Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Fear & HUGE NEWS
I have one request, please read this through and do not skip down to our big news. I really want you to hear my heart on this, so if you don’t have time please come back when you do. JThank You.
Since becoming a parent my biggest fear has been that I would lose one of my children too early. I have had times where that possibility became very real, and in those moments I can honestly tell you that I never once doubted God, his awesomeness, his power to heal, and the strength he gave me to get through no matter what the end result may be.
A little less than 2 months after our son came home from Ethiopia, our daughter became very ill. (I know I have written of this before so for those who do not know this is a short recap.) Elena had a high fever of 105 for a week, no other symptoms. Towards the end of that week she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, and to be honest looked like she had been on a 6 day drinking binge. Blood shot eyes, a strawberry tongue with cherry lips, and she began to walk like she was 80 years old with severe arthritis. So in a number of events to follow, I ended up in a helicopter with my baby being life flighted for fear she was going to have a heart attack…she was 2 ½! There is so much more to this story, but she lived, she was healed, and the Kawasaki disease never reached her heart. Praise God!
A little over a year later, one Sunday my son came down with a fever. A mere 101 at the time so I wasn’t too concerned, but it suddenly spiked and while in my arms he started seizing. Say what?! I did not know what to do! As I held him and waited for the ambulance I once again was in a situation where I had no control. While in that ambulance I prayed to God as I have done before to heal my son, but I also prayed for God’s will to be done, even if it meant my son was going to see the face of Jesus. Ugh! Does anyone ever want to pray that, but I did and a lot of you I am sure have… He ended up being perfectly fine, but in that moment I didn’t know. It was a turning point for me because I was praying for God’s will even if it meant saying goodbye to my baby.
Most of you reading, if not all of you have had these kind of moments. And some of us have lost precious family and friends, and our lives have been forever changed. Tragedy changes us all the while God carries us and holds us and loves us through it all. We have been witnessing more of this locally and all of us reading I am sure were deeply affected by what happened in Newton. We hold our babies closer and we pray for their protection.
I talk of this fear because it is a human fear that I wrestle with and I am sure will for the rest of my life, but because it also greatly relates to another fear I have.
It’s not just fear of untimely death for my children, but also a fear of losing the life of a child promised, a child whom I have never held or met but love fiercely already and whom I would do anything for.
You see Adoption is a fear for me, and yes I have done it twice but in my weakness I still fear it. It is an investment like none other and it brings me to my knees like nothing ever has. It forces me to let go of my humanness to control and give it Completely to GOD and trust him. I fear adoption, and I love it more than anything else.
With our first adoption it was a very real possibility that our sweet Elena wouldn’t come home. You see a month after she came home Guatemala closed adoptions, and there are still precious children caught in the middle of that and it’s been five years. I Loved my daughter before I knew who she was, God had whispered to me that it would be a girl, and then when I did see her picture at two weeks old, I was done. I knew she was ours and I watched her grow for almost nine months in pictures and I did everything I could to get things complete so she could come home. I prayed and I talked with God every moment of that time.
Two and half years later we were blessed with Moses. This was a very scary process with some loss I never expected, but we trusted God no matter what and our sweet Moses has been home for 3 years now.
Some of my point is that anything can happen in adoption; truly anything. Everyone’s process is different, but I rest in the fact our God is always the same.
And so, here we are again in a place of great peace with a Ton of trust in my God, your God. A God who makes the impossible possible, and the scary hard bearable.
As most of you know we are adopting again, but domestically this time around. And with this comes a whole new set of fears. It is so different that our last two adoptions, and there is always the chance the adoption could fail.
You see this past Tuesday my family and I were blessed with very incredible news and my first reaction was to hide it, to not tell, and we will just wait. My first reaction was to try and protect my heart because I could lose. I realize how silly that is because the things that are happening have God written all over them (and someday I hope to share more about that) and I want to tell everyone!
My husband and I are whole heartily invested and in love and I am going to tell you why and it is because this past Tuesday I found out that I am going to be a MOTHER of 3 in April, and our family is going to become a family of 5! We have been matched with a beautiful family that I am so humbled to walk along this journey with and to be a part of the Beautifully hard story God is writing for all of us; however it may end.
