For Sale: One slightly used umbrella

For sale: One umbrella. Location: Costa Rica. Only used twice. May not be useful in normal applications. Cost: $1.00 primarily to remove my shame.

What you see here is a picture on my walk home from school. What you don’t see is the amount of water I had already walked into soaking me to mid-shin. I stayed after for tutoring to catch up from missing some work. When I left there was a downpour. It was like a waterfall. Then the winds picked up. Imagine anti-Mary Poppins. Then imagine picking up a cloth from a bucket of water. The cloth well that was me. My umbrella obviously not functioning at full capacity ensured that I was drenched including all of my school books . Thankfully I was only half way home.

What do you do when your life serves up a thunderstorm and you have a broken umbrella? Let me tell you what I did. I laughed and asked someone to take a picture. Trust me at this point, I could have reacted negatively. I could have gotten mad but really what was the worst part? I was soaked? My backpack was holding water. My school books soaked. My shoes wouldn’t dry for days. In the US, we have a statement, “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” Here in Costa Rica it is, “Don’t cry when water is on the floor.” The saying makes sense especially with our history here. In two months, our ceiling has leaked twice, water came under our door once flooding our living room, and 4 windows leak when we have rain from the east.

A little water isn’t worth crying over. In fact, I think I make a big deal about too many things. I do this mainly because I think too much of this life and too little of heaven. Please don’t misinterpret my reasoning, longing for heaven is good but heaven is good because Jesus is there. If I make Jesus my supreme desire the stuff in this world doesn’t matter near as much.

While this is good about suffering, I’m not a sufferer. I’m a Christian and a missionary. What does this have to do with missions? Well everything. After my time in language school, I will be transitioning to the mountains in Ecuador to work with the Highland Quichuas. I am not going there because of them. I’m going there because I love Jesus. Every day I have to put in the front of my mind that I am learning Spanish not for them or for me, but for Jesus. So with that, I’m off to study more irregular verbs.

I know that tomorrow is such an exciting day for most of us.  We have so much to celebrate.   But for others, tomorrow is a very hard day.  If tomorrow will be hard for you, I hope these simple words of encouragement minister to you as you walk through tomorrow…

To the Hurting Mommy/Mommy to Be

        Maybe walking through Mother’s Day is one more reminder of your grief.  Maybe it’s one more reminder of hopeful plans that never panned out.  Maybe it’s one more reminder of an empty womb and empty arms.  Please know that if you feel alone tomorrow, you are not alone.  You are loved and you are prayed for.  My heart grieves with yours.  I can’t make your hurt or loss any better.  There is nothing I can say that will change what you are walking through.  In some ways I understand and in some ways I do not. But I do understand loss and waiting for God’s timing.  These are not easy things.  But God loves you and he is big enough to hold your tears.  He is big enough to carry your heart through this day.

 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1

To the Mommy who is waiting…

My prayer for you is that tomorrow is filled with God’s grace for you.  I pray that as you encounter others that they bear the image of Christ to you.  I pray that you have hope in Christ.  He knows suffering and He is the great comforter of the heart.  God knows the plans He has for you and his timing is perfect even in the painful season of waiting.  My prayer for you is that you allow God to heal your heart in your season of waiting. My prayer for you is that you trust God in his timing and his plans for your life.  My prayer for you is that your hope is founded in Christ.  If you need to cry tomorrow, it’s okay.  But I pray that God refreshes you and gives you hope as you wait on him and his timing.  I pray that He brings you great joy and peace. 

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

To the Mommy who is grieving…

My prayer for you is that you feel God’s mercy being poured out on you throughout the day.  I pray that as you wake in the morning, God gives you peace.  I pray that God gives you happy memories.  As you think of those happy memories, I pray that you are reminded of a God who loves you unconditionally.  Please know that we live in a world of sorrow and of sin.  Death was never part of God’s original design for creation.  I’m so sorry that you are walking through grief.  My heart aches for you.  I pray that you are able to spend time tomorrow remembering your baby or child.  I pray that others will remember you and your grief.  I pray that God uses others to minister to you and love you.  I’m so sorry that this day that is so happy for most, is very sad for you.  But I pray that God carries you through tomorrow and at the end of the day, you are able to look back at our gracious God loving you, healing you, and leading you through the day. If you need to cry tomorrow, it’s okay.  You are a mommy who has loved and lost. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

To the Mommy who chose adoption for the child she birthed…

My prayer for you is that God gives you hope and peace.  I pray that you know the love of God.  I pray that you know how much he loves you and that he wants to adopt you into his family.  The choice that you made for your child is one of the most beautiful sacrificial pictures of love.  I pray that God can use this in your life to share God’s hope and peace with others.  I pray that as time passes, God heals your heart and gives you much joy.  My prayer is that you are reminded of the precious gift of life that you gave the child that you birthed.  You birthed a child and then put your child’s needs above your own.  You did a very hard thing because of your love for your child.  Your love for your child should never be questioned, but affirmed

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

If tomorrow will be hard for you, please know that God loves you.  Please know that other mothers have walked before you or are walking a similar path with you and understand your pain and suffering.  My prayer for you tomorrow is that you look to the God who created you and who loves you for hope, peace, and healing.  You are a beautiful, unique, exquisite woman created by God!  He loves you more than you can comprehend!  He is big enough to hold your tears.  He is big enough to hear your questions.  He is big enough to heal your heart.  He loves you! 

