It's been over a month! UFFDA!

Since my last blog post..... well, i have really been struggling......i needed to write some thoughts and it came out onto FB and since it has been awhile since i have shared in depth on there even....i thought that this should be also shared on here.

For the past TWO WEEKS, i have been so badly wanting to write....there has been SO VERY MUCH forgotten because i haven't been able to.  We have been reading the Advent OR our lives have been CRAZY until late into the night and i have nothing left to write it.....and just HOPE that the next night, i would have the stamina to WRITE my thoughts.  SO, due to the fact that there are literally WEEKS of thoughts in this brain....oh my!!!

TODAY, well, now YESTERDAY was the day one year ago that Scott and i got onto an airplane and flew for the very first time over a huge ocean.  We were on our way to meet our son for the very first time!!!  

Ethan has been home here for over seven MONTHS now!  Yes, he has GROWN!!!  OH MY WORD!  He is SO BIG!  He is getting to where i don't think his 3T Carter sleepers are going to fit him for much longer!!!  THE 4T's looked JUST FINE on him already!!!  He is still blowing out diapers like no one's business BUT it is NOT as often.  He does his a, b, c's in his very own way and it is ADORABLE!!!  He just keeps moving his fingers as if he is doing what his 'twin' sister is doing and babbles with a lot of a's and b's and throws in another letter every once in awhile!  He LOVES music.  He loves to dance.  He will throw the biggest fit that he can throw over our Kirby vacuum cleaner.  He is STILL scared if i have to get up from feeding him to add more rice milk to what i am feeding him as he STILL wonders if i will feed him enough!  He knows his schedule enough to also be absolutely CRYING with fear if i have to oil him BEFORE his bedtime meal....it has only happened four times and ALL four times it has been VERY HARD on him....he thinks that i am going to send him to bed without food!!!  IT BREAKS MY HEART!!!

Ethan has NOT been an easy child for me to mother....in almost every area.  It has been a VERY hard seven plus months.  I have thought that i was alone before in my life but THIS has brought me to the most alone spot...these seven months....in my life.  It has been a very lonely time.  It has been a very stretching time.  It has been a very trying time.  It has made me question as if i was a teenager again....so full of doubt in my very being....so full of doubt of so very much. (yes, i know that i am using the word very a lot)

With this LITTLE bit into my life said.....i need to ALSO tell you something.....I WOULD NOT TRADE IT!!!!  I am overwhelmed MOST of the time!  I am exhausted OFTEN!  i am mentally spent!  I am begging God for mercy often!  YET!!!  THIS IS ONLY FOR A TIME!!!   Just because it looks like WE chose this instead of us BIRTHING our son....it makes it as if people think that we should have never CHOSEN this!  What i have to keep reminding myself is that i DID NOT CHOSE THIS!  We had NO DOUBT that GOD DID!!!  

Again, i had to be reminded this morning of my forefathers in the faith of REAL CHRISTianity!  LOOK alone in the Scriptures.....do you see people living lives of EASE!?!?!  Do you see people only doing 'just enough' OR do you see men and women all throughout Scripture being asked to do INSANE things????   THEN just look at ALL of the missionary biographies that we have read to our girls!  TELL ME....does that sound like something that is EASY!?!?!  NO!!!  GOD calls us to the end of ourselves ALL THE TIME!!!

I do NOT know WHY in the world i keep on thinking that my life should somehow get EASY!  WHY on earth would i WANT easy.....i WANT OBEDIENT!!!  UGH!

SO, i just wanted to clarify again......THIS is the LIFE that GOD has CHOSEN for me!!!  It may be VERY VERY HARD BUT it is NOT forever because THAT will be heaven!  I am going to love our son, our daughters and my husband in the very best that i can.....and i WILL FAIL OFTEN!  BUT i want to say this......i would rather fail than NOT obey what He has asked of me.

IF God has asked YOU an INSANE thing.....for YOU, it may be that you do NOT go to college but instead go to a foreign mission field OR you are to go to an inner city mission or you are to stay home and help your parent's on the farm that is really struggling.....THINGS THAT ARE, to the WORLD'S standards...insane.....BUT to God's standards-OBEDIENCE!  DO IT!!!  If God is calling you to do a ministry that you NEVER dreamed that you would ever do.....YOU, who has always been BEHIND the scenes but God has called you to the SPOTLIGHT!  DO IT!  If YOU have always been in LOVE with the spotlight...it is where you are comfortable BUT GOD has called you to the background.....DO IT!   If God is calling you to minister to the single moms out there, to the poor, to the orphan, to the widow, to the broken teens, to the depressed, to the suicidal, to the drug addict, to the HIV child, to the....fill in the blank.....DO IT!!!

GOD HAS CALLED US TO BE DOERS of the WORD NOT hearers who are getting 'fat' in the pews!  WE are to be CHRIST to the lost....to the hurting....to the different.....to the broken....to that cashier that is helping....to that mailman that is crabby....to that gas station attendant....to that teacher......we NEVER know what that other person is going through....TAKE an extra second of forty and say a sentence of encouragement!!! LOVE like Jesus!!!

My passion has been changed from these last seven months.....my eyesight has been changed...my eyes are more open to that struggling mother of two and no husband......to that single mother of a child with 'special needs'......to that widow who is trying to bring up her teenagers without a father.....to that woman who is struggling to keep her life together with all that is needed of her but she humanly cannot do on her own.  I AM NOT SINGLE but NEVER in my life have i ever had EYES like i do now for what they go through.....NEVER has my heart HURT for their daily life of RARELY being able to be WITH PEOPLE.....or to REALLY be HEARD or listened to on a DAILY basis, like a wife does.  NEVER have i ever come close to what it must be like for them.....until these past seven months.  

I am so grateful to God for bringing Ethan into our lives as because of him....my life HAS been changed.....yes, WAY WAY WAY more adventures BUT it has brought me a WAY WAY WAY wider perspective that i would have NEVER had without him.

As ALWAYS.....i am ALWAYS BLESSED