THANKSGIVING EVE.....

Many of you have asked me how it was the night before passing court.  Words are hard to find that describe those exciting and nerve-wrecking emotions storming throughout my mind and body that night!  I could not get myself to go to bed until 2:30am.  I fell asleep praying and awakened every 45-60 minutes.  I swear!  And each time I awoke, I felt as though I was still praying!  I would continue with my prayers until I fell asleep again.  Only to repeat this all. night. long.  Or at least the 5 hours I spent in bed that night!  {smile}  I felt as though I prayed all night long.

And it brought me peace.  Amongst my cautious excitement.  And amidst the fear stirring within me.  The fear of hearing another "no."  Oh, the struggle of BELIEVING and not letting myself get too excited, to protect my momma heart.

I guess the best way to explain my experience is to share with you a letter I wrote on Thansgiving Eve.  To my son and to my Heavenly Father.

Wow.  It is THANKSGIVING EVE 2011.  Yes, the night before we awaken to the news.  Praying the news is that YOU, our little man, are OUR SON!!!  FOREVER!!!  Oh, my, has this road to bringing you home been a long one.  I still can’t believe it has been four months today since we held you in our arms!  Our second Court Date is November 24^th, which is starting in a matter of minutes in Ethiopia.

I can’t get myself to lie down and go to bed.  I can’t quiet my mind or calm my thoughts. I just jump from one activity to another.  Physically, and/or in my mind.  Either way, it keeps my mind going.  Fast.  In my effort to have distractions ease of the waiting.

Will you ask me to wait longer, Lord?????????????

I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing tonight.  I stop to pray and sometimes I feel I have no words left to pray.  Other times I pray so fervently I feel my prayers alone are storming the heavens!  {That’s a good thing, dear son!  That’s a good thing!}  J 

We all are storming the Heavens with our prayers!

There are SO MANY people praying for you tonight!  Praying for that Mowcya letter to be in our file, for favor from the judge on our family case, for sweet glorious news in the morning!!!  Seriously, you would babble loudly if you knew just how MANY people are praying on our behalf, dear son!!!! 

Adoption is a spiritual battle.  What God designs so beautifully, satan tries to destroy.  The GOOD NEWS is that whenever the enemy battles Our Heavenly Father, he never wins!  GOD wins!!! Every. Single. Time!!!!  THANK YOU, LORD!!!!  For battling on our behalf!  For loving Kaleab so much that you have brought him  to his family.  For loving Jeff and me so much that you brought US to Kaleab!  THANK YOU, Lord, that there is POWER in our prayers!

Please, God.  PLEASE!  Let the morning greet us with song.  Oh, how I desire to hear a beautiful song ~  song that celebrates the union of our son with us, and us with him.  FOREVER!!!  We know this to be your will, Lord, and we ask you to finish this waiting.  There is still so much more ahead with embassy.  So. Much. more.  Please let us step off of this stage of Court and move FORWARD toward embassy and bringing our sweet Kaleab HOME!!!!

If the APPROVAL letter is completed, won’t you please place it in our family file and place our file on the top of the day’s pile?  If the letter is not yet written, won’t you please place our family heavy onto a mowcya staff member’s heart…..so much so…..that s/he cannot do anything until s/he writes our APPROVAL letter AND gets it to the judge before the days’ end!  And Lord, won’t you PLEASE expedite the sharing of this information to in-country staff, and then to Kristen and then to US in a swift and efficient manner!?!?!?!?

My arms ache to hold our son again.  I walk with such a void, as my heart is in Ethiopia.  Loving on BOTH of our sons.  Please help to fill part of that void with finalizing “Baby K’s” adoption.  This very night.

I CAN give this over to You.  I NEED to give this over to You.  YOU are the one to make this all happen.  YOU are the one who put this ball in motion.  You always finish what you started……and we cannot WAIT for You to finalize this step for us!

Oh, how we would LOVE to spend Christmas with our boys!  Ethiopia ~ picking up Baby Kaleab and PASSING Court for "Big Brother!"  All in one trip!  YOU can do this, Lord!  You can do this!!!!  I pray this be your will for our family!!!  Starting with Passing Court over the next few hours!!!

You have gifted us these precious boys.  And I TRUST you to bring them HOME to us!

I BELIEVE, Lord!  I BELIEVE!!!!

In Your Name I Pray……..

So eternally grateful for our Thanksgiving gift of a divine "YES!"  Thank You, Lord, for gifting us our son ~ KALEAB WILLIAM JEFFREY MARQUEZ!!!   On Thanksgiving Day, you made Kaleab more than our son in our heart and soul......you made him legally and officially OUR SON!!! 

Still pinching myself to see if THIS is REALLY my life!!!!

Life. Is. GOOD!

