Climbing the Mountain While Free Falling...

Since last June, I feel like I have been running non-stop in all things adoption, orphan care, missional community and fundraising while also still fully engage in normal life with two active little warriors and a part-time gig that helps pay a bit of our bills. As we were praying about the last fundraiser, we were debating another idea for fundraising that would follow. The forward momentum from so many friends has been so encouraging. We still have some things to sell and things to do as silent auctions, etc. 

Yet, I felt like we had to slow down and rest. I was a bit nervous. But, I'm so grateful for God's goodness and I can confidently know now that was God nudging me to ask Travis if we could put other ideas on hold. God blessed us with bypassing our goal, so we can do that without even thinking about the next fee that is due. To me, that was confirmation that I was hearing correctly from him and not just making things up out of sheer exhaustion.

A friend observed that one of the challenges in the adoption process is that there is so much you have to do; but yet there is so much you can not do or control.

You have to do your paperwork correctly. You have to answer questions just so and say things just right on paper. You have to hustle and meet deadlines and get papers from the right place on the right date or they will expire, etc. But, you also are totally not in control. For instance, our paperwork sat in a mail room in DSS for weeks. Then once our certificate was mailed, we never go it. If I had not called back, we would still be waiting for it even though it was approved. 

Yet, you just wait and have no control. No control on when they'll get the mail out of the room. No control over how our daughter is being cared for thousands of miles away. 

So, we either panic. Or we wait in joy and peace. 

There is joy in the wait. In the community that we get to focus on helping grow in our area. In the connections to the global orphan care world that we've made. There is joy and peace in the process of knowing that God is the only who knows where our baby girl is. That the under current is peace. The undercurrent is faith. The undercurrent is trust. 

So, it's a really crazy process to have to be focused and a bit pushy and motivated while completely at peace and resting in a sovereign God. 

And isn't that just what we are always learning? Check the undercurrent of the furry?

Being still and knowing He is God. 

Yet, running the race with perseverance. 

Climbing the mountain while free falling....

Oh, the paradox.....

So, for the next few weeks, I'm hoping to rest as much as possible. And for me, rest is different than it may be for others. To me rest, will be not rushing out the door to be somewhere on time, or mailing something by a certain date or hitting a deadline for a fee or post needing updated,etc. 

I'll post probably tomorrow on how I'm resting with a refocus on the next part of Romans 8:3b-5 if you are tagging along...