Reflections-1 Week Home

We arrived home from the DRC on Sunday morning at 2am on March 17th so we have been home exactly ten days.  And what a ten days it has been!!  This adoption thing has rocked our world!  And we are stronger and better because of it.  So many thoughts have went through my head about what these past couple of weeks entailed.  First and foremost I realized as soon as we got home that I definitely romanticized adoption.  The idea of adoption and these sweet kids is so much different than the reality.  Not for everyone, but for ME.  I thought that we would just run over to the DRC, pick up three sweet boys, see a bit of Africa, come home, our girls and boys would love on each other instantly, the boys would love us, they would be so thankful for us, and our love would overflow for them.  Ah, and then reality hits me on the head.  Our boys are broken and they need to be redeemed!!!  Just as we were broken and our sweet Jesus redeemed us by dying on the cross for us.  So these past couple of weeks have been wonderful in a bittersweet way.  We have learned so much, prayed so much, pressed into Jesus harder than we ever knew we could.  We have relearned how to be parents.  We have relearned how to really give love.  As I process through our journey I think of how we as Christians often romanticize the gospel.  Jesus died on the cross for us and we say yep that's great, let's pray our prayer, give my 10%, go to church, pray a little, read the Word every once and a while and call it good.  We are saved, it's all good.  And we ARE saved by a Jesus who loves us, but I think he calls us to much more.  He CHOSE Paul to preach the gospel and Paul suffered for it.  He didn't choose Paul and say here you go, here's the easy life.  He called Paul to do great things for him and he was always with him, but it wasn't an easy life for Paul.  Paul is my go to guy whenever I think about our adoption process.  We are Paul.  We are chosen and God is with us and for us even though it is not always easy.  And my favorite part about all of this is that I praise GOD for it!!!  Matt and I feel SO blessed that we were called, we obeyed, and we get to know our GOD in greater ways.  It is humbling and amazing. 

And yet we are weak, we lack wisdom, we mess up daily.  And so we rely on a God whose grace is sufficient for us.  We are totally dependent on God to get us through each day because we really don't have it.  We don't have enough wisdom, enough love, enough patience.  But God does and he gives us everything we need to make it through.

"But he said to me,

"My grace is sufficient for you,

for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,

so that Christ's power may

rest on me.

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses,

in insults,

in hardships,

in persecutions,

in difficulties.

For when I am weak, then I am strong."

2 Corinthians 9-10