Graceful Healing

The beginning of this month marked one year since the twins’ adoption.  This has caused me to reflect on what life was like last year and what it is like today.  A lot has changed in my life in this past year but God has not. 

Christmastime last year I was walking through the valley of the shadow of death, a grief that was at times unbearable.  There was no end to my grief in sight and I almost wanted it that way.  When you grieve you find yourself in an interesting place; a hard place that needs to end and must end at some point and yet a place where you want to stay because you know that the end means moving on with life accepting that it is different than it was before.  And yet I found that the relationships, the people I have grieved, may leave my life but they don’t have to leave my heart. 

This song rang true with my heart last December.

This year I have a different tune.  I am now able to think of the twins and not be thrown into a heart wrenching grief.  I can think of them with fondness, joy, and prayer.  I can be happy for them and their new family and life.  This does not mean that I never have a hard moment or that my grief has come to a complete end.  Those moments come but they are just that, moments. 

A year ago I thought I may never come out of the valley and I felt like God had left me there alone.  But I knew I couldn’t simply rest on my feelings alone during that time.  I had to cling to the truth and walk forward. 

And now, a year later I can tell you with all my heart that God NEVER left me, He has brought me out and He is faithful!  When we walk in grief it is critically essential to allow God to work His healing in our hearts and lives.

I got to see the twins earlier this month for the first time since they were adopted.  It was so wonderful.  It was beautiful to see how well they have adjusted.  They are greatly loved by their parents.  I am truly grateful for their parents and for what God has done and is doing in all of us!  All the heartache and struggle has been well worth it to be able to know you are in God’s will and to see His glory!

This is the song that has been my new anthem this December!

For those of you struggling to see the joy in your pain know this; God loves you and He is faithful!  Your struggle is not the end!  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, don’t let satan take your hope in Jesus away from you.  Cling to Him with all you have left.  He is faithful!  

Let us remember what God has done as we walk into the new year!

- Kristin

Graceful Family

Have you ever had someone in your life who has adopted or is praying about adopting or who is getting ready to start the adoption process?  If so, have you ever wondered how you can encourage or support them?  I don’t pretend to think I know the full extent of the answer to that question but having started the adoption process, here are some things God is teaching me.

When we become a child of God we become a part of a big family.  God, by His grace made a way for us to be a part of His family.  It is a very beautiful thing.  And in bringing us into family He gives us a community, brothers and sisters.  And we need each other. 

A year ago today I took the first step of a 5 step process to adopt here in Guatemala.  That first step was to attend an information workshop hosted by the adoption agency here.  As I sat in that workshop and was given information about adoption I began to questioning “should I really be doing this?  What am I doing?” and thinking “I am not prepared.  I don’t know about raising adopted kids.  I’m not married.”   Those are all very valid issues.  But that is when we must look up.  If God was calling me to adopt He would prepare me.  He would help me know how to raise adopted children just as He would help me know how to raise any child He gives me, for once they are adopted they are your children.  And He would figure out the details of me not being married.  I tell you all this to show you that adoptive parents do doubt, do question, and that is why we need the body of believers (our family) to come alongside us.    

The morning after I had attended the workshop I woke up questioning myself and the adoption.  More questions and doubts.  That morning I asked God to give me wisdom to know if I should follow through.  I asked God to lead me by His truth and through godly men and women. 

Fast forward to later that day.  We had a mission team that had arrived a couple of evenings earlier and they came to dinner as they do every night while they are here ministering.  That particular night as dad asked for prayer requests I had had the adoption weighing on my heart all day so I spoke up.  I explained how I had kind of gone into ‘freak out’ mode so to speak.  I believe being led by the Spirit the team leader decided that the prayer time should be focused on me and so they lifted me and the whole thing up in prayer.  It was a beautiful thing.  It was exactly what I needed in the time I needed it.  That time was truly a gift from God and an answer to my prayer. 

So, what are some ways you can support your friend or family member in adoption?  One way is by praying for them.  They have doubts and struggles too and the process will not be easy.  They aren’t super human.  They need you to lift them before the Father.  Secondly, pray with them.  Let them know that you are there to lift them up when they need it.  And also, point them to Jesus.  In anything God asks us to do we need Him in us to be able to walk in His will.  When they begin doubting or looking at their insufficiencies point them to the all-sufficient One. 

