Still Waiting.... And Waiting... And Waiting Some More...

I've been a little absent from the blog lately... fall is my busiest season for photography and that has unfortunately left little time for much else. I wanted to hop on though just to keep you all in the loop on our adoption progress. (If you can call it that!)

When we first went through the application process we were told that there would be around a 6 month wait for a referral (which just means a photo and history of a specific child that we can decide to accept or not). Shortly after, we were told the wait may take more like 7-9 months. Then a few weeks ago, we got another email saying that because of some in-country delays that are out of our agency's control, the wait will probably be closer to a year. Yeah. Not really what we wanted to hear.

It got me thinking about how much I want so badly to be able to control everything in my life, but at the same time how incredibly grateful I am that I can't. Not just that I can't, but more importantly that I serve a God who can and does perfectly. In my limited vision I flounder through life making "plans" and thinking I know what's best. I can't help but shudder when I think what my life would be like if I got everything I thought I wanted, when I wanted it.

Any good father loves his children enough to tell them "no" or "not now" when he can see the consequences of what they are asking for, or when he know's there is something better waiting for them  instead. Like a child, sometimes I want to throw a tantrum or stomp off when my heavenly Father responds to my prayers for a house full of children with a gentle "not now". But I also know that He is good, and He is for me, and He is completely in control of all of this. Who am I to think my plans are better?

Many of you dear friends have asked how you can pray for us during this adoption journey. Of course I want you all to pray that it would move fast, and that everything would go smoothly without any hiccups. What I want prayer for more though, is that we will continue to trust in the Lord's goodness no matter how many delays we face, and that we would desire His plans above our own. I wan't to be able to look back on this time in my life and see the fruit that comes with trials, not a wasted opportunity to know Him more intimately.


The heart of man plans his way,
but the LORD establishes his steps.
(Proverbs 16:9 ESV)

How To Encourage A Friend Going Through Infertility

Many of us tend to be fixers, and pretty much all of us like to avoid any kind of pain. Even if it's not our own. I know when I've had friends experiencing profound loss or pain, I've wanted so badly to know what to say, or how to be there for them. But the truth is, regardless of our good intentions most of us are just plain clueless on how to be a friend to someone walking through suffering. I've had a few people ask me over the past five years how they can be an encouragement to me as I struggle with the pain of infertility. I've also had some friends, that I am incredibly thankful for, do an amazing job at this very thing, so I thought I'd pass along some of the gems I've learned in the hopes that someone will be able to bless another in the same ways.

It would be easy to write a whole post about things not to say, believe me I've heard some crazy things from well meaning people! But I really want to focus more on the good takeaways in this post, so I'll just touch on this. To keep it simple, just know that there is really not anything you can say to magically make someone's pain go away. The fixer in us likes to try and offer a solution... "you just need to relax, take a vacation, believe, adopt, etc etc and then you will get pregnant". Or we like to try and minimize pain... "you're lucky you don't have kids, it's harder then you think, etc etc".  

What I have found is that I am most encouraged when people choose to actually enter into the suffering with me. When people don't offer "advice" to fix the problem, or try and quickly move past the discomfort of my sorrow, but sit in it and feel it with me. There have been two times in the past five years where sweet friends of mine have shed tears while talking with me about my infertility. THEY cried because of MY pain. Both times I wasn't even crying. And let me tell you, it ministered to my soul. More than anything else any person has done or said. Here were the words one of these girls spoke to me through her tears.. "every time we are in a group of moms talking about mom stuff, I am always thinking of you the whole time". Holy cow. Talk about entering into someone else's suffering. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with moms and talking about mom stuff. I learn a lot, and it's not usually too difficult for me. And it's not as though I want everyone to be worried about me during baby showers or to avoid talking about their kids around me. That's not at all what I'm getting at or what she was saying. But genuine statements like this from friends I trust make me feel like I'm not alone. They give me encouragement that even though I may be the only one in my circle who is experiencing infertility first hand, I'm not the only one facing the sorrow of it. They tell me that I have friends who care enough to enter into my pain, rather than offer a quick "fix" and move on. What a blessing and encouragement these friends have been to me. 

