Moving ahead

1. I wanted to state a few comments that I was encouraged with from my last post and will hopefully encourage you.   Remember those were my gut, honest feelings so I want to share a proper perspective that the Lord has recently laid on my heart. 

I LOVE the fact that one of my readers commented that the Lord showed her to vacation in Him.  Such a true statement and a great reminder for me as written in Matthew 11:28 - "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

I also truly believe that beauty is on the inside and the condition of our heart with the Lord is all that matters.  I am comfortable in my own skin, but I would be lying if I said I don't struggle with outside appearances.  I think we as women constantly struggle with comparing ourselves whether it's as an employee, a mom, a wife, or a friend, etc.  If our heart is focused on the Lord and striving to do what He wants us to do with our own lives, then the rest will not matter. 

My expectations with a house is entirely selfish.  I am extremely grateful for what God has blessed us with and should be thankful for the roof over my head and the food in my belly not how big a room should be in order for me to be happy.  I'm even more excited to visit Ethiopia because I know it will give me an even better perspective and more appreciation of what He has given us.  I think we get so caught up in our world these days we forget about the bigger picture.  I look forward to that day where God has prepared my own place in heaven and that what we have here is temporary and not as important as the people we want to be there in heaven with us. 

2.  We finally received our completed homestudy which means we can apply to immigration! The timing seems so long to others who have done this, but it was perfect and in God's complete control.  When we didn't know if we could proceed with the adoption, God didn't allow the process to move any quicker.  While we were waiting on the homestudy, we were also waiting on a job for him and our FBI fingerprints to be approved.  The timing of it is entirely to His glory as our homestudy was e-mailed for approval on November 14th, David signed for a job on November 15th, and our FBI fingerprints to complete homestudy (marked completed Oct 15th) arrived in the mail November 16th.  Still gives me chills to think about how that all lined up, but it's just another way God shows us He is sovereign and can do anything.

3.  We were blessed to be able to celebrate an Ethiopian Christmas with other local YWAM families who have recently adopted this past Saturday.  Their Christmas is celebrated on January 7th.  I love how our Christmas celebration just got extended.  It was such an encouragement for our family to see these precious families and children and to know they are right here in our city.  Even though we are moving we won't be too far away from being able to get together and lean on one another for support.  We were able to try out some spicy Ethiopian dishes, coffee, pop popcorn over a fire and check out their Ethiopian apparel.  Check out the hosts' blog for more pictures from the event.  
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