Thanking the Lord for A Sweet Gift

Happy first birthday, Javen! A year ago today, you made your entrance into the world, and with every one of past 365 days, we have fallen more deeply in love with you.

It has been a year in our family that brought a new precious life and also the loss of a precious life, a year in which we have seen and experienced how the Lord gives and takes away and have been reminded to love deeply but hold loosely.

Even during some weeks, days, and moments of tears and sadness over the great loss of your Aunt Mallory (who loved you so very much, by the way), you have been a constant source of joy to us and have helped us to smile even in those moments when we didn’t think we could. I hope Aunt Mal gets to look down from heaven on you today to see how much you have grown and changed since she last got to see you and love on you. I know it would make her so happy to see you today, and I wish so much that she was here to give you a birthday snuggle.




We are looking forward to this next year that will bring so many changes for you as you grow and develop. We will get to watch you learn to walk and talk . . . we will get to begin teaching you so many things . . . you will become a big brother . . . . we cannot wait to see what your future will hold, and it is our prayer that above all else you will grow to know and love the Lord and will live a life that serves Him to the fullest, that your love for Him will overflow to everyone around you.

In closing, I just want to share some of the (many) things we most love about you:

-How I can never get anything done around the house when you are awake . . . your eyes plead with me to sit down and play with you, and I can never resist.

-Your precious smile that lights up your whole face – and the frequency with which you display it!

-Your silly personality, and how you have figured out that you are funny and can (and love to) do things on purpose to make us laugh.

-How you love your Daddy, how you crawl to the door as fast as you can when you hear his key in the lock every night, and how you immediately start reaching one arm up in the air when he walks in the door, begging him to pick you up to touch high things (you love when he picks you up to touch the ceiling, fans, or lights, or anything else high in the air).

-How you love your Mommy, how your favorite place to be is in my arms, how all is right with your little world when you are nestled in Mommy’s embrace, how you still wake up every night for a feeding and a sleepy snuggle with your Mama. So many treasured 3a.m. moments we have shared!

-How when you wake up in your crib, you sit up or stand up to peer through or over the crib slats toward the door, waiting and knowing that we will soon appear in your doorway . . . and then you start bouncing up and down with pure joy when we do.

Happy 1st birthday, sweet son. We love and cherish you, we love being your Mommy and Daddy, and we are grateful to the Lord for His kindness in entrusting you to us.

Is It Enough?

Like the last one, this is another challenging and convicting post by Robin. She seriously should write a book, her blog is amazing and so beautifully written.

I will give an adoption/family life update of our own in the next week or so, but for now, I just want to share the following in her words in hopes that it will challenge you and your family as it did ours when we read it a few months ago:



Is It Enough?

Is it enough to live a quiet happy life?


To raise our children to love the Lord, but never let them experience sharing the Lord with a lost world?


Is it enough to care for our families and go to church on Sunday and sit back and say " life is good"?


Is it enough to feel sorry for the hungry and the fatherless and maybe give some of our crumbs from our over flowing table? After all, we have to take care of our own families first.


Is it enough to keep ourselves sheltered from the real world where people are hurting, people are dying not knowing Christ and we sit back and say maybe one day when I don't have so much to do I'll help.


Is this the pattern our Lord set before us to follow?


To live our lives, enjoy our pleasures, raise our kids, be in a good church, have some good friends and grow old and die and have it said of us
"They lived a good life."


I have been dealing with some conviction in my life lately about my walk with the Lord and what He expects from me. What He expects me to be teaching my children.


To be honest I don't want to live a "good life."


I want to live a sold out, took chances, helped many life.


I want my kids to not be afraid to do the things that everyone else is afraid to do.

Example: adoption. There are millions and millions of kids around the world that need a mom and dad. And there are only a handful of people willing because the risk is too great! The money is too much, the travel too long, the investment not part of our retirement goals.


Don't we want a life after we raise our kids? Someone else will do it. I already have x number of kids, God doesn't expect me to adopt.


I believe Scripture is clear about taking care of orphans and I believe it says we're all to do it.


I believe we're all to take care of poor people.
I believe we're all to be actively making a difference in the life of those less fortunate.


