A Testimony and A Temporary Goodbye

My computer has to be sent to Dell to be fixed. The screen detached way too early. IF they give us a fuss, we are cashing in our insurance on it and getting something different. I'll let you know my evaluation of their helpfulness!:)

So, this is my last post for a while unless I can let my buddy/neighbor let me blog over at her house a little.

Have to share in brief what God is doing in our lives. It gives more meaning to the poem below but is not related to the situation I alluded to through the public school. That won't ever be detailed here to protect the privacy of some. This is so related to my heart right now in that poem. Thank you for your kind words regarding it. IT is my dream to send them all to a Christian publisher someday. I need to learn how to get a copyright on my blog too, does anyone know how to do that? Do you know, when it's the right poem I cry when I read it myself. Not because I think it's good, but because I hear my deepest heart and it's like that piece has been taken out and written down forever. That is why I love poetry.

The story:
About a year and eight months ago my dad died at 54. Most of you know that. What you may not know is that my dad was not my bio-dad. I was born to man who had many issues but the main one was alcohol. My mom became a Christian and married Mark when I was five. They had grown up together from kindergarten. Mark took me in and loved my brother and I as His own. He never had his own children. (on a side note, I re-connected with my bio-dad over the phone and through mail about four years ago. He came to the Lord but was a very young christian with lots of life baggage. I thanked God for the chance to talk to him. It was good for us both. IT turned out that he contracted Lue Garricks disease the year my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He died very quickly in June of '06 and my dad Mark died in May of '07. God has never been so near to me as he was that year of events. He became my heavenly Father in a new way. They were both the same age, born in '52. )
When he died I was overwhelmed with many different emotions. One of them was the bottled up reflections of the effect of him taking me in. I was given a deep and real burden for adoption. I wanted to do what my dad had done for me. In honor of him. I shared my burden with Rick. He did not share it. I think I've blogged about this before...can't remember.
I don't believe it is God's will to do something when he has not laid it on both hearts. I also did not believe it was right to convince my husband of anything or to make him feel the burden I felt. I knew God had a reason and I decided the burden must be for some other use. Over a year went by. I never brought it up once.
A few months ago Family Life had a few programs where they were encouraging Christian families to show Christ's love through adoption. I was totally in agreement. I had all ready been in the public schools with my kids and my heart for unsaved children was growing very full. I loved meeting the kids at school and giving them smiles when I was in the classroom or just dropping off and picking up my own kids. Many kids now days are eager for just a kind word and a smile. It gave me such great joy! There were some I saw who I knew needed more at home and wished I could help a child myself. What a perfect way to advance the kingdom, I thought. We had a neighbor boy with a tough situation in his home come over a great deal and his mom told me it was hard because he would come over to our house and come home and ask her why his dad can't play with him like Rick does with the kids, or why he can't have siblings, or why he can't have a real family. It reminded me again how I wanted ot help. Well, then I remembered Rick's feelings and realized again that this was not for us but that maybe God wanted me to be involved in coordinating such a ministry in our church or something many years down the road. Or just keep reaching out to the kids at school or the neighborhood when I could. I forgot about it again.
Then... this past December I heard an advertisement on Christian radio that was encouraging Christian parents to consider foster care. I was beginning to wonder why God was nagging my heart if it was not a direction that was open to me.
I decided to email the local foster care department and just ask for information. I wondered if there was some way I could help. I just told Rick I had sent off for info for that reason and when we started to talk he was a totally different person. He really felt that we should look into helping a child ourselves and have the optimum goal of adoption if the Lord led us to. I was shocked but tried not to show it. I wondered who he was and what someone had done with my husband. He asked if we could pray about it right then and there. I said....sure! About an hour later we got an email that said that the beginning meeting, the one you need to go to to get started was that night locally. Amazing, we both thought. We called Trish last minute and she was kindly able to take our kids that evening during the meeting.
We both were amazed by the information and the testimony of grown teens who came to share with us their foster experience. I won't get into the details of the meeting, but it was very good that we went.
We are now in the process of registering for the classes you need to go through to be licensed. It is a 3-4 month process.
We don't really know what God has for us. We don't really know where it will lead. Now that the kids are in school, I was really hesitant to even think of starting with little ones again, but he seems to be changing my heart. Like I said, who knows. We are just willing to be there if He needs us. It could play out in so many ways. We appreciate prayers for wisdom. A lot of people have fears with using the state systems, or county. I have learned that if God leads, I do not need to be afraid. He will not burden my heart to serve and then punish me for doing what he told me to do. Rick and I are limited in our monetary resources for these things so the foster system is best for us because what we do have is time and love. We would need their help with the other part. That is why we are going that route.
And, like I said, we just don't know beyond the next step. It could just end up with a huge road block and we find a purpose along the way for what we went though to prepare. You never know.
The poem though had to do with the fact that I've learned not to say I won't do something. These are things I have said before (at different times):
I will never have my kids in public school.
I will never homeschool.
I could never adopt or take in a foster child, it would be to scary.
I would never move to (the city I live in now:).
I will never let my children read Disney books. (ha, ha, this one makes me laugh now. i was kinda a snobby literature lover)
There are other things I've said that God has not led me actually to do yet like:
I could never give birth overseas.
I could never move out of state.

I really need to learn this lesson of being open and ready. God has to have a good sense of humor is all I can say.