God gave us beauty for ashes, joy for our sorrow!

January 5^th. It was a Sunday morning.  In the matter of just a phone call, our lives changed drastically.  We excitedly got ready and rushed to the hospital.  The birthmother we had been working with had given birth to a baby girl.  She was here.  Our daughter had come!  We drove as fast as we could to get to her.  We finally got to see her, and hold her.  The hope swelled in our hearts.  Our Elizabeth Hope, which means our God has made a covenant of hope, had come! 

January 5th will always be a special day for us.  A day that reminds us of so much hope, our Lord’s healing and provision, much suffering, and even greater joy.  We had the privilege of being Elizabeth’s parents for six long wonderful, beautiful, painful, hurtful, days.  The Lord had ordained for us to love her with all of our hopeful broken hearts for the six days he granted her to us and we will be forever grateful!

At the end of those six days, our time as her parents had ended.  Our birth mom decided to place Elizabeth with another family.  We were heartbroken…utterly gut-wrenching heartbroken.  It was the worst trial we have experienced in our marriage.  I didn't understand.  My heart was so broken it felt as if it was ripped out, tied to a heavy anchor and dropped in the bottom of the ocean.  I asked James, “What good can come from this?” Isn't our God a God who loves his children and loves the orphan? We were trying to do the right thing.  Why were we suffering?  Why did we have to lose our daughter?  Our hopes and dreams for our daughter had vanished.  We didn't know where she was going.  We just knew she was no longer ours. 

But our life isn't ours either.  We belong to God.  He is our heavenly Father.  He understood our grief and pain.  Our God knows that pain and grief of losing a child.  He knows the pain of separation, in a much deeper way that what we were experiencing.  Our God could grieve with us.  We have a great High Priest who understands our suffering.   We knew God loved us.  We knew God had a plan, but we didn't understand.  We didn't want to suffer.  But praise be to God that he allowed our loss of Elizabeth, because through our deep pain and loss, we grew to know our loving Heavenly Father even deeper.  We understood more of his love, of his grace, and of his mercy. 

I can only imagine what God was thinking that night as we drove home without Elizabeth.  We couldn't see the future.  We didn't know what would happen.  But our gracious and loving father had a plan.   In our suffering, he brought great joy and provision.  And as January 5th approaches, I can be grateful for the outpouring of love, provision, grace, and mercy that our loving God so freely gave to us as we grieved during our loss of Elizabeth. 

That dreadful Saturday night as we returned our Elizabeth, God already had a plan to work in a huge and mighty way.   He portrayed himself through all parties involved in our failed adoption.  We experienced so much grace and compassion from the agencies and our attorney. God sent a friend to come and sit with me as I rocked our sweet Elizabeth for the last time. My sister and mother sat with me and helped me care for her as we knew we had to give her back.  They wept and cried and grieved with us.  They served us.  They loved us.   My friend, mom, and sister cried with me and prayed with me as I bathed her and got her ready for her journey to her new family. My family was there. My friend was there. But most importantly, God was there.   

That night, after we returned our Elizabeth, some of our friends showed up to love us and grieve with us. Each couple had experienced great loss and grief in their lives.  They knew what we needed to hear.  They knew when to sit and be quiet with us.  As I looked around that night at my beautiful friends who carried scars, God gave me hope.  God healed them.  He could heal me too.   They gave us such a gift as they grieved with is in our darkest hour.  These friends showed us a picture of the deep love of God.  They grieved with us! We are bonded with that beautiful, glorious bond for life. 

But God wasn't done.  Only God could work and move in such a mighty way.  Our sweet Hannah had come into this world! She needed us and we needed her!  Her birth-mother wanted her to go to a Christian family.  The director from the agency was praying that God would bring our child to us.  Within minutes she received the call about our sweet Hannah.  She said that God spoke to her heart. She knew that Hannah was our child.

The next day as we cried and prayed and worshiped at church, we got the call…the most important, glorious, most wonderful call we have ever received! Our sweet Hannah was waiting for us.  She would be our daughter if we would be her parents. We were scared.  All the “what ifs” were running through our heads.  We prayed that if she was to be our daughter that God would work and move to allow us to be her parents.  Little did we know, he was already at work. Our God is sovereign!  The next few hours God generously provided and made a way for us to go and bring our daughter home.  Our weeping lasted for the night but our God had already been at work to bring joy in the morning. 

It was a Sunday night. We were on our way to bring our daughter home. We were scared about the possibility of facing loss again.  We prayed that this time we would meet our forever child.  We prayed and knew that we would pursue and fight for our daughter with all of strength, will, and hearts.

