God's ways are NOT my ways but they are BEST

The Lord has shown me in the past twenty-four hours of His providence.  He has shown me that His timing is NOT my timing. 
I have to tell you two stories. One is about our roof.  Our roof, as our closest friends will know, has brought much heartache and grief.  I used to LOVE rainstorms and would cherish them greatly but for the past TWELVE YEARS, they only bring me dread as i would wonder if it was going to be a hard enough, or angled enough or certain kind of rain that would come pouring into our living room.  We have a BEAUTIFUL home that has MANY issues.  The roof has been the biggest.
I have wondered many times as to God's timing but no more as God showed me that the person who is to be doing our roof is the one who is supposed to be doing our roof.  IF we would have done our roof two years ago, it would have been someone different and then we would have just been getting our roof done which is NOT what is happening.  You see, God ordained that life is not about the roof BUT about what God is doing by USING the roof for His purposes!  
What it taught me is that TWELVE YEARS is NOT a long time to God even though it is to me BUT when i saw a little tiny glimpse of HIS PLAN....twelve years REALLY isn't all that long.  It is worth the pain and heartache.
THEN, just an hour or so ago, again God showed me His providence.  I was reading on the site on FB that i am helping with for keeping people up to date about Shannon's Ethan.  What is amazing is that today God showed Himself again. 
You see, around four years ago, our family was in a PICU with our daughter Sophina (ugh....crying at the thought) and on the day when we didn't know if she was going to make it and thought that we may lose her, there was another Mommy who was right next to me watching her little girl.  My hubby was gone for an hour or so when the whole thing started with Sophina and there was no one else with me....but this woman who was sitting with her daughter just a few feet from me was there to give me a hug.  What i found out was that there is a bond that happens when you think you are going to lose your child in the PICU.  It wasn't long when it happened the opposite way too.  This mom who had helped me had the curtain pulled on her baby too (a sign that all is NOT well with your child and is supposed to give some sense of privacy but i KNEW that her daughter was fighting for her life as every doctor and nurse had their eyes on HER baby girl this time).  Again, there was a bond that formed.  They had to leave our PICU and fly out her daughter and i thanked God for FB as i later found out that her daughter had received a new heart within twenty-four hours!

Well, fast forward to today.  You see, that mommy is a woman who is friends with me still on FB.  We have MANY opposite things that we are passionate about BUT we are ones who are unlike almost anyone else when we understand the pain of the PICU.  There is a bond that is unexplainable.  This afternoon, i took three minutes to read on the site for Shannon's Ethan.  There on the site was my Mommy friend.  You see HER daughter was on ECMO.  SHE KNOWS what it is like to go through having a child on ECMO.....whereas i CAN know what it is like to have your child in the PICU for a VERY long time BUT i CANNOT KNOW what it is like to have MY child on ECMO.  There on the site was my Mommy friend, Linsey explaining to people about what happened when her daughters (yes, their second daughter who was just a baby when their firstborn went through the heart transplant, ALSO had to have a heart transplant just this past year...at the same age as their firstborn).  LINSEY is the one who brought HOPE to people who are now praying for a little boy that i love dearly!
God's timing is NOT my timing my friend BUT i was reassured today, which is a day that i DESPERATELY NEEDED assurance, that God KNOWS what He is doing.  You see, today i wondered how i was going to make it as i saw our son revert so far back to what used to be 'normal'.  What i realized today was that if God chose to have me/us live like this for the next TWELVE YEARS THEN He has His reasons!  THAT made all the difference in the world to me.  God's ways are STILL NOT my ways BUT GOD KNOWS BEST!!!
ALWAYS BLESSED
Happy New Year!

MERRY CHRISTmas!!!

