A while back, on day 56, our cousin Lisa asked us to share our testimony.  You would think we would have it down pat, but it is harder than you think. Now those of  you who know me, know that the challenge lies is a few places. Mainly, how to take the 5 million words that WANT to come out of my mouth and concisely package them into a slightly more brief form!!! As well as, what parts to include and not to include. We usually share “portion testimony” on “why we adopted” or “how God called us in to ministry”,etc.   So Lisa, here is goes….

Psalm 40 is an excellent introduction, “I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry, He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth a hymn of praise to our God”

Time and time again, God has plucked me out of that slimy pit. The list is very long, but here are just a few.  In jr. high and early high school I made A LOT of poor choices, dating, partying, rebellion (in summery). Though I suffered many consequences, it seemed as though I was lifted up and away from them. I was VERY aware that I didn’t REALLY suffer as I should have.  I saw so many of my friends get crushed, arrested, pregnant, loose opportunities,increase of a bad reputation, and more. Somehow, I didn’t end up with as severe consequences. I kept asking myself, “Who am I that I should be saved from such disaster?” It was actually beginning to bother me. Sounds funny, you think I would be thankful, and I was, but I was also wrestling with it all and sad for my friends at the same time. Then there I was, with my friends turning to me for help. I surely didn’t feel adequate, but God kept sending them to me.

In my High School years I began to learn about Christianity, namely a saving faith in Jesus. I was taught about grace and forgiveness and God’s sovereignty. Mike, our youth leader, kept telling me that God had a plan for my life and that maybe I should consider HIS plan over mine (in summary), and that GOD doesn’t make mistakes but people do that is what is why we NEED Jesus and His grace.  He also encouraged me to share what I learned with my friends.  That was the first time I ever really began to consider that I actually had something of great worth to offer others.

I wish I could say from that point on I lived a stellar life of Godliness, but any of you who know me well enough know how very human I am, how much I make mistakes, and how much I STILL desperately need Jesus’ saving grace.

Psalm 40 continues, “Many , O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, The things you have planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak of them, they would be too many to declare”

The entire story of God’s calling us into ministry, marriage and parenting is forever long (as that verse tells).  My dear friend, Maggie, once said to me, “If you wrote all that down no one would even believe it!” Seriously, we have been rescued from that slimy pit over and over. God has miraculously worked out every detail of our adoptions, church callings, and our marriage. He has made it EVER SO clear it was nothing we could have done on our own. From construction companies springing up out of nowhere to pay for our adoptions, to Sam’s miraculous recovery from open heart surgery, to Joel even being alive, to the many many times throughout it all that we can claim NOTHING but GOD.

Yet by God’s grace, Sean and I were given a desire to be in church ministry, to teach others about scripture, and to be a source of refreshing encouragement for others. By God’s grace, we had a seed planted in us to have a heart for adoption even though we had no fertility problems. By God’s grace, we were led to an adoption agency that had a ministry for adopting kids with special needs.  God broke our hearts. He crushed us on the inside. We were never the same again. Now we had in us a deep desire to love children (well, all people) with special needs whom the world had cast aside as a mistake or lemon deal in parenting.  So we said, here we are Lord, “we desire to do your will, your law is within our heart” (psalm 40).  We KNEW with all our hearts what it meant to be chosen my God, that God didn’t mess us up, that He loved us no matter what.  It was now the message of love we longed to give to a child (or children as it would turn out). God didn’t mess you up just because you have a disability- God chose you for a special purpose and we CHOOSE you too, we WANT to be your parents.

But as it would be, adopting multiple children with special needs and being in “official” church ministry don’t always create such a smooth ride! Oh, the Lord has blessed us with wonderful people in every church. People that loved and encouraged us. Thank the LORD for them ,because there were many who did not.

“I proclaim your righteousness in the great assembly, I do not seal my lips, I speak of your faithfulness and salvation, I do not conceal your love and truth.”

Sometimes it would be nice to fly under the radar, but way back in high school I clearly remember thinking, and praying, God I want to tell others so they can know. Oh the prayers we pray!!!!! Well, God has been faithful to answer and made it so that we can never hide away for too long. Oh sure we could of discreetly adopted, but no, God had us adopt three boys at once out of the PICU with special needs and pending open heart surgery. We could have quietly been encouraged by our wonderful church, but no, God had the head pastor (Sean’s boss) leave the SAME weekend we brought the boys home!! So NO “quietly” going on here! There Sean stood in front of the whole congregation…now it’s just me and I just more than doubled my family. CLEARLY we are going to need to be a team!  Of and then our next kids could have been quiet, BUT NO God blessed us with our beautiful Jamie, who is in a wheelchair. So now, EVERYWHERE we go it is noticed, we must answer, we must speak, we must tell of God’s grace in our lives!

Then, here in CT, the Lord called us to adopt again, more children born from people with addictions. Our family past plus many we have known that have struggled with addiction—the Lord used theses things to break our hearts again and call us to love little children born out of that sin.  Giving us our two beautiful little girls Sarah and Joanna, God had us challenge the state of CT on “family size” proving that 8 kids is NOT too many, that it is NOT ruining our life or marriage, but rather it is BELSSING it and ENHANCING it on every side. Really? At the STATE level. Oh ya, that’s right God, I prayed for that didn’t I???