All this does not only apply to adoptive parents but rather to all relationships in the body of Christ.  We all question and doubt.  We all need Jesus and we all need each other.  We all need prayer and we all need reminded of the One who is sufficient for all our needs.

So I encourage you to keep your heart open today to who you may be able to bless.  Maybe you can be the answer to someone’s prayer.

Blessings,

Kristin

Gracefully Seen

I will be honest with you, recently I wondered what Mother’s Day was going to be like this year.  Mother’s Day can be a hard day for some people.  It is not always a happy day for sons and daughters who have lost their mothers, women who want to be mothers, mothers who have lost children, or mothers who have children that are separated from them, and the list goes on.  For me Mother’s Day could have been a hard day due to the failed adoption.  The anticipation of thinking I would be a mother and even feeling like a mother in my heart and then having all those hopes and dreams come crashing down is not an easy thing.  However, by the grace of God, when Mother’s Day came today I did not find myself wallowing in self-pity but rejoicing in the mother God has given me.   

I think sometimes it can be hard for women who have miscarried or lost a child because although they know they are a mom, others may not recognize that.  I will be honest with you, this morning I knew people wouldn’t see me as a mom, and rightfully so.  However this morning when I got up I had a desire in my heart for someone to recognize that this day might be important to me.

A friend of mine spoke at church today in honor of Mother’s Day and her teaching was a very timely message that spoke to my heart.  I thought I would share a snippet of the message with you.

The message was entitled “Jesus Restores Your Life”

The teaching was based on Luke 7:11-17 which says:

¹¹ Soon afterwards He went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. ¹² Now as He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her. ¹³ When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴ And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” ¹⁵ The  dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother. ¹⁶ Fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and, “God has visited His people!” ¹⁷ This report concerning Him went out all over Judea and in all the surrounding district.  (NASB)

The four points of her message were the following: 

1) Jesus sees you. 

2) Jesus’ heart goes out to you. 

3) Jesus comforts you. 

4) Jesus restores your life.  

She pointed out how the mother was the center of this passage. 

This message encouraged me, showing me that Jesus sees me and that He will restore my life.  If you are hurting and feel like your life has fallen apart around you, remember that Jesus sees you and wants to restore your life.  Fix your eyes on Jesus and keep running with endurance. 

Later in the morning another friend came up to me after church and asked me how I was doing and if this was a hard day for me.  The fact that this friend recognized that this day may be hard for me and was willing to listen to the Spirit’s prompting to ask me about it encouraged me.  God showed me by the message that He sees me but then He also used one of His children to be His hands and feet and physically show me that He sees me by her reaching out to me and asking me how I was doing.  It is so hard for me to believe sometimes that Jesus sees ME.  It is easier to believe that Jesus sees everyone else but sometimes it is harder to believe that He specifically sees me.  Sometimes we need our brothers and sisters in Christ to speak truth to us.  So if you feel like you are being lost in the crowd, know that Jesus specifically sees you and wants to restore your life.

I leave you with this song that God brought to my mind this afternoon that goes along so well with the message today.

To all the hurting mothers who feel unseen, unrecognized, and lost in the crowd: Happy Mother's Day!  Remember He sees us and He will restore us!

Kristin

Grace, Grace, God's Grace

Just a small reflection for you today.  God helped me to see today that sometimes the best thing you can do in a time of grief, struggle,or any hard thing you may be going through is to recognize that you are weak.  I can try all sorts of things to pick myself up out of grief but it is when I truly recognize how weak I am and look to God who is strong that I can rest.  It is ok to see that we are weak because God is strong and He wants to show His strength to us.  We shouldn't just recognize our weakness and then wallow around in our weakness.  On the contrary we should recognize our weakness before God and cry to Him for help.  His grace is sufficient in our weakness.