Today has been another day of highs and lows....just the kind of roller coaster that i am not apt to get on if it were at a fair BUT this is REAL LIFE.....and it IS what i would get on.
Today was a day that took me to my limits....well, actually WAY WAY WAY beyond my limits so i would run to God's limits ---of which there are NONE>>>>>ZERO!!!  I wept as i poured my heart out to Scott.....i feel like such a failure as i just can't seem to keep up with anything.  He knows all of the failures...the things that i can't keep up with....you all think that you hear it all but there is just SO MUCH MORE!  There is such guilt that i FIGHT as i go through this journey that i am on.  I have to fight it with all of me or the guilt overtakes me.
I feel like a failure to my friends.....there are SO SO SO MANY who are in crisis RIGHT NOW!  I SO wish that i could do MORE BUT GOD.....reminds me to not just wish i could do more BUT DO WHAT I CAN!!!   I feel like a failure to my children....each of them for different reasons.......to my husband......to SO many things.......tonight, i was hurting so deeply.  
What is amazing is that God seems to always wait until i am on my last tiny little bitty intsy weeny small bit of string before -BOOM.....what i need.....first i got a card in the mail.  I thought that it was a 'typical' CHRISTmas card but my daughter brought it to me so i would read it RIGHT AWAY....it was instead, an encouraging note!  SHORT but JUST WHAT I NEEDED!!  My hubby and i got to actually talk for longer than a very disrupted short amount of time and i NEEDED that!  THEN, i got a text from someone else that said that they had friends who were talking about me to her and it made her feel as if i were right there with her.  It brought tears to my eyes.  THEN, only thirty minutes after that one....as if God wanted to make sure that i got the picture.....He sent another message that brought tears just FLOWING down my cheeks.  GOD knows our needs....He loves us.....His ways are NOT our ways BUT GOD.....
May i tell you that we talked many times today that THIS year is Ethan's first CHRISTmas with his family!!!  OH how we are thrilled that he has a family and that he is HOME with US!  We can't imagine what his life would have been like....we see MANY HUNDREDS of other children who are living in orphanages even now...children who are 5,8, 12, and even 15!  Ethan is worth the sacrifice that each of us have made.  A sacrifice makes life 'tastier'....more flavorful.....more alive when those moments of beauty come.  Right now, they may be coming farther apart then we would like BUT those moments are there....little memories as to what this whole adoption thing is about!  God sacrificed ........Jesus gave up His life in absolute perfect surroundings to come down to a place that smelled of cow manure and donkey dung!!!  I think that i can eat poorly for awhile, sleep less, not keep up with pretty much well, anything for a little boy whom i love dearly....you see, he is my son.....and this is his first CHRISTmas HOME with his family!  
ALWAYS BLESSED -----MERRY CHRISTmas!!!

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 

A new perspective of a Bible story that i KNOW

Tonight, i was reading the Bible story about the life of Moses, to Sophina.  It was starting from Miriam's life and taking it almost from her perspective. As i was reading the story THIS TIME as a mother of a son whom we adopted, something hit me.
First, you have to understand that i have been in church a LOT since the womb!!! I KNOW this story (not as in a fable but as it REALLY HAPPENED kind of story). BUT i thought of something that i NEVER EVER would have thought about unless i had had Ethan!!!
The Egyptian's Pharaoh's daughter went down to the river for a bath and there found the Hebrew baby Moses in a basket that had been covered in tar. The Princess' father had made a proclamation that ALL of the Hebrew baby boys were to be drowned in the Nile BUT his daughter instead ADOPTED Moses! THAT part i HAD thought of before but never had DWELLED on - that is NOT it though.
Moses grows up and i can just imagine that Pharaoh was NOT happy that his own daughter had adopted this little boy....what a laughingstock and a fool and a pushover he must be looking like to his friends and people around him or even in other countries. I wonder if he said things like we have heard...."what happens if he grows up and does something horrible". THEN IT HIT ME!!! IF you were an Egyptian....THAT ADOPTION was HORRIFIC!!!! BUT IF you were a Hebrew.....THAT ADOPTION saved MILLIONS of your people's lives!!!! BECAUSE SOMEONE ADOPTED A LITTLE BOY.....COMPLETELY going against what i am sure EVERYONE but a small handful were saying.......MILLIONS of lives were saved.
I just thought that THAT FACT was AMAZING!!

ALWAYS BLESSED, Connie

PICTURES of the last six months!!!

Make sure that you also READ my last post about the last six months too!

R U KIDDING!?!?! SIX MONTHS ALREADY!?!?!

Ethan seems to have been a part of our family forever and we are so blessed!  Here is what i wrote this morning on my wall on FB......

I'm thinking over the past six months.  I am not at all proud of the way that i have handled things as i obviously was NOT ready for a BOY even!  Let alone a little boy who has NEVER EVER been in a home, a family, or probably even a car!  WOW!  I weep just thinking about my lack of parenting skills of a boy....such a learning curve.  I choke back tears now as i see.....OH how i struggle with COMPARING-such a SIN that i struggle CONSTANTLY with!  Yet, i am REAL, if nothing else with all of you.  I see others---SO MANY others who just seem like they would have been so much better at bringing in a boy into their home.  UGH!  tears are hot and fresh as i write this..... SO weak i am.
I think of how organized a person should be and how SO many are WAY more organized and would have had no problem with all the paperwork and Dr. appointments and bills and such.   I think of how other women have their husband gone for even one and one-half years and yet they make it.
I think of anyone in this household who has learned the most is ME!  STILL learning in BIG ways too!  I am learning that there ARE going to be HOURS and maybe even DAYS when Ethan just will NOT be an 'easy child' and i will have to struggle to 'figure his needs out' BUT i WILL struggle!  This boy....takes my breath away just writing those two words....our precious Ethan is a BLESSING!!!  
I have learned so much about God's love in these six months!  I have learned so much about God's GRACE!  I have learned so much about God's MERCY and COMPASSION and LONGSUFFERING!!!  I have also learned that i FAIL at being like Him WAY too often!  THAT fact has made me ....THAT FACT makes me way more grateful for Christ's gifts to me!

