Not Slow to Fulfill His Promise

     My life is kind of crazy right now. It's kind of crazy because it's kind of normal. My week is so much more routine this year and I'm not sure if I like it or not. I've been used to having a lot of free time over the past few years, and I mean A LOT. Last year I only had classes twice a week, now I have three days, two of them being at Pellissippi Community College. I also have drivers ed, small group and I usually work 20-30 hours a week. It feels really weird always having somewhere to be and something to do. 
    It also feels really weird because I throw myself into doing all of this stuff here but I feel so detached. I'm not really sure why. I really really really miss Mexico, and every single person I'm friends with there. I also really miss my brother and sister in Africa. I guess I spend half of my time wishing I'm in Mexico and the other half wishing I'm in Ghana with my siblings. or that my siblings were here, or that I'm in Mexico with my siblings. haha.
       For anyone who doesn't already know, my parents have been trying to adopt two kids from Ghana since December. My brother Stephen and I went over there with my parents in April to meet them and I already love them so much. I feel so blessed that these sweet children are going to a part of our family. I also feel really frustrated, because we can't really be with them yet. 

     Our new sister is just 3 years old, she's really shy but so sweet. I miss holding her more than anything in the world and I miss hearing her adorable little voice. Our brother is about 6 and he truthfully has one of the best personalities I know. He's such a sweetie and he can't wait to come live with us just as much as we can't wait for him to be here.

    I don't really think I can explain the connection we have with them. I know when God made our family in heaven they were always meant to be a part of it and I'm so excited that we know that now and for all of us to finally be together. Waiting is a lot harder than it might seem. I feel like I really can't wait any longer to see them again and it's going to be impossible to wait any longer at all. We get pictures of them and sometimes we can even skype with them, and every time I see them I think they've grown or changed. It's really difficult for me because they are my little siblings and I want to be with them while they grow up. Even if they can't be here yet, I wish I could be over there with them to just hold their hands and wait with them.

     I'm not going to pretend that I know every single little step that's involved in the process of international adoption because it's a lot more complicated than you might think. There's a lot of paperwork and dates and costs involved and I don't always know exactly what's up. I know we were supposed to have a court date in June. That's what our lawyer said when we were in Ghana. But when I left for Mexico we still hadn't gotten a date scheduled. While I was there my mom told me that the person who was supposed to sign our paperwork to take to court had stopped signing off on anything for anyone. It was really frustrating for awhile because that's pretty much exactly what she told me and I didn't know anything else. 

    Three months later and we still didn't have all of the signatures we need to take to court. Now that I'm back in school the question I always hear is "so when are you guys getting your kids?". Before last year I didn't really know anyone with successful adoption stories. I mean I guess I knew kids that had been adopted but I didn't really know anyone that I'd actually seen come back from another country with their kids. I remember I used to feel bad for people when they told me they were in the process of international adoption. I knew a few people that had pursued it and it hadn't worked out for them. I used to think how sad it was that they were spending so much time and money on something that might not even happen. Now I think people must feel sorry for us when the answer we have to give is we don't know, we're STILL waiting to go to court. 

    I always try to justify why we haven't gotten a signature on our paperwork yet. I try and explain it to people that ask, I try to make them see that even though things have stopped in our process that they are going to start again. That as soon as we get that signature it could only take a few more months. That they will be here one day, so don't forget about them.

   When my parents first decided to adopt I decided not to get my hopes up very high that it would go by quickly in case it didn't. I hadn't even wanted to tell anyone about it right away, not even my best friends because I felt like that would make it go by slower with everyone asking how much longer it would be. I was right. Because now it's September, and I have to admit my hopes keep going up pretty high every time we hear that our papers are being taken in to try and get signed again. And every time they don't, I feel like crying. It just doesn't make any sense that it should take so long. These kids are a part of our family but we can't be with them. 

     Sometimes I think maybe we aren't praying hard enough or maybe we aren't praying the right thing or for the right reason. I pray and pray but we're still waiting. I see the frustration in my whole family everyday and I'm really starting to just feel stressed out about it. 

