The Desire of my Heart

Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4

This verse is filled with such hope and promise.  In my journey of faith, I have seen God keep this promise over and over.  I'm so grateful that God sees and knows the desires of my heart.  Truthfully, I have seen that God knows my desires better than I do.  As you probably know, I often said (in my younger days) that I wasn't sure I wanted to have any children.  Now I have five!  That makes me giggle.  And I am so grateful that God has given me each precious gift.

I recently read this quote from John Piper:

"There is only on basic reason why we disobey the commands of Jesus:  it's because we don't have confidence that obeying will bring more blessing than disobeying.  We do not hope fully in God's promise."

I disobey more often than I care to admit.  However, I'm overjoyed that we were obedient to God's call for the plan of our family.  God has given me the desires of my heart....desires that I didn't even know that I had!  I'm sure that ten years ago I would have listed the desire of my heart traveling all over the world and teaching at a university.  God had a different (and better!) plan for my life.

I'm reflecting on this as school starts in our area.  I have enjoyed seeing my friends' first day of school pictures.  Here are some of ours...Savanna goes to Community Christian School.  She drove herself this year.  (still trying to get my brain wrapped around that!)  I am homeschooling the other three.  Davina could barely get her eyes open!

Homeschooling is another area where God has given me the desire of my heart.  With my oldest two, I never considered myself capable to homeschool.  I enjoyed working part-time.  The girls were blessed with awesome school experiences.  Things were good.  But then we decided that Yuly would benefit from homeschool.  So we decided to take the plunge.  

When we made the move to homeschool, it was with fear and trembling.  And I love it.  Truly.  As much as I loved my job, I love homeschooling more.  I tell my girls, a bad day of homeschooling is better than a good day at work.  And I mean it.

As I looked at everyone's pictures of the first day, here is what really struck me.  Most of my friends my age have sent one or more of their children off to college now and many of them now have only one child at home.  (I am definitely of the generation in which two children is the norm).  This easily could have been me:  Audrey off to college, Savanna starting her Junior year.  Only two years until Todd and I would be empty-nesters.

I am so glad that we have still several years (that will undoubtedly fly by!) before we become empty-nesters.  I love Todd.  He is my best friend.  I am always grateful when we have time alone together.  But we both agree that we are so happy that we have awhile before we are empty-nesters.  I know the time will come.  And when we reach that season, I hope it is filled with long walks on the beach with Todd and many visits with grandchildren.  But for now, I am enjoying having children from elementary to college aged.

Ten years ago, I could not have imagined writing these words.  The journey with God is one of adventure...of going places I could have never imagined (or thought I wanted to go!)  But God knows me.  He loves me.  He wants the best for me.  Obeying God, following God ALWAYS brings more blessings than disobedience.  Now, if only I could remember that all the time :)

Oh, and about those desires I thought I had to travel and teach at a university...I guess I was on the right track.  I have traveled...to Colombia and China to adopt my girls.  And I do teach, just not to a group of college students.  And I have no doubt that God's plan has brought me more joy than any desires that I imagined on my own.

Winging it

Back in the day when I had only two girls (imagine that!), I learned quickly that even though my girls were raised in the same home and had a lot of similarities, they each brought their own personalities, weaknesses, and challenges into the family.  And these were my biological children.

Now we have 5 girls.  It is really fun to see similarities and differences with all my girls.  Yuly has learned to celebrate the ways she is similar to her sisters (like a shared love for dance) as well as her differences (her beautiful skin and hair color).  We already see how Davina fits our family with her sense of humor.  She is athletic like Savanna.

But of course, there are differences.  And parenting each of them requires me to grow as a parent.  Before we brought Yuly home, I thought that I was a pretty good parent.  Not perfect, of course, but my girls seemed to be doing well.  (I mean, when the social worker asked my older two girls what they didn't like about my parenting, they replied, "She makes us eat whole wheat bread."  If that's the worst they have, I must be doing o.k.)

God used Yuly to show me areas of parenting weakness. Parenting her required me to stretch and bend and change.  I received a crash course in "How to be patient."  (Still a struggle, but I am sooo much better than I used to be).  I learned to pray more:  more often, more specifically, and more fervently.   God also used her to grow my faith and my trust in God.

And now, I am learning again.  We already had two teenagers when we brought Davina home.  I had some basic teenager parenting skills, but I am now enrolled in the advanced course.  And there is no syllabus.  Or textbook.  Basically, we are just winging it.  Parenting situations arise for which I have no precedent to base my response on.

Example.  We know that Davina has had a lot of trouble developing a good sleep pattern.  She goes to bed, says she is tired, but says she just can't sleep.  Sometimes she gets up and we find her reading in the middle of the night.  OK, we decided that sleep adjustments will come and not to worry too much.  Then one day, when we awaken at 7:00, we discover that Davina and Yuly have been up since 3:00 a.m. playing and eating (healthy foods!)

So, what is the correct response?  They didn't break any stated rules (I mean, we've never had to tell any of our kids, don't get up in the middle of the night and have a party).  Still, it probably isn't a good idea to allow this to happen on a regular basis. 

