Our First Precious Gift!

Last night, we were blessed with the arrival of our first foster child!  All of us were so excited as we received the call and then lept into action, trying to prepare for her arrival.  We initially were preparing for Zyara and her 4 month old baby brother, but Aiiden has a different father who was willing and able to care for him.  We will continue to pray for him, as we found out that he was born extremely premature and even now only weighs 8 lbs.

Zyara is a cheerful little girl who arrived and transitioned well into the home.  Last night was rough for her and I held her for hours as she cried and slept and cried and slept.  Such a hard transition for such a little thing... 3 years old is way to young to have seen all that she has seen.  Inner city Camden is many, many, worlds away from the suburbia that she was placed into.  All the looks and smells are so different, but I love seeing her face light up as she longs to run in the backyard and go on the slide (so sorry to hear that it is raining today!).

I pray that He continues to watch over Zyara - He is so faithful that He protected her as she was left home alone and then wandered out into the streets of Camden.  Oh, how my heart breaks when I think of all the "what ifs" that His hand saved her from! 

Faithful God!  Awesome God!  Thank you for allowing my family to minister to Your children.  Thank you for using me for Your plans and purposes!

His Purposes Gorified!

Worthy is the Lamb!  We are celebrating His goodness and His promises glorified here in our family.  Jesus truly blessed our day of inspection and we passed.  We are all anxious now to see our ministry truly begin as He sends us His hurting and lost children.  Yea God!!!!

The Lesson in the Waiting

As I sit in my precious prayer time, I struggle.  I do.  Knowing what He has called me to and not being able to do anything to further it along.  He has carried us through so many difficult months (and years now) and yet I am called to wait.  WAIT!  My heart screams within my chest for His will to be fulfilled in me.  I know that He is faithful.  I know that in the core of my being.  So it is in that knowledge that I wait - knowing that His timing is PERFECT!

A Call to be Embraced

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes! Cease to do evil, Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Isaiah 1:16-17 AMP

All through His word, God calls us to look beyond ourselves.  Scripture after scripture have jumped off the page to remind me of this so much lately.  Nothing that we do can EVER earn salvation, that is a miraculous free gift from God.  But as His children, He calls us to take action.

^"External religious worship [religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world."  James 1:27 AMP

So I guess I have arrived at the point in my life where I love God soooooo much that I can't keep ignoring what He calls all of us to do... defend the fatherless, care for the orphans, for how will they find any hope but the hope in Jesus?  Oh, how I have been shown the Father's heart!

He loves them so - just as He loves us.  How can we not hear their cries?

I am really feeling like He is about to do amazing things!  I can't wait to post about His praises as they become revealed to me!

A New Beginning for Us

This year New Year's Day fell on a Sunday.  And while it was nice having Christmas on a Sunday (nice to celebrate His birthday on His day) - this year it was absolutely amazing celebrating the New Year in church with our church family.

Our pastor preached today about the parable of the wineskins :

Luke 5:36-38

"He told them a proverb also: No one puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment; if he does, he will both tear the new one, and the patch from the new [one] will not match the old [garment].  And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the fresh wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled and the skins will be ruined (destroyed).  But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins."

This really awakened something in my spirit - and Pastor's teaching only confirmed what God had already be speaking into my heart.  He is doing a new thing.  Amazing things.  But to receive the new things that He want to pour out, we must get rid of the old wineskin.  What He has done in the past was wonderful, but He has new things yet to be done.  By discarding the old, we are allowing Him to move - to make room for the new. 

There is nothing more that I desire from Him.  The new!  Oh, how I long for what is to come! 

Help me, Lord... to move on from where I am.  To discard the old and to take up the new in anticipation for all that you have planned.

A New Begining for Connor

Last night was a momentous occasion - mine and Bill's first grandbaby was born.  Under the best circumstances?  No.  But what I do know is that God is still God and He is still available to all who call upon His name.  He is so needed in this situation with this precious new life.  My prayer is that all will be used for His glory and the growing of all involved.

So here I sit in a very strange spot in life.  Looking at pictures of this amazing baby that God allowed Katie to birth, yet knowing the difficulties that are ahead.  Strange mixed feelings indeed.

And yet, we are also poised, praying for Him to add onto our family as well.  We are all feeling the tug of our hearts as God prepares us for the little ones that He will send us.  We have been shown many secret places of His heart through this process.  He has grown me and showed me that He is a God of restoration... of hearts, of lives, of marriages, of relationships!  That is WHO He is.

When Bill and I felt the tug of God to become involved in the prison ministry at church, I saw this as a separate calling - apart from the fostering, but God has brought amazing things into focus for me.  He is that God of restoration.  There are broken lives all around us - we only have to pray for our eyes to be opened.

My prayer moving forward is for God to continue to use us - lead us - and guide us along this journey that is really His story being told through us.  His children are hurting and alone... we are saying "yes" to His call to stand in the gap and show His love.

Ending One Journey - Begining Another~

As 2011 comes to a close, it seems only right for me to start this blog.  So many changes have happened in this year - in my family (both close and extended), good and bad (and some votes are still out), but still God has placed such a feeling of anticipation for what is coming.... He has given me some hints, but I am really just flying on trust.  Knowing that whatever He has for me and my family is soooooo much better than anything I could think or dream.

So I am here - preparing and waiting.  Knowing that He is faithful to perform what He has promised.  Always.