So if you know someone going through any form of suffering, be it infertility or something else, I hope this helps you change the way you think about being there for them. They don't need a cliche statement about the "silver lining" or anything like that. They may just need someone to hurt for them and with them. This is hard because it requires something from us. It requires us to engage our hearts, and to experience the discomfort of someone else's sorrow. So maybe next time you are wondering what to say to your friend who is suffering, instead just hug them and tell them how much it sucks. You don't necessarily have to cry with them, but you can tell them how much you hurt for them, and let them know that they aren't alone. 

I feel a bit schizophrenic...

I was hanging out with a few good friends today, and the topic of grocery budgeting came up. Ugh. Chances are you already stopped reading. I would have. ;)

The three of us have also read Jen Hatmaker's book "7 : An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess". If you haven't read it you should. It's awesome. In the book there is a part where she describes her different personalities that come out when she goes grocery shopping. The part of her that wants to spend less looks for the cheapest food, the part that wants to care for the environment and her body wants to buy organic food which is definitely not the cheapest, the part that wants to support her community and local commerce wants to buy local, which may not be organic or cheap, etc. etc. (I'm totally paraphrasing and probably got that totally wrong, but you get the picture!)


I feel this tension every week when I go grocery shopping. For me health wins out, and I always end up spending more than I want to. What's crazy is that I'm spending more on what really should be less. Less processing, less factories, less genetically modified organisms that I'm sure cost our country millions to create and implement, less packaging, less potentially harmful non-food ingredients. Just real food from nature. Why it is so much more expensive to eat this way I just don't understand. 


In many countries, people don't have all these choices when it comes to food. They don't get to go to big supermarkets and make these choices between cost and health. Many people are not getting to eat at all. I realize this "problem" is trivial in light of the suffering of millions around the globe, and I would be lying if I said that doesn't make me feel just a bit ashamed of my selfishness. However, I also don't think adopting a minimalist approach and not taking care of the bodies God gave us is the answer. 


So what do you think? Is it better to spend less? Eat healthier? Buy local? Somewhere in the middle? Leave a comment, let me know what you think!

My Life as a Follower of Jesus

I saved this post for last in my series of main blog topics, not because it's less important than the others but because it's so incredibly core to who I am that honestly I've been a little intimidated to write about it. I mean, how can you adequately write in a blog post what Jesus means to you? So while this will barely scratch the surface, its at least a start.

I want to start by saying that I know I'm not perfect. I know there are a lot of stereotypes about Christians thinking they are better than everyone else or whatever. I don't. If you want to know the truth, I'm a complete basket case most of the time. That's the beauty of the gospel though... we don't have to have it all together to follow Christ. My life as a follower of Jesus is so much more than being a "better person", whatever that means. It's not about being good so that God will give me what I want, or doing all the right things out of a fear of being punished if I don't. Thats just not how the gospel works, although unfortunately many people live as though it is.

Really the reason I follow Christ is not about me at all. It's about Him and what He has done. God is the one to be made much of, not me. His son Jesus is the one who died on the cross paying the ultimate sacrifice for my sins. His Holy Spirit is the one who changed me forever, giving me a desire to know Him and helping me grow more into His image. And the more I grow, the more I really grasp that God is God and I most definitely am not.

So as I write future posts on my faith, please know that I attempt to do so with a humble heart. Not to say "look at me", but to say "what an amazing God I serve". Because if you're just looking at me you will be sorely disappointed. I'm a mess, but my God is incredible. Look at Him, and you'll be seeing something worth looking at.

"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

(Romans 5:8 ESV)

Photography

I don't have anything really profound to say about photography, I just really really love it.

I love the flexibility it gives me, and I love that I get to play with the cutest babies and kids all the time while I photograph them and their families.

 

I sort of fell into it accidentally, working for other photographers as an assistant while I looked for a permanent job in ministry. Finally one day it clicked... If I start my own photography business, I'll have the freedom and flexibility to do ministry in whatever form the Lord leads.

So I started my business about 6 years ago, and have been trying to figure out how to grow this thing ever since! Moving to three different cities hasn't helped, but now that we are finally in a more long-term living situation I'm excited to finally grow a client base that I can stick with.

These are just a few highlights over the past year or two, if you know me at all or follow my photography blog then I'm sure you have seen most of these already!

 

If not, and you love looking a pictures as much as I do, please check out my photography blog here! I try to update it often depending on the season. 