As we were driving, James wanted to discuss names.  I was so scared and afraid. I was still grieving our failed adoption.  My heart broke that I wasn't there to love and comfort Elizabeth.  My heart broke that I wasn't there to love and bond with Hannah in the hospital right at that moment.  My heart was so troubled.  My heart was so heavy. But then my husband and our sweet Pastor (who went with us so we wouldn't be alone…I know he and his wife are amazing!) reminded me that God loves Elizabeth and Hannah and He was there with them.  God loved and loves them both more than I can imagine.  He was and is big enough to care for them.  God’s grace was and is enough for them.  God’s grace was enough for my torn but hopeful, and broken but joyful heart. 

In spite of all of this, God did place a name on my heart. That afternoon in the busyness of preparing to leave the name resonated within my heart.  I knew that this would be our daughter’s name.   I was scared to even say it out loud…Was this real? Was this really happening? Were we really going to meet our sweet daughter and bring her home? 

Then James shared the name that God had placed on his heart…Hannah Joy, the same name that God had given me all afternoon!   We would be meeting our sweet and precious gift from God very soon!  Her name means God’s favor or grace and to rejoice.  We certainly were humbled and in awe of our God working and moving in our life and Hannah’s life to be her parents.  She is our beautiful, wonderful, precious gift!  We love her with a deep, fierce, forever, grateful love!

The next day we met our beautiful gift from God!  The moment we met her, God placed so much joy and gratitude in our hearts!  We were incredibly blessed to share our first moments with her with my dad, and our pastor.  We were able to share our joy with them, which was an amazing gift! From the beginning, she has brought so much happiness.  God began to heal our scars and our hurts through his love and mercy.  We are incredibly blessed to call her our daughter.  When we look at her, we are reminded of God’s deep love for us.  He is our great healer.  He is our hope and our salvation!

Part of me wishes that I could say I am completely healed from all the pain that we experienced from Elizabeth, but part of me is relieved that God is still working on me and healing my heart.  I have realized this year that my God is a loving and gracious Father who can be trusted.  The Lord continues to show me that Hannah belongs to Him.  He is her creator and sustainer of life.  I must trust that God loves her more than myself and more than I can fathom or imagine.  I’m grateful for the scars that God has healed with his loving mercy.   Those scars remind me that He loves me and He is in control.  He is good and I can trust him, even when my circumstances want to scream something different to me.  He alone has to be my true source of hope and joy.  It is then that I can breathe, trust God, delight in Him, and enjoy my husband and my daughter, two of the most precious gifts that God could have ever given me!

We are so blessed by the outpouring of love God showed us through this time.  Our church family, our family, and our friends were so caring, so loving, so supportive.  They prayed with us, cried with us, rejoiced with us, brought gifts to us, and provided meals for almost a month!  They showed us the love of God within the body of Christ! 

So as January 5th approaches, we choose to praise God.  We praise God for the life of Elizabeth. We pray that as she grows, she will know of Jesus and his great love for her.  We pray that she follows him with her life.  We praise God for the family that he chose for her.  We praise God for the six days that we had with her.  We praise God for his grace and mercy in our grieving.  We praise God for Himself!  In our grief, He is our comfort and strength.  In our joy, we delight and rejoice in him!  We praise God for our brothers and sisters in Christ who prayed for us, loved us, grieved with us, and rejoiced with us!

We praise God because through our loss of Elizabeth, God worked mightily in a glorious way to give us our sweet and precious gift, our Hannah Joy! We praise God for the life of Hannah!  We pray that she will know Jesus and love him with her whole heart!  We pray that she knows God as her Abba Father, her provider, her protector, her comforter, but more than anything we pray that she knows God as her Savior. We pray that she knows how much she is loved and treasured by her creator and by us.  We pray that Hannah knows that our hearts are full of so much joy and gratitude! Out of all the parents in the world, God chose us to be her mommy and daddy!

We praise God that in several days we will have the honor of celebrating Hannah’s first birthday.  We praise God for her sweet and spunky personality.  We praise God for those sweet little fingers that wrap around ours.  We praise God for her sweet giggles that flood our home with so much joy.  We praise God that we are able to experience the world through Hannah…the first time we held her and she looked up at us, the first time we introduced her to our family and friends, her first bath, her first table food, her first toys, her first giggles, her first smiles, the first time she rested in our arms, the first time she patted our backs to show her love for us, her first trip to the beach, park, and zoo, her first Thanksgiving meal, her first Christmas and opening gifts, her first time playing in the sand, the first time she sang and clapped with all her heart in worship time….For all of these firsts, we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude!   We are so thankful that we are her mommy and daddy we have the privilege of sharing life with her.  We are so excited about sharing all of her firsts of life with her! We feel incredibly blessed to call her our daughter.  Our God has made a covenant of hope! He has given us His grace and rejoice!

"Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you."

Psalm 33: 20-22

You can checkout James' sermon about our journey to Hannah and the faithfulness of our God here