When doubt consumes us

I want to take a minute, not to complain, but to kinda open up to what has been going on with us lately. We have been overcome with doubt here lately. Not because we don't still want this more than anything in the world, but rather we are beginning to wonder if we were truly listening to the calling of the Lord or not. For the first time in a year (when we first started the process) I have really begun to question if we are following the Lord's plan for us. Not only is the paperwork never right when we send it in (as you can tell, our agency called and we still have to correct a few more things), but we have been slammed financially here in the past few months. Being able to afford this adoption has been a heavy burden on our hearts from day one, but we have always felt that if we are following the Lord's calling that the financial aspect will just fall into place. For the most part up to this point it has (one way or another) fallen into place. The concerning part for us is that the largest portions of the financial parts are coming up. In the past couple months: the transmission has went out in my car, we rear eneded a car and had to pay our deductible (which we do hope to get back because the accident wasn't our fault), this past week we realized that we had a major moisture problem in our house that had to be immediatly taken care of. Then last night, it would appear as though our air conditioner has decided that it is tired of servicing us. So for two months now our pocketbooks have been heavily hit, and on top of that we have sent dossier paperwork 3 times only to be told that it still isn't right. So I think that this would have any human scratching there head and reassessing their situation.
Our biggest fear is that we are not listening to the Lord and he is trying to tell us that we are traveling the wrong path. Yet on the same hand, what if we are on the right path and the devil is trying to stop us from what the Lord has for us? So the other night, we sat down to talk and we decided that we had to make a decision to either hold up on the adoption before we get any further in, or to proceed fighting tooth and nail until we succeed. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I am so close to throwing in the towel and giving up. But we both decided that we are going to push through this and fight as hard as we have to. We both come to the conclusion that if we weren't doing something right, then the devil wouldn't be trying so hard to stop us. So that's where we are right now, and this is what we have been dealing with for a few weeks now. Today my aunt sent me a message:
Hey Shanny, just wanted to share this with you today. In our service today, Bro. Billy was talking about being adopted by the Father and he mentioned a little girl that was adopted and she that adoption was "when you grew in your mommy's heart not her tummy". I thought of you and how special that you are to be ready to give your heart someone (ones) that really really need your love. God is working on this as we speak! I love you!
Shasha: You timing was impecable on this. It was what I needed and when I needed it. Thank you so much for sending that today. Love ya!

Back on Track

It has been a long, difficult and quite stressful summer. In the frustrations that this summer has brought on, I have allowed myelf to loose sight over who is in control. Thankfully, we were able to go on a family vacation this past week that has allowed me to take some days to rest, relax and unwind. Vacation could not have come at a more perfect time. We had hoped that we could mail off the second round of dossier documents prior to vacation, but it just didn't happen. The remaining documents that we needed were in the mail when we got home. So yesterday, Benji and I took off to Atlanta to get everything apostilled. It is in the mail as of an hour ago, and will be with AWAA tomorrow for a final review. So praise God we are back on track and hopefully moving forward.

Update

I know that it has been awhile since my last post. Life has been very chaotic the past several weeks. Right after we recieved notification that we had several documents that needed to be changed, we had Kids Camp at our church. I had to get through camp then I could refocus on the paperchase. I have found myself very exhausted with this adoption process and very discouraged lately. Thus one of the biggest reasons that I have not posted because I do not ever want to sound negative, and I don't want to complain. But this has been one of the most difficult couple of months that I have ever endured. We have had a very difficult time with a few documents (which we should finally have everything in the next couple of weeks to resend to our agency). In the middle of being at a very low point in this process, the transmission went out in my car. We are still dealing with that and hopefully we will have the car situation taken care of soon, as it is about to drive me insane in not having a car. I have stated several times lately that I know that God doesn't give you anymore than you can handle, but I am beginning to believe that he seriously overestimates me. HA! Then this past weekend, my mom had to have a little stay in the hospital for what we though was a heart issue (praise God it turned out to not be a heart issue). So for now, we are trying to deal with one issue at a time. I am in the words of my dear friend Ashley (and no she did not direct this comment at me, HA!) putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it.