     Whenever I'm not thinking about my brother and sister I'm wishing I'm back in Mexico. Lately everything is reminding me of Mexico and I have dreams about being there almost every night. I thought I knew what it meant to miss people, but there are so many people I want to be with every day it's kind of overwhelming. Last year I really found out what it meant to have your heart in two places, now I know what it's like to have it in three places. It's not even that I would rather be in Mexico or Ghana than Tennessee, more that I just need to be with the people in those places. 

    I really do like my life and friends and family here, and I know I was really blessed for the time I did get to spend in Mexico, and in Africa, but I just really miss my friends. I keep having this feeling like I made such close relationships and then abandoned everyone. I feel like that about my brother and sister too. The short week we spent with them was so great, but how are they supposed to understand why we had to leave or why they can't come with us yet?

    So I'm really just confused right now. My hearts in this place right now where I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm trying to trust in God and focus on where He is and what he needs me to be doing here, but sometimes I just feel mad about everything and sit in my room for a long time or try to take it out on people, and then I just end up being even more frustrated. 

    I guess sometimes I spend too much time focusing on what I want, where I want to be, and who I want to be with. God has me here for a reason, and He's put people here in my life too. I've started to realize that instead of constantly praying for myself and how God can change my life, I can just pray FOR the people that I miss. I pray for my friends days and that God will be present in their lives. I pray for my brother and sister to be safe and to have patience. I've found that this brings me so much more peace than when my prayers and thoughts are self centered. 

     When I was in Mexico I wondered why God was being so frustrating and slow to work. Growing more and more patient while I was there wasn't just a random thing, I need that patience now, while I'm waiting for our family to be together. And sometimes when I do feel like just giving up and getting mad at everyone I realize all of the patience is paying off and it's amazing to me how God can use every little thing in our lives later on. When I was in Mexico I didn't understand why I couldn't just have a huge impact on everyone I talked to, and feel God using me in everything I did. I didn't understand why everything there was more frustrating than usual or why our trip couldn't be perfect. Now I see that I was being prepared for the months ahead where everything isn't really going to go my way. 

     This week my friend posted this verse and mentioned it to me.

 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

     This is such a real thing in my life right now. I know God has every little thing in his hands and that it will all work out for his good. When I was in Mexico I thought I needed to figure out where Mexico in itself needs to be in my priorities. But now I think I also needed to be prepared for the adoption not going as fast as I had hoped. Even though I feel frustrated, my trust is still completely unshakably in God.

     

     If everyone could please keep my family in their prayers next week we are trying to get one more signature before we can go to court. Thank you!

