Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again Rejoice! (verse 4) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (verse s6-7) from Philippians 4.
Well all I can say is REJOICE!!! We have so much to rejoice about. First of all a friend of mine from back home...her name is Andrea has been waiting to adopt a baby. She got a call about 3 or 4 days ago that there was a baby waiting for her and her husband. Today is her birthday and she got the call from her attorney that today is the "official" placement day for her child to be in her family. Wow! How cool is that! What an awesome gift from God. Now all they have to do is wait for the adoption to be finalized! REJOICE!!
REJOICE! Elizabeth Grace's due date has been moved up to March 28th!! REJOICE!! REJOICE!!
REJOICE! We have finished the homestudy! Now we can trash the place again...just joking....we keep it clean most of the time! We were so blessed by our homestudy worker. We know that God sent her to us. It was like we were talking to an old friend. She was a Christian and even let us know that she is praying for us in the adoption process. Never did she try intimidate us or feel like she was intruding in on our lives. She made us feel comfortable from the get go! REJOICE!!
REJOICE!!! We have given all of the information needed to our attorney so he can file a petition for adoption in the courts. He also has all of the information to draw up the papers for the birth parents to relinquish their rights! In addition, the birth parents are going to let us name the baby from the get go! REJOICE!!!!
REJOICE!!!! We will have to stay in Arkansas for 10 days after the baby is born due to the fact that this is the grace period in case the birth parents have a change of heart. Also this has something to do with the Interstate Compact and all of that paperwork. God has blessed us with family that is only about 30 - 45 minutes away from where the Elizabeth Grace is going to be born. So we will have a place to stay!! REJOICE!!!
REJOICE!!! That God has been working on the financial need in this adoption! We are almost there! We have been blessed by renting out our Disney Vacation club points, tax returns, fundraisers, and God just intervening! We have been blessed by working with a group of men who are mission specialists. They are helping us do a fish fry. They do this all the time to raise $$$ for missions. They are going to donate their labor. All the ask is that we pay for the cost of the food. On Friday, March 4th we are selling fish plates. You will get a half pound of fish, BBQ beans, Slaw, & cake for $8. Of that $4 will go towards our adoption. $1 will go to their mission work. That is pretty cool! So call us up if your interested and we will be delivering them that day. If you would like to help us deliver them on that Friday, let us know that too!! REJOICE!!! We know that God is going to provide the funds! We have seen His hand in every step of the way! REJOICE!!!
REJOICE!!! That we actually listened and obeyed God in our call to adopt! The one thing that has amazed me the most...and I always get choked up when I talk about this.....is that I love to encourage people in their faith and walk with the Lord. I share with people how God is always working in us, around us, and through us. I want them to have the personal knowledge, the first hand experience of what it is like walking with God on a daily basis. I think for a long time, I have forgotten about what God is doing in my life. I have forgotten that He is using me and Joseph on a daily basis, He is being seen by the people around us, and He is being seen by the things He is doing in our lives. Wow! I can actually see God's hand at work in this from beginning to end. You know I was talking to a teacher the other day and she said what if you never moved to Monroe ten years ago and met Bobby. Then Elizabeth Grace would never be happening at this moment. Only God can intersect our lives like he has. God has perfectly positioned every single person in our lives for this moment for us to give Him the glory and impact eternity. I can't help but to get overwhelmed at the love of Christ. It amazes me. It encourages me. It makes me want to know Him more. REJOICE!!! REJOICE!!! REJOICE!!!
REJOICE!!! That we have such loving family, church family, and friends. They have been so encouraging. The adoption ride is a lot like a roller coaster. You are climbing up that hill thinking that you've made it. You've got the answers to this question, or that question or you have this for the liaison to talk about to the birth parents, and then you go down the hill ninety to nothing...and then you wait for the answers, you get the answers and then you climb another hurdle. The good news is that once again God has placed all of the right people at the right time to encourage us! Now don't get me wrong. There are the negative Nellies out there and there is spiritual warfare going on trying to mess with our minds and our emotions. The good news is that we have prayer warriors from all of the above groups getting us through this! REJOICE!!
Now onto the rest of the verse...If you are reading this...I am proud of you that you made it this far! REJOICE! :0)
It states do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to GOD. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
So please keep us in your prayers. Please pray that we will not be anxious. Please pray for the birth parents as well. Pray that they will not be anxious either. Please pray that God will give us all a peace that transcends all understanding. Please pray that God will give others in our path a peace too. We all know the risks involve in adoption but our God is in control. He will give us that peace. We don't need to worry or allow ourselves to worry. When we do those types of things...we are saying that our problem is bigger than God. That is absolutely NOT TRUE!!! God has got it together. Please pray that we will remember that in all of this! Please pray that God will give the birth parents the peace that transcends all understanding about what they are doing for Elizabeth Grace. Please pray that God will guard all of our hearts and our minds. Spiritual warfare is all around us and pray that we are wearing our Armor daily.
But no matter what REJOICE!!!!!
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