We are soooo stinking excited I tell you, so excited!
So even though a million what if’s could happen, and I fear that this child may not come home, Today I stand trusting my God, and Today I am celebrating the fact that I am going to be a Mommy of 3!
** A little side note** We have not told the kids yet, still trying to figure out how to explain this to them, so if you congratulate us be aware of our little’s who may have no idea what you are talking about. J
More to come and prayer requests as well. Thanks you for walking with us and praying for us. God Bless.
To God be the Glory!
Jeremiah 29:11
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Picture Recap
Please also check out our update on the adoption blog and a prayer request for our son. www.itsgodsgospel.blogspot.com.
Kitchen Snuggles...The two melt my heart!
Dressing up for the Blessing Meal at her School....
Of course Mo wanted in on it too...do you like his new way to smile....
(Still) Working on potty training...everyone does it in their snow boots, right??
Time spent with friends who are family from Texas and Florida
Annual decorating of the tree in our jammies....
Packing snacks, wearing our jammies, and touring lights around town...we do this at least twice a week and they love it!
Last but certainly not least...We celebrated this beautiful young lady being in our Family. We cannot believe it has been in five years. You are a beautiful joy EJ and the funniest girl ever. We love you forever and thank God for you every day and pray that you grow into the woman he purposed you to be and that you take the hard in life and give it all to him so he can make blessings abound for you and the people you touch.
Purse made in Guatemala. Helping build families for special needs orphans in Guatemala. (more on that in the future)
Friday, October 12, 2012
Pure Love.
Can't WAIT to add more to these pics and have even more imperfect, but perfect photos....
"God sets the lonely in families....."
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Kindergarten
I many reasons for not blogging lately. One reason is the canning season, but that will be over after the weekend. There is lot to update, but for now please be happy with this. :)
My sweet girl started Kindergarten. I have a love/hate feeling about this, but she is loving it and is in great care all day and is being encouraged to grow for the Kingdom while we work. That makes my heart happy. Isn't she cute?
Mr. Mo had to get in on the pic taking too...I love my kids so much
A lot has been going on; hopefully I can sum it all up soon. God Bless.
My sweet girl started Kindergarten. I have a love/hate feeling about this, but she is loving it and is in great care all day and is being encouraged to grow for the Kingdom while we work. That makes my heart happy. Isn't she cute?
Mr. Mo had to get in on the pic taking too...I love my kids so much
A lot has been going on; hopefully I can sum it all up soon. God Bless.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Bananas
Yep that's right....Bananas
Who knew my next post after such a serious hard and joyous post would be about them, but it is...trying to get back in the swing of things after so much and still so much going on..so we are going light on the post for today.
I started freezing bananas not that long ago. Best thing ever! The grocery around here will have them every once in awhile crammed into these bags for $1.25! It's because they are starting to turn brown and most do not want them. I love them. So for $5 I filled up 4 gallon bags! Cheap y'all!
So far we only use them for smoothies, but they are a great filler and give a very sweet taste which helps stretch my more expensive fruit. Plus I have a child that only eats apple sauce and raisins, so this is a great way for me to get different fruit in him. He thinks they are shakes.
The smoothies are really simple and I hardly measure anymore. We start with vanilla yogurt or plain, raw honey or agave nectar, cinnamon depending on the frozen fruit we use. Throw in fruit....we use bananas, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Put a little milk in and blend. YUMMY! A warning on blueberries though; do not use too many and mix them with other fruit. If you use to many they make the smoothie consistency really funny and jelly and not good. ENJOY!
Who knew my next post after such a serious hard and joyous post would be about them, but it is...trying to get back in the swing of things after so much and still so much going on..so we are going light on the post for today.
I started freezing bananas not that long ago. Best thing ever! The grocery around here will have them every once in awhile crammed into these bags for $1.25! It's because they are starting to turn brown and most do not want them. I love them. So for $5 I filled up 4 gallon bags! Cheap y'all!
So far we only use them for smoothies, but they are a great filler and give a very sweet taste which helps stretch my more expensive fruit. Plus I have a child that only eats apple sauce and raisins, so this is a great way for me to get different fruit in him. He thinks they are shakes.