Psalm 31 is a beautiful Psalm in which David recognizes his own weakness while recognizing God's strength to deliver him.  When we acknowledge our weakness and cry out to the Lord, then is when we will see the difference.  God is the only one who can heal our hearts.  The more we panic and try to take care of it ourselves the bigger our hole becomes.

       
Remember that you are not alone.  I am a weak person that needs Jesus' help so much.  We are all broken people in need of a Savior.  But that's where the grace comes in... we have a Savior... and His name is Jesus!

If you are a child of God walk in the strength of the Lord, walk in newness of life, but let us not forget in Whose strength we are walking.  And may we reach out to other weak and broken people with the grace God gives to us, walking in humility and remembering our own brokenness.

    

-Kristin

Graceful Grieving

I have not been a very graceful griever but God’s grace is sufficient and I hope to grow in this. I realized how much I need to write down what I am going through.  For one, to help me heal.  Secondly to help me process things. Thirdly, to help me look back and see what God has done.  And last but not least, to help me point others to the cross.  If you are going through a season of grief I encourage you to document it.  It is helpful in healing.  I don’t do it as often as I should but it is a good exercise. 

I want to build onto my last post- Graceful Loving.  Grace has been a word that has seemed to be front and center in my life recently.  I am realizing more and more the role of God’s grace in my life.  When I was beginning the adoption process of the twins in the middle of last year I knew that I would need God’s help for the adoption to succeed.  What I did not realize at the time was how much I would need God’s grace to help me through the grief if the adoption did not happen.  As I said in my earlier post, when we learn to truly love (God’s love in us) we open our heart to great joy and also great pain.  And in that pain we must remember that God is still with us and that He still loves us.  We need His grace just as much in the grief as we do in teaching us to love.  I am speaking this to myself as much as to anyone else as I am still learning this.

While I never had the twins in my home as my daughters and I didn’t even finish the adoption process, I had said yes to pursue their adoption and therefore I had allowed them into my heart as my daughters.  I knew them and cared for them (I worked in the group home where they lived).  We were a part of each other's lives.  I had dreamed, I had planned, I had hoped for them becoming my daughters.  So when the news came that they would not become my daughters all those dreams, plans and hopes died.  Some may say that I should have guarded my heart and not have gotten my hopes up just in case it didn’t work out.  And I had that thought at one point early on in the process; but I was encouraged in a conversation I had with a friend over coffee one day.  She said “Don’t hold back just in case; fully love.”  I followed her counsel which I believe was godly counsel and in doing so I got to experience real love which I do not regret.    

  

With loss there is grief.  Grief isn’t a one day thing, it is a process.  Grief doesn’t ask you what your schedule is and affect you when it is convenient.  Sometimes grief creeps up on you when you think you have moved on, when you think you are doing pretty well.  Grief is not easy and not something we want to go through but it is a reality of living in a sinful world.  However, because of the redemption Jesus brought us on the cross we can grieve with grace.  There can be hope in the midst of grief.

"Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4

What I have found to be the most necessary thing in walking through grief gracefully is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

Hebrews 12:2 “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

He is the only One who can help us through our grief and satan would love to try to get our eyes off of Him and onto our struggles and pain and on ourselves.  I am not saying it is an easy thing to keep our eyes always on Jesus… honestly at times it is nearly impossible.  But His GRACE is greater.  And He can carry us.  A verse I love is Psalm 37:23-24 which says

“The steps of a man are established by the LORD, And He delights in his way.  When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the LORD is the One who holds his hand.”

May we fix our eyes on Jesus as we walk through grief letting Him carry us through it by His grace! If you are reading this and are going through or have gone through the pain of an adoption that has not happened or if you are in the waiting process of an adoption I would love to hear from you.  Maybe we can be a bit of an encouragement to one another. 

-Kristin     

Graceful Loving

    When we learn to truly love we open our heart to great joy and also great pain.  But that is exactly what God did when He sent His Son to the earth to redeem us and restore us back to Himself.  He opened His heart to great joy of having people restored to relationship with Him; but He also opened His heart to great pain; the pain of having His Son die an innocent death on the cross and the pain of grief over people who reject His gift. 

