Saturday, November 22, 2014

Are you Blessed?


I have seen so many blog posts and Facebook statuses about people being upset about other people describing themselves as blessed. And it makes me sad that among Christians we are starting to quarrel about whether or not we can say we are blessed.

 So I've had enough, and have to throw my 2 cents in on the subject. I'm gonna set the record straight.

Did you know there is a difference in saying you are blessed and blessed (pronounced blesid)?

It's true. I consulted a dictionary.

Blesid is an adjective. If you remember from English class and adjective describes a noun. Like when Jesus says in Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in Spirit; for theirs in the kingdom of Heaven" he is describing the poor in Spirit. That word in Greek is actually saying that they are fortunate or prosperous. Jesus was literally telling those people that they were fortunate to be poor in spirit because Heaven belongs to them.

Blessed is a verb. An action word that means to "express or feel gratitude to; to thank" So when someone says "I am blessed." they are essentially saying they feel gratitude.

I say this because I feel like it is important to acknowledge that we have been giving many things in this life, one of them being life itself, and we should be thankful for that. We should be telling people we are blessed. We should be acknowledging that which God has given us.

So if you are one of those people who felt ashamed for saying you are blessed, and you meant it because you are grateful for ALL God has given you, you are free from shame my friend.

And if you are one of those people who was like "Yeah, stop saying you are blessed! You're not! That's not how Jesus meant it!", then know that those who are saying it are being grateful, and it's okay for you to be grateful too.

Hugs my friends!

Saturday, November 8, 2014

And we said No

She came into our living room and sat in the yellowish-orange chair. My girls ran around her and giggled. She played with Julia, and listened to all of her stories about My Little Ponies. She told Julia that Rainbow Dash is her favorite.

I sat on the couch under a quilt; tired, cold, worn down, nervous. I looked around my house and saw boxes of kitchen cabinets in the corner, clutter all around, and I could feel the vomit wanting to come up.

She asked us about our wedding, our parents, where our adoptive child will sleep. She asked if I would do my one on one interview with her and Paul took the girls for a walk.

She asked me about my relationship with my dad. She asked me about being sexually abused. She asked me if now was the time to adopt. I cried. I felt humiliated. I felt like all of our friends were judging us without even knowing the conversation was happening. I felt like I had failed.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me she knows that God has called us to adoption, that she knows we are good parents, that I am a good mom. She told me that God didn't give me a spirit of timidity but of power.

She asked me again...is now the time for you to adopt?

She told me that there is no shame in postponing. She said that I am doing good, hard work in counseling and she doesn't want me to be distracted by the adoption process and stop healing. She asked me again "is now the time for you to adopt?".

She asked Paul to come in and talk with us. She told him our conversation. She asked us again "is now the time for you to adopt?".

She told us our options. She told us we could complete our home study and postpone referral. She told us that we could stop the home study process and start over again when we were ready. And she asked again "is now the time for you to adopt?'

Paul took a deep breath, and paused. He asked questions. He said that finishing our home study and postponing referral was a good choice. She gave us time to talk. We told her the same thing.

She got up to leave, and told us that she would see us in the morning.

Everything in the pit of my stomach told me that we needed stop. Paul was hesitating, and that meant we need to figure out why. Continuing this process wouldn't be right if we didn't know.

She hugged me, told me she was going to be praying for me, and left.

We have spent today trying to figure out why there was hesitation, and we don't know. We honestly don't know. but we know that God knows. We know that God is going to show us in His timing, and until then we will wait.

Waiting is hard, but we know He has called us to adoption. So we will wait until he says it is time.

So we said no when she asked if this is the right time to adopt.