Our Ethan is learning so much.  He has learned that i am his Momma!  THIS morning he woke up and when i got him out of bed he said, "Momma"!!!  UGH! Weeping again.  You see, Ethan always says, "hi E" to all of us because that is what Sophina has said to him since he came and so that is what we all say is "Hi Ethan".  Ethan hasn't been able to figure out that he needs to say, "Hi, Sophina or Hi, Momma" and so on instead of "hi E". Ethan is having more times of being 'NICE' than being trained to be 'nice'.  THIS Momma is also finding out that his actions are just way more typical than i ever dreamed.
Ethan knows the number 1 and 5.  He LOVES and i mean LOVES music and when he wants to, he sings 'words' with me, when i sing my songs to him.  He knows the letter B in saying it AND in signing it.  He knows the letter A and E too.  He loves patty cake, round and round the garden, this little piggy, if you're happy and you know it, Jesus loves Me and the other songs i sing to/with him every night. 
He knows the words and "says" - OK, Bye-Bye, Ow, Nice, Sorry, Please, (starting to learn to put his hand up to his mouth to say Excuse me), Chow, Bravo, Momma, Night-Night, food, DadT, more, spoon, signing time (in his own way), NO, Yah (for yes) and probably more but we can't think of anymore right now.
He LOVES Signing Time.  I think that the reason is not the same as Sophina's as she LOVES learning the language but Ethan LOVES the music part.  They both will do almost anything to get to watch their one movie a day.  
Ethan will give us a hug or kiss if we ask and THAT is HUGE!!!  OH how i KNEW that it was something that i would LOVE.  He gives high fives and low fives, and knucks. He knows where his eyes are and where his nose is.

He is precious.  PERIOD.  On hard days which this past week seemed to be MANY....are exactly that....HARD!  I am beginning to realize that the hardest thing of this adoption isn't Ethan and all the changes that he has had to make but more than that, the fact that Scott is working so far away.  When Scott is home or for that matter when Scott's dad was here...there IS a big difference!  Ethan LOVES men and respects them automatically! 

Ethan is a treasure that i am loving to watch come more and more into the reality that he is in a family!  I think of how Ethan came to us so scared and small and unsure of what this new life was.  He is understanding that he is staying here.  He is so handsome and strong and is ALWAYS and i mean this ALWAYS moving!  He is a boy who needs to climb, run, push, carry, learn, and do things with his hands but for that matter, HIS WHOLE BODY.  He is a BOY!!!  He is a TREASURE!!  He is a BLESSING!  He is our son....he is my son and oh how i am well pleased!

I am ALWAYS BLESSED!  

ADOPTION IS HARD....but so good

Ethan is FINALLY asleep......WE are all completely and utterly DRAINED. 
While i was holding him in my arms for just a few minutes as i figured out that not only was i not going to be able to oil him, nor sing to him....i also wasn't going to be able to even hold him. SO....in that VERY short time of holding him....i thought about something VERY important.
Today, from the time Ethan woke up, Ethan was very unhappy, grumpy, angry, and was screaming for 30-40 minutes straight. There was nothing that we could do to keep him 'happy'. We couldn't even 'love on him' as he wasn't accepting it as we weren't doing it right. He was what many would say was 'unlovable', 'unworthy', and.....well, you get the idea.
Ethan has only been this bad one other day....the infamous day after the grandparents left. Like that day, the day was VERY VERY long, exhausting, overwhelming, and draining.
My thought went to our adoption. Ethan....gave us nothing, he did nothing for us to deserve adoption......and he cost us a LOT.....emotionally, physically, monetarily..... and we loved him. We brought him into our family.......for the rest of his life......he will have our name......he will be our son...he will be loved, no matter what.
God came to us.....when we were filthy, giving Him NOTHING, maybe even yelling at Him, pushing away His love, maybe even wanting to physically hurt him! He chased us when we gave him NOTHING! He reached out His hands when we pushed them away, slapping them with attitudes that what He was giving wasn't what WE wanted. YET, HE GAVE!!! HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON....who obeyed Him, who loved Him, who adored Him in every way.....so that we who were unlovable, ungrateful, uncaring and filthy could be HIS!

I pray that if you have been pushing Jesus away for weeks, months and maybe even years....that you would think of how much He loves you....how much He has sacrificed so that YOU can be His child! So that YOU can have His name.....a CHRISTian....a Christ follower.
I love our son.....yes, even on these VERY VERY TOUGH days but i fail......i do NOT always do what is BEST for him...as i do NOT always KNOW what is best for him. Jesus LOVES YOU and does NOT fail, He ALWAYS does what is BEST for YOU! HE KNOWS! 

I beg you to go look for a Bible or one of those Christ followers and ask questions.....dig deeper....search for answers....and stop pushing away the one who wants to adopt YOU!
I AM ALWAYS BLESSED (yep, even on FULL days/nights like this)