We have been lulled to sleep and numbed with the pleasures of this world.


We have forgotten it's not about our comfort, it's about how to Glorify the Lord with our lives by loving the unlovable, feeding His sheep, taking chances even when it seems impossible.

We have leaned on the government system for so long that we have forgotten that our Saviour is in the business of moving mountains, if it's His will.


I believe so many of us don't really believe that anymore.


We have a "feel good" approach to life that leads to boredom.


C.T Studd wrote:

"Some wish to live a life within the sound of church or bell
I want to live to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."


Christianity that costs nothing produces the same.


For so long we wait and let someone else do the hard things and we praise them
for their devotion to the Lord while we sit and pat our fat bellies and thank God for giving us rest and peace.


That is not the life Christ has been an example of. He was and still is a life that is constantly poured out for others. Not just for your own crying babes but for the crying babes that have no one. The ones that don't look like you.


He pours himself out for the poor. Not just bringing a meal to your friends who had a baby.


He wants you to feed the POOR. The ones without food. He wants us to clothe people.


He wants us to get our hands dirty.


He wants and expects us to all to be working for His kingdom, not for our own little kingdom.


How much money do we give to the poor?

How much time do we spend seeking out people who need our help?

How much time do we spend opening our home to non-believers?

Outside of our "safe circle" of friends, what do we really do to help?


We give money at church or to a organization, just to say we did, but we have no idea
what their really doing with that money because we're to busy to look into it.

I'm just saying..


He wants us to lose our life so He can help us find Him.


We want to be fed, sleep all night, and experience a great worship service, and then sit back and and talk about how bad the world is.


When is someone going to change it?


The right president, the right senators, etc.


How about the right US? We are no different than the luke warm Christians that hold office.


It's easy to judge them because we're here and no one points a finger at us for living a luke warm life.



We call it tolerance.



I wonder what The Lord calls it?

Leaving the Greenhouse

Just wanted to share this post by Robin. It has encouraged us and has given us some things to think about, and I hope it will encourage and challenge you as well. I pray that we will not be a "greenhouse family" but will instead be a family willing to do what God has called us to do - to leave the safety and comfort of our greenhouse to go out into the battlefield.

The Greenhouse Effect



In a green house a seed is planted.

It's nurtured under the right temperature.

It's given the correct amount of light.

Until the seed cover pops off and

out burst a tiny plant.

Healthy, strong, and growing
under the direct influence of the house it's in.

The only problem is the greenhouse
has not prepared the tiny plant for
adversity.

In our community I see so many
kids, my own included, that are raised
in green house conditions.
Perfect amount of schooling,
Perfect amount of socializing,
Perfect amount of church,
perfect amount of friends and only
"like minded" friends.
We pay for our kids to go to the best
violin teachers, piano teachers, voice teachers...
Then they will, Lord willing, get
married to someone who has been raised in
the green house down the road under the same
perfect conditions.
They start their own green house and are happy.
Of course they're happy.
Their whole life has been about them being
comfortable in their green house.

My heart breaks when I think about
all the trouble we go through raising our kids in the
right conditions, teaching them bible verses,
making sure they learn all the right truths,
but..

They never feel inclined to make a difference in
the world.

Sometimes it's a lack of passion,
Sometimes it's a lack of knowledge that
there is a lost and dying world right outside
their safe green house.
But more often
it's our fault as parents.
We are passing down our laziness.
(The sins of the father)
We struggle to live out our faith and so
our kids will struggle.
Yes, they will thrive
in our greenhouse and most of them will pass down a
great greenhouse life to their children but
we have to pass down a love for all of God's people.
We have to be willing to stand with our children and help
a lost world.
We have to pass down a passion for the orphans of this world,
the homeless, the widows. Yes, we have
to grow strong plants for the next generation but we cannot
forget the passion of Christ. Teaching our children
to love children and to love being keepers at home
is what I'm about but I also want them to be about
the orphans and the needy
that are not growing in a green house.
I can only teach that
when I come out of the greenhouse and go with my
children to the battle field.
It's all in vain if we raise up an army and our
army is never sent to the battlefield only to the
green house next door.