Argh!

So we still are not ready to submit our dossier to Russia. There were a couple of documents that were not worded as they wanted (ie: they were missing my middle name), and a couple that had wrong dates, and our police clearances were not what they wanted. The police clearances have given us a fit. Russia wants clearances on state letterhead and we can't seem to find anyone that can do that for us. The GBI and the FBI both say they do not do police clearances. Our local police department did do them but they can only put it on county letterhead...not state. So until we figure out what to do from here we are stuck for the moment. I have concluded that until the day that you recieve a referral, it is best to leave your emotions at the door, otherwise the process can completely wear you out. I have decided that until my phone rings to tell me that there is a precious little one waiting for me, I will not get excited nor will I get angry or upset or sad. I will continue to keep my eyes focused on what I feel like God wants us to do, and no matter what obstacle the devil throws in our way, we will keep pushing forward!

The best secret sister ever!

In our church, the ladies all have secret sisters. I have no idea who my secret sister is, but she is one heck of a wonderful secret sister. I don't know if she reads this blog or not. But I just want to say thank you for all the encouragement, prayers and all the little gifts for our "little one". Every time that my secret sister sends me a gift, there is always a little gift in there for our child-to-be. Each time it gives me such a boost and just makes my day. There was one gift in particular that has just meant so much to me. For the 4th of July, she gave me a book by Twila Paris "Bedtime Stories: Prayers and Lullabyes". That is on the best books ever. It is a book for a child but it is filled with some of the sweetest things. I read a prayer or a lullaby almost every night. So, to anyone one out that that has little ones, check this book out, you will not be dissappointed. It has touched me and lifted my spirits when I needed it the most. So thank you so much to my secret sister, I love you!

Dossier Mailed!

Finally! Benji just called to tell me that he has just dropped our dossier paperwork off at Fed-Ex. The adoption agency should have it by Thursday, maybe Friday. Pending everything in it is correctly prepared, it will be on it's way to Russia for translation. I am so excited, yet a little reserved. It seems like everything we have done thus far has been met with some opposition, some hurdle to cross. So I'm not going to get overexcited until Kristen calls and says it looks good and it's on it's way to Russia. I am going to be a little more prepared for things to not be a smooth as we hope. We know that we can over come any hurdle with God on our side, so we will deal with them as they come up. We certainly wouldn't have made it this far if we didn't have the Lord on our side. He has been what has gotten us here and we know that he is going to see us through this.

Motivational Boost

We are getting close to sending in our paperwork. We had actually hoped to have sent it in by now, but there are a few things that just ahven't quite fallen into place as we had hoped. However, we know that the Lord will provide...he always does.
I feel like the devil is attacking from every angle that he can. There are very few apsects of my life that he is not attacking at this moment. Which is wearing me out, but if I weren't doing something right then the devil wouldn't be trying so hard to bring me down, right? I woke up yesterday morning with some time to spare (as those who know me, know this NEVER happens. HA!) With a few minutes to spare, I decided to start my day off with a little bible reading. The Lord knows my frustrations and I went to prayer before I began to read. I just asked God to give me something that I needed to hear, something to let me know that things were going to be alright and that things were going to fall into place. I just opened my Bible and began to read wherever it opened. I began with Matthew 6:25, which was entitled "Do not worry". HA! As I read further, I came upon Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." My sister and I used to sing this verse when we were little girls. Can we say God knows exactly what we need when we need it? I honestly think that he wanted me to see those exact verses yesterday, and it was exactly what I needed, and I have truly felt so much better since reading that. I did get some news today of another change coming sooner than I had hoped. But it will all be okay. The Lord always provides and he has seen me through every struggle in my life thus far. I can rest assured that he is still with me making plans for me as we speak. Thank you Lord, for being the awesome God that you are.