Through it all I have been painstakingly aware of my humanness, my sinfulness, my ability to mess up anything! Hey, I know I have gifts and strengths too, but parenting and leadership combined give you an all too real sense of your GREAT NEED FOR A SAVIOR! Psalm 40 continues, “May your love and truth always protect me, for troubles outnumber me, my sins have overtaken me, be pleased O God to save me, …may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you!”

So, who am I that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name, would bother to rescue me out of that slimy pit over and over and over again – even when I messed up and put myself there??? I have come to know full well that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by our God. That God DOES NOT make mistakes, people do.  That God is not just a nice idea, that He is REAL and LIVING and ACTIVE in our lives, and we desperately need him every day! I KNOW full well that I do and so I must speak, I must share. How could I keep such a thing to myself? How I could I not tell others who are longing, deep in their own slimy pit- quietly inside their hearts longing. So I speak.

That is the summary of my testimony.  Thank you Lisa for challenging me to summarize it for you. I am grateful that God used you in my life to speak once again! (I did pray for that)

Thank you Lord for being so much more than I could ask or imagine!  “Better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere!”

So many times I am asked….”Are you crazy? 8 kids, adopting special needs, homeschooling… seriously, are you crazy?” 

Well, kind of. I have spent many days answering this question both in church and in the grocery store! But the easiest way to answer it is with a passage from II Corinthians 5, “If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God, if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love COMPELS us because we are CONVINCED that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he [Christ] that died for all, that those who live should NO LONGER LIVE FOR THEMSELVES but for Christ who died for them. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. THOUGH WE ONCE REGUARDED CHRIST THIS WAY, WE DO SO NO LONGER.”

It is not for us, because of us, or about us, but the great transforming work that Christ has done in our hearts. That we desire to love ALL people the way Christ does.  We are human, we are not perfect, we make mistakes, but we are convinced that THIS is what we should persue with our whole life!

The section entitled “WOMEN” will really be for moms.  We are starting in our church both a marriage study and parenting study this 2010.   This section will “contain” those things. It is my desire that it blesses and refreshes you in your walk with the Lord.

I have a dear friend who has a daughter going in to rehab. I awoke early this morning thinking about her, my heart grieving for her.  What a hard, hard place to be in. You know that is it the right thing to do, but your heart is aching all the while.  Brokenness and hurt, failed expectations, and events of time gone by fill your thoughts.

I have learned in the short span of my little life, that THIS is the exact reason why God tells us in His Word to “meditate on my Word both day and night” to let it “overflow from our lips”. If we didn’t fill ourselves with God’s Truth (capital T) then we would be consumed by daily truth (lower case t)- which many all “reality”.  Of course “reality” is true, but throughout “reality” God’s Truth NEVER changes.  He has proven that with time.

Psalm 65:3

“When we were overwhelmed by sins you forgave our transgressions.”  Some times we look to “clean up” our lives in order to come before God.  Mainly because we know our inadequacies. But God doesn’t ask that of us.  “When we were overwhelmed by sins”—not after we cleaned up our mess! This is what Mercy and Grace are all about.

There are so many struggles with natural consequences, holding someone accountable, challenging their choices, yet loving them all the while. I think of my friend and how many, many days she must of prayed about showing grace and mercy and love to her daughter and struggled to balance it with the immense need for consequences of actions. It is right and good to hold someone accountable to making better choices, to challenge what they have come to accept as “an OK normal”. Seriously, the Bible is chalk full of lesson after lesson on how we should live our lives!  But God is so very clear about love- His love and ours.

Psalm 89:31

“If they forsake my law and do not follow my statutes, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; BUT I WILL NOT TAKE MY LOVE FROM THEM, NOR WILL I EVER BETRAY MY FAITHFULNESS.”

Communicating and showing love is so very hard sometimes. Just when we think we have figured it out, life gets sticky and we realize we aren’t so good at it after all.  But God doesn’t ask us to be perfect, He just asks us to “love one another just as I have loved you”. 

Oh God, help us all this day to daily grow in loving one another.  We are so very human- and You are not!

My little Josiah said to me the other day “I am so glad God had me adopted because “I know full well that I am wonderfully made and God’s works are wonderful” and God doesn’t make mistakes”  I just about cried. I gave him a big hug and said- you are right- I agree- God is awesome isn’t He?

Out of the mouths of babes!!!  May your day be richly blessed! (and Josiah’s quote is from Psalm 139:14)

Somehow, I have ended up with a vast number of family members and friends who run marathons.  When patterns like this arise, I try to stop and ask, “Surely, God, you are trying to show me something here! Open my eyes to what I can learn.”  Although there are some runners that fiercely compete, most run for personal victory.  Along the way, they share tips on shoes and training, ideas on diet and planning your training.  Then, along the path they run, either in training or the race, they share about their journey. “Watch out around this corner! There’s a pot hole!”….”At mile 5 there’s a water station!” or maybe a simple word of encouragement, “Hang in there, you’ve come this far, don’t quit now! You can do it!”

Motherhood is somewhat of a marathon.  A long journey that requires much commitment, planing, learning, and always some encouragement until you reach the end.  Where is the end?  Well, if you ask me, it is never ending until the day I rest with my God, because once you start, you just can’t stop!  Motherhood is a long journey of blessings!!

It is my desire to share along the journey. A few laughs, a few trials, a few lessons learned, and hopefully, an abundance of encouragement to all moms on their journey.  I am a long, long way from the finish line, but I am keeping my eyes fixed on my prize!