Starting Again

     I feel like a new season in my life is beginning. This year has brought about so many changes in my life I can't even begin to describe them and as the new school semester starts I know it's going to be different. Maybe on the outside where everyone can see I'll have pretty much the same life with the same friends, school, job, and church and nothing will really look radically different. But I know God's starting something new  for me in my heart this year. He's already shown me a lot of things over the summer and coming back to school I was afraid I would lose sight of what He's done but I now that I've actually started school I'm just feeling really excited for what else He's going to reveal to me. 
     Every summer since I was 10 years old I've gone on a mission trip with my church to Tijuana, Mexico. I've been going so long and been on a lot of different types of teams and we've done many different sort of missions and projects there. Last summer I had the opportunity to intern at an orphanage we serve there for about 7 weeks. This summer I did the same thing and was there for almost the same amount of time. It was in Mexico that I first felt my calling to missions and every year I leave a little more of my heart with the people that live there.  
     Sometimes I have a difficult time with just feeling needed at all in Knoxville. I know this is stereotypical but every time I've really felt God work through me is when I'm serving Him in Mexico. We all have those "God moments" where it's just so amazingly clear that He's present and  you remember what you're living for again. Well honestly most of those moments for me have happened in Mexico. That's kind of how I lived for a few years. I would live a pretty shallow life until my Mexico trip, get on a kind of spiritual high, and then start over right back from where I started when I got back. 
     Last year in Mexico I think I got closer to God than I ever have been in my whole life. The number one thing He showed me last year was how my trips were so NOT about me in any way. They are about the people I serve and Him and His glory, and all I am within that is a tool for Him to use. I remember for the first time feeling in an exact moment when He was acting and actually speaking through me. It's an awesome feeling, knowing that something you did or said was His intention and being used for His glory. Great as something like that is, I realize now that I connected it in my mind to being in Mexico and that I counted it as nothing that I can use here when I got back.
     This year Mexico was very very different for me spiritually. I kept waiting for my moment, waiting for something special. I was getting kind of impatient at one point because my trip wasn't really turning out to be that amazing or inspiring. It was fun, and we were serving Him, but I felt no closer to Him than usual. I started getting worried and about 2 weeks in I was praying for God to show Himself to me. There were a few times when I actually started to question if I should have came to Mexico at all this summer, and whether I had come for the right reasons because even as I continued praying for that big moment for Him to reveal Himself clearly, or feel myself being used by Him, or really anything that I could recognize as my big "God moment", the only response I could get was "Have patience." 
    Have patience? I felt as if my time was already running out in Mexico, my trip was halfway over and I didn't understand why or even want to have patience. The next week or two I still wasn't having my big connection with God but I kept my trust in him and eventually I realized I didn't feel stressed that all I'd really accomplished so far was that I'd made a lot of new friendships and strengthened my old relationships with some of the teens in the orphanage we were staying at. I kept looking for opportunities for my patience to pay off, but it wasn't really a worry anymore and I just started trusting in Him that He knew what He was doing.
     I'm not going to lie and say that at the end of my trip I finally did have that big life-changing-God-spoke-to-me kind of thing because that's not what happened. Not that I'm saying those moments aren't good, or that I'm disappointed that didn't happen like I thought it would this summer. Actually what was different about this year was when I came back from Mexico I was still struggling with my walk with Him. I didn't know what exactly I had accomplished as clearly as I did last year and I felt blind and confused. On top of that I was missing my friends so much it hurt. 
     Instead of getting back home and being like "wow, it's so cool God did this and this on our trip! That was fun!" I felt more like I was asking God what He DID do and why He even had me go.  I've been spending more time in His word and just talking to Him than I did even when I was in Mexico, which honestly is a switch for me. 
     God doesn't always move in one big surprising moment . He has for me in the past, but this summer in my patience that I've prayed for I've discovered God moves at His own pace in our lives. Sometimes we can't see why, but He always can. We also don't always know WHEN He's moving. He can work through the tiniest little things in our lives, and sometimes we discover those things later, and sometimes only He sees the glory being brought to Him. 
     I guess that's what He's been telling me since I've gotten back. Every relationship and conversation I had He could have been working in ways I couldn't see. Maybe I wasn't seeing those ways because something I needed to learn is Mexico is just a place. It's where I first remember feeling God stir in my heart but that doesn't mean He's in anyway limited to that place. Maybe it's because I know more spanish and could communicate with and understand the people there more, my view about God and Mexico has changed. I no longer want my life to be centered around Mexico and only Mexico, it's still one of my favorite places to be and I still feel like my heart is called to that particular place and those people, but I want God to become more evenly distributed throughout my life. Even if my life here feels repetitive and boring He can still use me, and I just have to be ready because I won't always know when that is. I'm not sure if I explained that exactly right, but I'm really excited about it.
     This past sunday our pastor talked a little about how God uses you in your workplace, and how God puts you in your particular workplace for a reason. He mentioned how sometimes it can be just little things that bring Him glory and that most of the time, you don't even realize it's happening. I guess that God using me or working through me in a common setting like at my school or my job is something I've always desired to become a reality, but never put much effort into searching for Him in my daily life unless I had a specific purpose I could see clearly, like in Mexico. 
     I really want to touch peoples lives, and I want them to know who's behind it all. Let the glory be to God forever.