I hope these pics brightened your day a little! :)


For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
(Psalm 139:13-14 ESV)

        

Church Planter's Wife

When you think "pastor's wife", what pops in your head? For me it was always some weird June Cleaver/ Ann of Green Gables type image. Granted, I didn't ever actually meet a pastors wife until college when I started following Jesus, and even then I was at a traditional Southern Baptist Church and our pastor was pushing 70, which didn't really help my stereotype much. So naturally when I met Jeremy I told him no way did I ever want to be a pastors wife. I mean, I felt called to ministry, not to sitting at home while my husband did all the real hands on stuff! I wanted to be in the thick of it, serving and doing something that really mattered. This posed a problem, since Jeremy was in seminary preparing to be a pastor at the time...

Luckily, he probed further before running for the hills, and helped me to see what a narrow and incorrect view I had of what it meant to be married to a pastor. He gently explained to me that being a pastor's wife could be whatever I wanted it to be, that there was no mold I would need to fit into. That, along with the Lord working on my heart, helped me to warm up to the idea, and by the time we were engaged I had embraced the idea that I would soon be a pastors wife.

After we were married for a few years, Jeremy began to feel called to plant a church, which just means starting a church from the ground up. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, let me tell you it's a whole other ball game. We moved to Austin to get trained for a few years, and then moved to Norman Oklahoma about a year and a half ago to start Providence Road. No staff, no money, and only a small handful of people. And just me and Jeremy (and more importantly the Lord of course) to make it all happen. What's that? You said you wanted the "real hand's on stuff"? You want to be "in the thick of it"? Well, here you go.

So what does my life look like as a church planters wife? Well, when you begin with a staff of one, and that one is your husband, you kind of have (ahem, I mean get) to do a little bit of everything. We had no money, so we got to fundraise together. We had no accountant, so I learned how to keep track of donors and donations. We weren't technically an official church at first, so I did hours of paperwork and filing with the government so we could be a 501(c)(3), among other legal registrations. We had no building at first, so for the first year we met in our house, which meant extra cleaning both before and after we gathered. We wanted to create an atmosphere of community and family, so I cooked. A lot. This hasn't changed. We have people in our home constantly. I help with the nursery on sundays. I help set up and tear down each week. I do a bit of graphic design for business cards and such. I hang out with girls. Jeremy and I counsel couples together. Do you get the picture? Hands. On. Ministry.

So there you have it. I can't tell you what a church planter's wife looks like, because it's different for everyone, and even for me it's different every day. So far it's been crazy hard, but equally amazing and fulfilling. If this whole idea of church planting intrigues you, stick around. You'll hear a lot about it here.


Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV)

Real Food

Food has become a recent obsession of mine. Well, that's not entirely true... I've always been a little obsessed with food, and not in a good way.

 I've seen people make food into an idol in two ways. Some let food control them by obsessing over every calorie they touch. They want to control something, maybe their appearance or level of fitness, whatever it is food becomes a god that can get them what they want. When they feel out of control in this area, their joy, sense of worth, etc. is gone. Then there are the people, like me, who have no control when it comes to food. They see a cookie and they just cant be satisfied unless they have it. They spend their day thinking about the next time they get to eat. If they don't get to enjoy the object of their desire, their joy is gone. Either way, it's idolatry.

Just to be sure we are on the same page, idolatry is when you look to something other than Jesus to be your ultimate source of joy, worth, satisfaction, etc. Remember, I said ultimate. It's ok to find joy in a mouth watering piece of turtle cheesecake. It's not ok when food is constantly dictating our emotions. Do you ever snap at people when you are hungry? When you have a hard day, do you ever feel like you "deserve" a treat to make you feel better? For those of you who are strict eaters, how are your emotions after you "mess up" and eat something you feel you shouldn't? If Jesus is enough, why should these minor things effect our emotions so much? Just a few things to think about...

When we began our struggle with infertility, I began doing a little research on how what we eat may have an impact on our ability to get pregnant. This resulted in switching to organic eggs and dairy. A small first step, but a step in the right direction nonetheless. After a few more years, I began to have multiple other small and not so small health problems, including asthma, digestive problems, severe insomnia, chest pain, increasing cycle irregularities, and of course there was still the infertility.

