones who are not with us.  It seems to make it's way into every detail.  Saturdays are always hard.  I imagine the girls sharing a picnic, or all three boys playing basketball as I look out my kitchen window. But this is where it gets me every time- that darn rear view mirror!  We load up in the van to head to church or make a quick trip to the grocery store. I give the rear view mirror a check,  call back, "Every body buckled up?" and look to see all their faces. What used to be a seemingly harmless routine now brings tears to my eyes, because I look back and NOT every one is buckled up.  Not everyone is there.  It's crazy how it hits me.  One of the kids may or may not notice and ask what's wrong.  I'm honest...and we pray.  The prayers rise like incense and the sweetness fills the air.

Yesterday evening we were all just kind of putsing around, happily doing our own thing. I hear my middle boy from the kitchen.  It was loud and clear, yet I could hear a tightness in his throat. "I love you so much mom and dad......It feels like I'm about to cry...." I brought him over to me and sat him on my lap. He turned his face in towards my neck and started to cry. He said, "I am just so glad I have a family..." I held him and we quietly cried together.  There is this sadness.  We all carry it now.  It is a sadness that cries out for redemption and has the aroma of hope.  It is a mixture of immense gratitude and a new awareness of the great need and loss around us.  It is a very potent mixture. 

We knew when we stepped foot on this path that it was an unknown one.  We knew it wouldn't be easy.  There is always an out, there is always the opportunity to fake it or distract myself from it,  or BECOME bitter.  But when we drink the cup that the Lord gives us no matter how bitter or sweet, it always causes our lives to BECOME sweeter.  It's not just a story or an experience it is the sacrificial love and life of Christ that has been poured out for us and in to us by his Spirit and his grace that causes us to become like Him and share in His joy!  All we do is drink...we just say yes...we trust Him. 

I am so grateful that Jesus drank the cup to seal my adoption!  It was for the joy set before him that he endured. I know my cross is different from His but I am called to take up MY cross and FOLLOW him.  I gladly follow that man!!  Even through tears, I will trust Him as I wait.  At my absolute weakest I will worship with all my heart.  And I will remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!