A Heartfelt Thank You, Decisions, and Great Quotes

I wanted to begin this post by thanking everyone for your incredible love and support. I treasure every email message, blog comment, and voice mail, because I know they represent the love and prayers of all of you. Thank you for loving us through this. I've been so busy with life this week. I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to many of you yet. I just wanted you all to know that I am grateful and thankful for your love and concern.

This week has been emotionally draining, but I have a stubborn peace that won't go away. I know that I am being prayed for because I can feel it.

I love this quote from a missionary from the 1800's:

“If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.” - Adoniram Judson

I trust that to be true for me, too.

Pat and I have some big decisions to make this week about adoption. I can't share the details just yet, but I would so appreciate your prayer cover. We want to be faithful to the call we felt, but it isn't easy. Please pray for us to keep moving forward in faith and to have clear direction as we make these decisions.

The other day I opened my Word document where I've been collecting adoption quotes this past year. A lot of them spoke to me right now. I'll share them with you:

“The place God calls you,” Frederick Buechner once said, “is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger
meet.”

"Sometimes on the way to a dream, you get lost and find a
better one!"

Jesus said that if you receive a child in His name, you receive Him and the one who sent him. The question is not whether caring for children is easy and safe, or whether they are responsive and thankful, or whether caring is depleting. The question is whether Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and
forever, and whether we can say with the apostle Paul, 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me' (Philippians 4:13)." John Piper's "A Godward Life"(pg. 67)

"More prayer, more exercise of faith, more patient waiting, and the result will be blessing, abundant blessing. Thus I have found it many hundreds of times, and therefore I continually say to myself, "Hope thou in God."--George Mueller

"Time and experience have taught me a priceless lesson: Any child you take for your own becomes your own if you give of yourself to that child. I have borne two children and had seven
others by adoption, and they are all my children, equally beloved and precious.--Dale Evans Rogers

“If what God is calling you to do, isn’t bigger than yourself, then it isn’t God calling you.” –Stacey (story from AGCI’s e-journal)

"Oh, how happy is the woman who believes in God, for he does make his promises to her come true." – Luke 1:45

“This isn’t the family I imagined we’d have,” she says, scooping one of the twins onto her lap to share a hug with the baby. “It’s better.” – Sue Herrera Good Housekeeping article, January 2006 pg. 112

"Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest. (Luke 9:48)

"And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with
such sacrifices God is pleased."Hebrew 13:16

"If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions." 1 John 3:17-18 NLT

"I am convinced that God longs to put His fingerprint in our lives, to act on our behalf and surprise us with His magnificence. I am equally convinced that most of the time we do not give God a context in which to do this. The mundane is not really the best context for a miracle. When we play it safe, we squeeze God out of the formula. If we go only where we know and do what we're certain will succeed, we remove our need for God. Whenever we respond to God's invitation, our need for God becomes heightened. Whenever we take on a God-sized challenge, self-sufficiency is no longer an option." (From Seizing Your Divine Moment)