A little over a month ago, when my health seemed to be getting out of control (with no answers from doctors), Jeremy and I decided to try something called the whole30. No grains, no beans, no dairy, and no sugar or sweeteners of any kind for 30 days. 30 DAYS! For a whole month we ate nothing processed... just meat, veggies, fruit, eggs, and nuts. Our food was cooked in coconut oil or olive oil. We only put real food that came from nature into our bodies. On days 3-7, I felt like death because of the sugar withdrawals. By day 14, pretty good. By day 30 I had lost 15 pounds, and felt amazing. Not only does my body seem to be working more as it should, but how freeing to learn how not to be controlled by a desire to eat whatever I want. For a month I said no to foods I usually obsess over. I survived a wedding without eating cake, a wedding shower without eating all the yummy goodies, and multiple parties and get togethers surrounded by people eating things I could not.

Oh, and the pictures in this post? Dinner the other night. Homemade meatballs and marinara (made with fresh tomatoes) served on a bed of spaghetti squash. I got the recipe here. Delish.




¹⁸ For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Philippians 3:18-20

Adoption

So to kick of my series of the main topics of my blog, I decided to start with adoption. Mostly because we just had our first home study visit the other day and I've spent the last few weeks doing online training videos, so it's definitely fresh on my mind!

I want to start by saying that while yes, we have been struggling with infertility, no, that is not why we are adopting. Please don't assume that this is our "plan b". It isn't. It saddens me to think that many people will look at us and think, "Oh they couldn't get pregnant so they had to adopt". Our dream has always been to have a blend of biological and adopted children. As this is the first post on this, I'll keep it simple and just tell you our story (the abridged version).

My husband and I discussed our feelings about adoption on our second or third date. It was never a question for either of us, we wanted to adopt. So naturally, by the time we were married we nailed down a pretty good plan. Wait 2 years... start trying to get pregnant... have first biological baby by year 3, have the next shortly after... then adopt two children so that we could teach our biological kids about adoption during the process. Dreamy. The only problem was, it didn't happen.

We started out on track, trying to get pregnant after 2 years of marriage. However, having a miscarriage 14 months later was not in the plan. (More about that in a later post). All the professionals assured us that because of hormone levels after a miscarriage, we were likely to get get pregnant again right away. We didn't. A few years later I had a surgery to help with some endometriosis. Again, we were assured that many women get pregnant right after this surgery. And again, we were disappointed.

We've been trying to get pregnant now for almost 5 years. I don't even know how many pregnancy tests I've taken, only to be disappointed time after time. I honestly don't ever want to look at another one. We haven't given up on getting pregnant, but we have finally let go of our narrow little plan and embraced whatever plan God has for us. After a lot of prayer, we finally felt like it was time to start the adoption process, and we are so excited about starting our family this way. Through more prayer, we decided to adopt from Uganda, (can't wait to tell you about why we picked this amazing country!), and chose an agency. They have had us do tons of paperwork, reading, online training, and more paperwork. We are almost done with our home study, and couldn't be more excited. I can't wait to share more with you all about the beauty of adoption, the pain of infertility, and how God uses both for our good and His glory. There is so much more to our story that I'm sure will come out in later posts, and so many rabbit trails I'm dying to go down. For now though, I'll leave you with this:

".... he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."

(Ephesians 1:4-6 ESV) 

Hello World (again!)

So, some of you may know that this is not my first attempt at starting a blog. You may also remember that I'm really not very good at it. Well friends, I'm ready to give it another go. This time will be different. I won't wait 3 months in between posts. I won't bore you with endless pictures of our dogs. (Well, maybe just a few). My subject matter will most definitely extend beyond pictures of our most recent vacation. Instead, I'm going to stop editing and re-editing my thoughts, and just start writing about the things that really matter to me.

So to kick this baby off, I'm going to spend the next few weeks devoting one post to each of the topics you will probably see on here a lot. They aren't all necessarily related, but they all mean a great deal to me and I'm guessing some of them might strike bit of interest in you as well. Here is a small snapshot of what I love, and therefore the most likely common themes of this blog...

I love Jesus. I mean really, really love Him. You will read a lot about Him, and my journey walking with Him here.

I love being a church planter's wife. It's crazy hard planting a church, but so so worth it.

I love adoption. We are in the process of adopting from Uganda, and oh there is so much to write about this!

I love photography. I actually have another blog completely dedicated to this, but as it is such a big part of me you will definitely see some of it here as well!

I love food. Ok, this is a new obsession of mine, but knowing what we put into our bodies and how it effects us has recently become a big deal for me.

And of course, there's just...life. So please, don't give up on me those of you who read my old blog! Stick around, and if you really want to make my day, leave a comment!

xo