A Day of Thanksgiving!

Now, our God, we give you thanks, 

and praise your Glorious Name"  1 Chron 29:13

I don't want to go to bed tonight.  Guess I don't want this glorious day to come to an end.  The Joy and Celebration of today ~ and the Thankfulness ~ will carry on into each new day.  Scroll down a post if you missed the REFERRAL POST earlier today!

Thanking God for making Kaleab officially our son today.  And for making every day a great day.  Even the days our boys are not home.  Yet.  {I must remember this!}

GREAT things are so worth it.  Even when it gets a little hard.

Feeling my Joy and my Strength revived!

THANK YOU, LORD, for a most glorious Thanksgiving Day 2011.  So looking forward to future ones as well ~ with our boys!!!!  {sigh with a smile}

Thank you for bringing us both Kaleab and "Big Brother."  We are blessed beyond our wildest imaginations!!!!

And Thank you, LORD, for ALL of the love and prayers covering our family.  Our friends and family astound us!

I Praise God for our sonS and cannot WAIT to have them both HOME!

For now......I'm going to go crawl into bed with my honey and count my blessings once again today......

Good night sweet boys!!!!  God has YOU!!!  Mommy and Daddy carry you both in our hearts and can't wait to see you again and bring you both home very, very soon!

SWEET DREAMS, WORLD......I know I'm sure gonna have them!  {BIG SMILE}

FAITH PILGRIMAGE

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF YOU!

Such an exciting time of year!.....Leaves turn golden, crispness fills the air, and in some places, snow even begins to fall! {yes, we have snow!}

I cannot believe that THANKSGIVING is already upon us! Jeff and I consciously try to be thankful every single day, for the multiple blessings God bestows upon us. This THANKSGIVING morning, I took a few extra moments to reflect upon God's amazing love and the many ways in which He has blessed our family this year.

Jeff and I are SO EXCITED to be paper pregnant! Although I feel I am experiencing what they refer to as "paper pregnancy hormones," and I can easily laugh one minute, and cry the next, it is ALL PURE JOY! It is JOY because of the road we are on!................the road to Ethiopia to bring our child or children HOME to us FOREVER!

When we started this journey of faith, we thought we would have known by now who our little one(s) are, but that was before Ethiopia became a 2-visit country. We were told from the start that delays were an expected part of adoption. We get that. We accept that. Our anxious hearts will wait for God's perfect timing........we will wait........wanting to hold our child/children in God's timing more than our own.......

We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, dear one(s)!

As we wait, we count this journey a big, HUGE BLESSING! We put it on the top of our list for the year! One of the top blessings in both of our lives! We have SOOOO had to lean on God DAILY throughout this, and every time we begin to become self-sufficient, we are quickly brought back to Him, where we re-lay everything at His feet. Including our children.

We are THANKFUL for our precious family. Though we live miles apart, distance does not divide us! We love you and we cherish each one of you! We are THANKFUL for our friends ~ both near and far ~ my, how you bless our lives! We are THANKFUL for my new blog friends ~ amazing how "well" we can come to "know" one another, without meeting face-to-face! We are THANKFUL for our church family. Your love, excitement and support of our adoption has been precious.

We are THANKFUL for the cozy warm home that we are blessed to live in ~ as we think of children living in far less. We are THANKFUL for the BIG meal we are going to eat today ~ wondering if our child/children and other orphans will even get one meal this day. We are THANKFUL for running CLEAN water ~ feeling a heaviness for those who lack this luxury. We are THANKFUL for the LOVE we feel between each other as well as with our family and friends ~ as we reflect upon those children who have no one to call "their own."

As I reflect upon such blessings, I can't help but think of this journey we are all on, called life. I read on today's post over at FAITH BARISTA, I was reminded of our nation's early history, when pilgrims left their homes in search of freedom.

Those of us seeking to live a life for Christ, are on our own Faith Pilgrimage as well.

~ We are special pilgrims on our way to where God is taking us

~ We don't know the lay of the land, but we walk by faith

~ If we knew everything and saw everything so clearly,

we would have no need for faith

~ We leave the familiar behind (self-direction and self-fulfillment)

to experience something greater. GOD-directed and FAITH-filled lives.

May all of us be enjoying our own Faith Pilgrimage. When the way is smooth, as well as when it seems all uphill. May we feel God's presence every step of the way. May we remember that, if we knew exactly God's plan and timing for our lives, there would be no mystery. There would be no risk. There would be no need for faith.

May we all be stepping forward on our own personal pilgrimage of faith. May we praise Him with Thanksgiving in our hearts, for all He has blessed us with. May we be trusting that the Lord's plan is to bless us beyond our wildest imagination. May we be allowing such blessings to flow in our lives.........