The smoothies are really simple and I hardly measure anymore. We start with vanilla yogurt or plain, raw honey or agave nectar, cinnamon depending on the frozen fruit we use. Throw in fruit....we use bananas, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Put a little milk in and blend. YUMMY! A warning on blueberries though; do not use too many and mix them with other fruit. If you use to many they make the smoothie consistency really funny and jelly and not good. ENJOY!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
A Hard Decision
In case you do not follow or adoption blog, I wanted to post this big news here too. Thanks
So I have been pretty MIA in a lot of things lately and it’s time to share one of the reasons. Our family has lot of changes being talked about, being made, and waiting on the Lord to reveal, but one decision we have made just recently has to do with our adoption journey.
If you note our timeline for our journey to adopt from Ethiopia we started thinking in Feb of 2011, and officially signed on in May of 2011. We have been on the wait list for 9 months now, and that wait is still a very, very, long one. We were initially ok with the wait, but felt another path being pressed upon us. We tried to request a change in policy with our current agency about allowing concurrent adoptions, and that became a complicated path. There were times of hope that this could work and we could stay the course as we wait, but it simply didn’t work out.
The short of this all is that we are in the process of terminating our contract with AGCI and stopping our Ethiopian adoption, and then at the same time in the beginnings of starting a new adoption journey domestically. This is the short and simple of it.
To be honest I am not going to share all of the painful, hard details of the change here, but our decision was not made lightly or easily. It was hard and painful, but we know we are where God wants us to be.
A friend of mine who is adopting for the second time said something like this when their journey took a completely different turn…”Sometimes God leads us in one direction only to take us in another.” At the time I read this, this statement made sense but also hit me at a level I didn’t completely understand at the time, until now.
I do not doubt that we will indeed return to Africa to adopt again; in fact we plan on it, but right now God has us here on a journey that is unknown, and to be honest, a little scary.
There are some of you who will no doubt have questions, and I will gladly answer them. I invite you to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at carriestamm@gmail.com. There are just too many things to try and write out and explain on the blog.
Truly I want to end this very sad and hard post with pure joy. Joy in our next step, and request for prayer as we are completely laid bare before our maker and trusting him in this with everything we have. Thank you for your support and love; truly means so much.
As things progress more we will keep you updated on our domestic journey.
Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
~ Philippians 4:6
So I have been pretty MIA in a lot of things lately and it’s time to share one of the reasons. Our family has lot of changes being talked about, being made, and waiting on the Lord to reveal, but one decision we have made just recently has to do with our adoption journey.
If you note our timeline for our journey to adopt from Ethiopia we started thinking in Feb of 2011, and officially signed on in May of 2011. We have been on the wait list for 9 months now, and that wait is still a very, very, long one. We were initially ok with the wait, but felt another path being pressed upon us. We tried to request a change in policy with our current agency about allowing concurrent adoptions, and that became a complicated path. There were times of hope that this could work and we could stay the course as we wait, but it simply didn’t work out.
The short of this all is that we are in the process of terminating our contract with AGCI and stopping our Ethiopian adoption, and then at the same time in the beginnings of starting a new adoption journey domestically. This is the short and simple of it.
To be honest I am not going to share all of the painful, hard details of the change here, but our decision was not made lightly or easily. It was hard and painful, but we know we are where God wants us to be.
A friend of mine who is adopting for the second time said something like this when their journey took a completely different turn…”Sometimes God leads us in one direction only to take us in another.” At the time I read this, this statement made sense but also hit me at a level I didn’t completely understand at the time, until now.
I do not doubt that we will indeed return to Africa to adopt again; in fact we plan on it, but right now God has us here on a journey that is unknown, and to be honest, a little scary.
There are some of you who will no doubt have questions, and I will gladly answer them. I invite you to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at carriestamm@gmail.com. There are just too many things to try and write out and explain on the blog.
Truly I want to end this very sad and hard post with pure joy. Joy in our next step, and request for prayer as we are completely laid bare before our maker and trusting him in this with everything we have. Thank you for your support and love; truly means so much.
As things progress more we will keep you updated on our domestic journey.
Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
~ Philippians 4:6
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
