By Faith

Lily's favorite spot, thrown over the couch, suntanning and dog-watching with  her favorite toy close at hand.

My faith is being tested. Sometimes it feels easier if I were to just throw in the towel, give up, walk away and forget we ever wanted to adopt. I would never actually do this, my hope for a child is too strong to walk away from, but sometimes I feel like this would be easier. When I am weak and sick of waiting, when my faith has grown weary, the thought of walking away crosses my mind. I don’t know what I would do after that, like I said I would never actually go through with it. I was reading today in Hebrews about Abraham and Isaac. I can’t imagine Abraham’s thoughts when God asked for his only son. Although, it seems, Abraham had a sense of peace about what he was asked to do. It says, “Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead.” Imagine that kind of faith. I pray to have this faith, the kind that doesn’t question, waits patiently, trusts that everything will work out for His glory. Today Abraham is my hero, I’ve never known anyone to have this kind of faith, I can learn a lot from him!

-Bekah

I have learned many difficult lessons thru this ordeal… none more profound than a much needed lesson on patience. I thought I knew what patience was until we wanted to be parents. Everything else in our world is fast paced. If you have money, you go out and buy it. Even in ecclesiastes Solomon speaks of how he denied himself nothing, he refused his heart no pleasure. That resonates with how spoiled I’ve become. When nothing is out of grasp, I’ve lost the necessity of utter dependence on God. But when money and stuff gets old, mundane and repetitive, then I find myself desperate…. and if there is one thing that God loves its desperation. Especially since He knows that the only thing to fill the void is his presence in me, nothing more. Not far off is the longing within us to love and be loved. Hmmm sounds familiar... love God and love others in THAT order. In acts 8 Peter is confronted with Simon, a man who figures he can purchase the Holy Spirit along with power to heal. Peter’s response is sharp and to the point, you can’t buy God’s love, his Spirit, his power… any of him. In fact, my lesson in patience goes hand in hand with this passage. God has laid something profound on my heart lately; anything worthwhile is going to involve some element of sacrifice, some patience, and some faith (in fact, more often than not, it involves a ton of all these!). And so our character development continues, as God refines us in His purifying fire.  Needless to say, I thought we could just pay the money, hop on a plane and become parents in a couple months. Guess God’s timing is slightly different than mine. Thankfully he’s got this whole mess under control, in fact, to Him it’s not a mess at all. . . It’s a plan!

-Arnie