He loves us so much and as His children He calls us to that same love, the sacrificial love of giving ourselves for the interests of others. We cannot do this by our efforts for we cannot truly love unless we are filled with Him- His grace working His love through us.

 

He showed me just a tiny piece of this love He has for us and wants to do through us when He asked me to pursue the adoption of two precious little girls.  In the early months of last year God was really working in me, helping me see in a new way His love for me and His grace which gave me a desire to do something that made a difference for eternity.  At the time I was working as a nanny at a special needs group home in Guatemala.  There were two little girls in the home that were up for adoption and I felt a very special connection to them.  I began thinking about what it would look like if I adopted them.  As I kept thinking about the possibility I compiled a list of reasons for not pursuing the adoption.  Later God showed me that those reasons were invalid and reminded me that He is bigger than all of my reasons and excuses.  I said “yes” and began the legalities of bringing them home. 

Beginning this process I realized that there were many mountains that God was going to have to move for it to happen but also recognized that the mountains would give opportunity to see God’s power and provision.  If the terrain is always flat and easy it is easier to feel self-sufficient.  This was an opportunity to grow in trust.  Through this process of surrender God helped me understand better His love for us and I was seeing the evidence of His love in me.  I loved those girls beyond what “I” could; I cannot take credit for it.  I was seeing God work something in me that I can only give Him glory for.  I began really experiencing the greatest joy I have ever experienced in walking in God’s will and believing Him for who He is. 

I continued working as a nanny at the group home where the girls lived, knowing that I was working on adopting them.  I never told them that I was trying to adopt them because it was not final and I did not want to break their hearts if it didn’t happen, and I am not sure they would have fully understood what it meant. I began to love them as if they were already my daughters.  They held a very precious place in my heart. 

About 4 ½ - 5 months after saying “yes,” a couple would appear that was further along in the adoption process of the two little girls.  I got the news while my sister and I were visiting in the States in the fall.  I remember the night my mom called me to tell me the news that someone else was working on adopting the girls.  I had to hang up and let my heart pour out in ugly sobbing.  It hurt my heart to think that these girls may not end up being my daughters and yet I also felt an overwhelming peace and trust in God’s sovereignty.  And just as God always brings the scripture I need for what I am going through, the next day He led me to Psalm 24 which is a good reminder of His sovereignty.  I knew God had put the girls on my heart for a reason and knew that if God wanted me to be the one to adopt them than He would work it out, and if not, He would help us through it. 

At first it looked like the adoption might be final and the girls would move with their new family before I returned to Guatemala.  As it turned out the adoption did not become final until a month and a half after I got back to Guatemala.  So I got to see the girls and spend time with them before they left and we made some more precious memories.  But it was difficult once I got back trying to figure out what my new role was in their lives when I felt so much like their mother.  

When you allow God to fill you with His love and you love deeply you will also hurt deeply.  But this should not make us shrink back from loving because there is nothing more precious than living the way God intended us to live, loving Him and loving others.  Truly loving.  Loving with a love that we cannot produce ourselves but that only comes by the Holy Spirit working in us.

 

God alone who gave us this love can help us during the grief.  Do I regret allowing God’s love to move me to love those precious girls?  Not at all.  By allowing Him to love them through me I saw His love and His work in my life.  And all this is good!  He is working!  He knew this was going to happen before He asked me to step out in faith.  And He knows why.  And He knows what He has in store.  And all I can do is trust in His sovereignty and in His love because He is the only One who knows the whole story.  He did not come to save us so that we could love people with fleshly love through our own strength.  He calls us to a better way.  He wants us to allow Him to work His love in our hearts so that we can love others with His love, as He loved us.  A love that gives everything, that experiences great joy, and that experiences great pain and grief.  Experiencing great pain and grief means we have experienced love.  And this is good.  God is not cruel in allowing us to experience this great pain and grief that comes with true love.  His way is always the better way.  IT IS GOOD! 

On this Valentine's Day (and really every day of our lives) may we not get wrapped up in the love the world offers but let us embrace the abundant life God has for us.  May we realize His great love for us and allow Him to work that love in us so that we can love others as God loves us!

More of the story later!

- Kristin

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.  - 1 Corinthians 15:10