What did we decide?  We laughed and talked about it.  We celebrated the fact that two sisters had such a special, if somewhat unconventional, time together (they were both beaming when they came into our room!)  We are thankful that they were not sneaky about it...we heard all the details of their exploits.  And we gently talked through the fact that this was a fun, but one time only, party.  That night is for sleeping. 

Disclaimer:  I'm not saying we handled this the "right" way.  I'm just telling you that based on our family's unique personality, our parenting strategies, our teaching style, and our girls' needs, this is the way our family handled it. 

God promises us wisdom when we ask..and I am asking A LOT lately!!
⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.  James 1

I have received wisdom.  Not all at once, but for each situation.  God is working within me, within the life of our family, and within each of my girls and I am grateful.  

Daily Blessings

The Lord's lovingkindness never ceases

For His compassions never fail.

They are fresh every morning.

Great is His faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Every day we get to witness God at work in our home.  There are new blessings each day.  We are so grateful that we serve such a generous God.  Here is a peak of some of the blessings in our home...

• We took Davina to the beach for the first time.  I enjoyed watching her excitement and joy as she picked up (seemingly) every hermit crab and shell on the beach.  I loved hearing her say, "Mommy, mommy, look at this!"

• We also went to the Gulf Marine Specimen Lab in Panacea.  They have a variety of tanks, some of them with crabs and other sea life that may be picked up.  All of the kids loved the personal encounters.
  
• Davina is quite a cook...and an artist.  It is really fun to see her combine the two!  For a recent dinner she made radish roses to garnish the dishes.  She also looked through a cookbook and found a recipe for apple pie.  She had never had apple pie, but wanted to make it.  With a little help, she made the pie, but the decorations on the top were all her own...(it is hard to see, but it is a smiley face).  Oh, and the pie was yummy!

• Watching my other girls love on their sister, minister to her, extend grace to her is really amazing and a huge blessing to be able to witness.
  
• I know I have mentioned that Davina has a silly streak.  Here are a couple of photos that capture that:

  

  This was taken at the Florida History Museum and the rest of the family is up on a replica of a Steam Boat.  We are in the water trying to swim to them.
  
  

  

  Also at the Florida History Museum...just more silliness to show you that Davina fits right in!!
  
  

I took these two on a hike...thinking it would be a fun, wholesome activity.  They acted like we were on the never-ending journey (all in good fun, of course).

• There are the little daily blessings that are hard to capture in words and photos...
• listening to Yuly tell Davina about Colombia and asking her about China
• Davina's daily work copying passages from her Chinese-English Bible.  She was copying the creation story in Genesis and I started praying about picking another book of the Bible because of some of the content in Genesis.  Without my knowing it, Todd was also praying about suggesting a different book.  He had decided to suggest Proverbs.  When he went to talk to her about it, she told him that she wanted to change to a different book and suggested Proverbs.  :)
• getting glimpses of her life in China.  We are beginning to hear little stories from her time in SWI as well as small snatches of her life before...like she told us that she had seen snow when she lived with her first family.
• watching Savanna teach Davina how to make hair bows and then having Davina make bows for her two younger sisters.

We thank God for the amazing privilege of parenting these five beautiful girls.  We make many mistakes as parents and are grateful for their sweet forgiveness and God's fresh mercies every day.

(Re)learning to trust

Praise be to the Lord,

    for he has heard my cry for mercy.

7 

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

    my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.

My heart leaps for joy,

    and with my song I praise him. 

           Psalm 28:6-7

God continues to show Himself throughout our family's journey.  Recently, He has been revealing Himself to me as trustworthy.  Yes, I know He is trustworthy.  A hymn from my childhood echoes..."Only trust Him, Only trust Him, Only trust Him now."

I like to think I trust Him, but really, I fail in this area many times every day. Every time I try to find solutions to my problems, take matters into my own hands, become anxious about my situation, I am demonstrating a lack of trust.  God has been relentless in showing me my sinfulness as I refuse to trust.

Thinking about God objectively, it seems ridiculous not to trust Him.  He is Sovereign!  He is LORD Most High!!

And yet, like Paul, what I want to do (trust God), I do not do.(Romans 7:18)

I am learning that trusting God is not a once a day event.  It is a minute by minute, breathing in, breathing out decision.

Some minutes I trust God, but many other minutes I do not.  And really, I am learning that I cannot trust without the power of the Holy Spirit at work in my life.

And yet, God is so merciful.  He continues to lead and guide me.  He continues to reveal Himself to me.

We recently came through a tough 24 hours with our daughter.  She was withdrawn, non-communicative.  And I felt totally helpless.  Finally, I realized that was exactly where I needed to be.  Helpless.  Acknowledging that I had NO IDEA how to get through this situation.  I had nothing to bring to the table.  Helpless, yes, but not hopeless.  I chose to put my hope, my trust in God.  The One who could whisper to Davina's heart.  The One who could meet her needs even when I could not.

When we came through that situation, I understood what the psalmist meant!  God helped me and I, too, was leaping for joy!!