Chosen Hand

Such a sweet surprise left at my door yesterday from an awesome friend, Laurin! I had the perfect chain to go with the "Chosen Hand" charm, and it looks GREAT! I wore it today, and looked down at it often.  It's a great reminder to pray without ceasing for our little one.

For a child you prayed

He heard your request

And that of the birth mother

Who wanted my best

Directing our paths

He brought us together

From His own hand into yours

God created me

Then chose you to take me

A parent's love birthed deep

In your heart

Our lives are now blessed

Thanks be to God

For knowing what's best

-Deborah Harter

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift."  2 Corinthians 9:15

November is Adoption Awareness Month!! :-)

-In God's Hands

Whitney

Confirmations

From the very first step in our adoption journey, Cody and I have prayed that we keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ and His will for our lives.  Before we made the decision to start our family through adoption we were asking God for confirmation that we were making the right choice.  It seemed like every time we received confirmation from Him, we would ask for just one more "sign." (This is where "flesh" comes in!)  I was getting ready to read my Bible one night in bed and before I began reading, I asked God to show me what He wanted me to see/read.  I opened my Bible and immediately my eyes fell on Ephesians 1: 5, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to good pleasure of His Will."  Now adoption in this scripture is talking about us as God's "adopted" children.  I immediately showed Cody what I was reading, and we were both excited and encouraged to see the word "adoption" in the scripture we were reading.  Later on that night I could not go to sleep because I kept thinking about how the word "adoption" may be in the Bible MANY times, and it "just so happened" that I came across one of those times (Doubting God's confirmation; Devil playing tricks with my mind).  I began to research just how many times the word "adoption" was in the Bible, and it was less than 5 times! WOW! Why do we doubt God so much??

The second big confirmation for us was how quickly we were assigned a social worker, and how quickly all of our paperwork and home study was completed and turned in. We were sure this would take 4-5 months, BUT GOD made a way and everything fell into place perfectly!  We were finished in about 2 months!

The last confirmation was just last night.  We know that adoption is part of God's plan for our lives and it is going to happen, but waiting patiently is not always easy.  Last night I had a VERY vivid dream concerning our adoption.  I won't go into all of the details, but God was definitely present in my dream, and He was performing miracles/super natural things concerning our adoption.  I may not know and understand the meaning of everything in the dream, but I KNOW God was reassuring me once again that IT IS COMING!  This morning I shared a little bit about this dream with my Pastor while going up for prayer.  After prayer, a VERY dear lady to Cody and I and a strong woman of FAITH came up to us and said, "God wants me to tell you, GET READY, and SAVE!  She said, "I don't know what that means, but I had to share it with you."  Cody and I knew exactly what it meant, and it was very encouraging!

With each and every day I grow more and more excited about bringing our baby home.  I know it's coming, and I know it's coming SOON!

"Adoption means you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy"

My mother sent me this quote yesterday via text message.  Surprisingly, I had never heard this quote before but it is BEAUTIFULLY stated! 

Cody and I can't believe the AWESOME response we have received with our Wild Olive Tees Fund Raiser! God is SO GOOD!! Thank you so so much!  We know with God we can easily reach our goal of selling 100+ tees.  Please help us spread the word by telling your family, friends, neighbors, etc.  We appreciate any and all help!

This past Sunday (at Passion Connection Church) the message was, "PASSIONATELY PURSUING HIM"  Are we truly pursuing Jesus Christ with PASSION?  Are we giving EVERYTHING we've got to pursue Him and His will for our lives? Every miracle that was performed in the Bible was the direct effect of someone passionately pursuing Christ (woman with the issue of blood, blind man, paralyzed man).  We can't just sit back and wait for our miracle to fall into our hands.  We have to DAILY seek His face, and PURSUE HIM WITH PASSION.

Cody and I are doing our VERY BEST to PURSUE Jesus Christ with PASSION.  We know our little miracle will be with us very soon, and we are going to continue to PASSIONATELY PURSUE Him while we wait!

In God's Hands-
Whitney

Wild Olive Tees Fundraising!

As most of you know, adoption is VERY expensive.  Although Cody and I are adopting domestically (here in the U.S.) it is in no way cheap!  However, we know that God will always provide more than enough.

By the time our adoption is complete, we will have spent close to $30,000.  Yes, this is A LOT of money; but I find it funny that most people do not think twice about spending this amount on a new car!  A precious life created by God is worth so much more than $30,000....to us, it's PRICELESS! 

Back in September we were told about a fundraising organization, "Wild Olive Tees."  We immediately did our research and submitted an application to start fundraising.  Yesterday we learned we had been accepted to start fundraising for our adoption through Wild Olive Tees.  We were so excited!!

Below is from the Wild Olive Tees website:

Wild Olive adoption tees have been created as a means to help families fund raise for their impending adoption. Our goal is to partner with adoptive families to help them gain support from friends and family to offset the cost of their adoption, and in turn, help bring children home to their forever families!

These tees are available to anyone for purchase. However, if you have been given a FAMILY CODE by family or friends as a way to help support their fundraising efforts, please enter it during checkout in BOTH the “Enter Coupon” field (by clicking the "Enter Coupon" button on the left inside your cart), as well as the Comments section. This way, the family you are supporting is properly credited for your purchase. The family code must be entered to ensure that the funds go to the correct family.

Please note: the FAMILY CODE will not reduce the price of the tee; it will simply ensure that the proper family receives the funds from your purchase.

Our family code is: LEWIS1019

These t-shirts are wonderful! Each t-shirt has a scripture on the back.  My favorite is "CHOSEN" "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be His treasured possession." Deuteronomy 14:2....This is actually one of the youth size t-shirts, but I LOVE IT!

We will receive $7.50 for the first 50 t-shirts sold, and after 50 we will receive $10 for each t-shirt sold! Wild Olive Tees will write us a check and send it straight to St. Elizabeth Foundation to help with the cost of our adoption.  Please help us spread the word! Tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc...We believe, with God, we can reach our goal of selling 100+ shirts before December!  We know that may sound like a lot, but as we have said before, WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE FOR THEM THAT BELIEVE!  THANK YOU!!!

In God's Hands-

Whitney :-)

And the journey has begun...

It has been exactly 5 months and 18 days since we began our adoption journey!  It does seem MUCH longer than that because we spent over a year praying and researching the perfect plan for our family.  In early April we chose to begin our adoption journey through St. Elizabeth Foundation here in Baton Rouge.  The first time we met with Ms. Teri (the director of SEF), Cody and I both had a peace about this organization and knew it was the right choice.  We were SO excited to get started that we set up to begin our Home study process immediately. We were told it would take at least a month to be placed with a social worker to begin this process...this is when the miracles began!  Not even two weeks later we received a phone call from Ms. Mary, our social worker.  Our first meeting was set for June 8th.  We were completely finished with our home study by the end of July.  In July, we began our Family Photo Book/Portfolio and Birth Mother Letter.  The Family Photo Book is what birth mothers will look at when choosing an adoptive family.  Cody and I put a lot of heart into making this book, but even more heart went into our birth mother letter.  I can't tell you how many drafts we wrote, threw away, and wrote again!  We wanted this letter to express our personalities, beliefs, and emotions perfectly- and that was pretty tough to do in a letter.  After about a month of working on the letter it was finally complete! Paperwork, home study, photo book, and birth mother letter - all complete...now we WAIT...for God's PERFECT timing!  It's not always easy to WAIT...I struggle with this weekly...But with God, ALL things are possible! :-)

In God's Hands-

Whitney :-)