My Rainbow after the Storm...

I'm so convinced that God gives me rainbows when I need them. They serve as a gentle reminder that He stands by His promises.

Friday, we headed out to pick up the U-haul truck and it started to rain on the way to our apartment. We had people coming to help us load up our place! I quickly asked the girls to pray that the rain would stop.

And it did.

Further down the road, I saw a tiny piece of a rainbow. It wasn't a huge beautiful arch but it was a tiny, tiny, fragment of a rainbow.

I smiled as I started thinking back to how amazingly God has provided for us during this journey.

Here are just a few of the ways that He has provided:

- We found our church right before this whole thing began. We'll be here 3 years this November. I do not find it to be a coincidence that our church was revealed to us right before this crazy ride.

- Other than our homestudy (that could still be used although we do have to pay for an update since we moved) and our travel expenses we lost very little of our adoption fund. We are thankful that God spared our tiny fund especially since almost all adoption fees are non-refundable.

- We "randomly" chose a Sunday School class when we visited this church the first time. They welcomed us with open arms and I don't think a week has gone by since that we haven't heard from someone in between church activities. These friends rejoiced with the news that we were matched. These brothers and sisters in Christ have battled in prayer for our situation when things went south. They've reached out to us. They've hugged me. They've cried with us. They've shared their own stories.

- One of our friends from our Sunday School class, helped me find my way to the Women's Bible Study. This has been amazing for me. I tearfully asked for prayer during our prayer request time one week and afterwards several women stopped by to introduce themselves and tell me their own adoption or fostering stories and promise to pray for us!

- For this move, several men and one couple from our Sunday School class blessed us with their time and packed our things into the moving truck. The next morning they came and unloaded the moving truck. It was speedy and efficient and done without a single complaint. Brandon and I are still in awe of how smoothly and quickly it happened!

- Our new neighbors are so friendly! Everyone has come to introduce themselves.

Each day does get a little easier. We've moved past disbelief. We don't understand why this happened, but we have accepted it. We are finding ourselves laughing and smiling more.

~Stephanie

PS: I know I have been lacking in the picture department. I am about to dump a bunch from our phones. So stay tuned!

Struggling with a lack of transparency...

I'm an all or nothing kind of person. And there are TWO major parts of my life that I can't openly blog about, so I struggle with sharing anything at all.

One I should be able to share soon but the other will take quite some time. Both items have kept me on my knees in prayer. Both have caused massive panic attacks and loss of sleep. Both have brought up painful experiences from my past.

I'm not who I once was. I'm stronger than I once was because I now call upon Jesus Christ in times of need and I lean upon Him for my strength. I will not disobey God even though I can't see what He is doing. It's scary for someone as uptight as me to not know what the outcomes will be. But I trust that God is good and loves me. And I know that He will never leave me.

(I'm sure this sounds like a bit of rambling without knowing the issues. As soon as I can share, I will. I just wanted to explain the sudden inactivity on my blog.)

I Mispoke...

On September 16th, as I wrote my blog post, one handed in the wee hours of the morning, I mispoke. And I'd like the opportunity to correct it.

I wrote: "The ONLY thing Brandon and I are promised is that we will go to Heaven as Believers."

This is not true. We are promised more than just to go to Heaven. But first I would like to share how God put this particular post on my heart in an effort to show how loving God has been to me.

A few days ago it rained... I mean it POURED! And after the rain we saw a rainbow. Several of my friends were thoughtful and put their pictures of the rainbow from their view on Facebook for all to see. Turns out there was a rainbow here in Richmond and in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia at the same time. Neat huh?

Rainbows have always, always been one of my favorite things about nature. In fact, one day as I was in a drab hospital nursery I looked out past the nurses station and saw a double rainbow from the rocking chair where I was cudding and getting to know Xander. It was a breathtaking moment that I hope I never forget!

Anywho.. as I looked at everyone's pictures of the rainbow, I felt a gentle nudging. The biblical significance of the rainbow is in Genesis chapter 9. God promised Noah that He would never again flood the earth to kill everything.

Ahhhh.. yes.. a promise. And it was then that words that I quoted above ran through my head and I realized that I had mispoken. *gulp*

What I meant to say is that we aren't promised an easy life. We aren't promised a job promotion. We aren't promised that because we believe in God that everything will go our way. So I'll be editing my post from Sept 16th and I ask for your understanding and forgiveness.

I never intended to say that God has only promised us Heaven.

God has made MANY promises- they are all throughout the Bible!

Humbly,
Stephanie