My scattered thoughts...

Just our daughter being her beautiful self!

I'm feeling all over the place hear lately. Not literally, more mentally. I have about three streams of thought process going on and I want to write about all of them. So I will try to neatly organize and collect my thoughts for an A+ English paper....or I'll ramble about each thought. Either way, here we go.

First I've been thinking a lot about things I believe. These are good things to think about. What do I believe about...? So lately there have been a few verses in my head that I wonder about. They all have to do with being healed, and seemingly say if you pray, believe, etc. you will be healed. And then I think about Paul. He did all of these things and wrote a large portion of the new testament. Guess what. He wasn't healed. So then I've been asking God what does this mean. He did heal Abigail of something over the summer. So we go from there to...

I've had a lot of people tell me lately I couldn't do what you are. I couldn't handle my child having something medically scary. I would go insane, and to be honest I sometimes feel like I might be. Then there is still this idea (I know it's becoming a bit of a theme) that God doesn't give us more than we can handle. I have yet to find that in the Bible. I do think though that more correctly God gives you the grace to handle whatever it is that you are going through. His grace is sufficient because His power is made perfect in my weakness. Believe me, dealing with all of Abigail's medical stuff has left me weak...

So back to this first thought with my third thought. The past four years of our lives have been crazy. A quick overview. Decided to go for it with kiddos...weren't getting pregnant. Felt like God was calling us to adopt. So we prayed some more. Clearly He said have a home study and wait for your baby. It will be a girl, you should name her Abigail...it means father's joy...she will bring you and Jason joy, but she will be my joy. Okay. We did that. Here we sit with the baby that we did not strive for. We waited on God and the situation for the adoption, the birth mom, the wonderful daughter, none could be a more perfect story than the one He wrote. Fast forward around eight months. Sitting in a specialist office for some final clearances of she's healthy. Doctor starts talking about nf1...cafe au lait spots...and tumors. I nearly fall over. We had said we would have been fine with a child with special needs. And we are. I just had in mind something like downs syndrome.

Go from there to where we sit today. Yes nf sucks. Sure I don't understand why. However God knew from the moment she was formed in her tummy mommy's womb that she would have nf. He knew we would be her mom and dad. He knew we would have what it takes to get through this. Not because we are super human. Because we are followers of Christ. He knew His grace would be sufficient for us. Hopefully this brings it full circle and connects it all...

I started reading Hosea yesterday. It is an interesting book. The overview is that God tells Hosea to take a prostitute as his wife. She is unfaithful, they have children that are most likely not his...she continually betrays him. However he goes out and disguises himself, buys her and brings her home. He loves her and is committed to her. It is supposed to symbolize how Israel prostituted itself and God has continued to love and redeem. And how we do the same, turning away from God and running to other things even though everything we need is right here at home. As I was reading I kept thinking this makes no sense to me. Why would you tell a man to marry an unfaithful woman. How hard that must have been for him.

Then I quietly hear. The same way that nf doesn't make sense to you. I do things to teach people about me and to bring glory to me. Immediately I am reminded of all the people who have talked about how faithful they see Jason and I being. It's not a moment of pride, but a moment of realizing (again) that if our lives point other's to Christ that's all that matters. We went to a David Crowder Band concert last night, and although I loved this song before there was a line that sort of punctuated the end of the thoughts of the last few days. You should go on YouTube and listen to it, it's beautiful.

David Crowder Band: How He loves

"When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

and I realise just how beautiful You are,

and how great Your affections are for me."

Amen. In the presence of the Almighty, the passing troubles of life seem to be eclipsed.