Suffer Well

"My friends, adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him."

---Derek Loux

Last night at Church we had a guest speaker named Leonce Crump. I don't know much of his testimony, but I know he is a former NFL player and atheist who is now a pastor of a Church plant in Georgia. He opened the sermon up with this one simple thought. A thought very simple, but extremely complex:

"In life we are guaranteed two things, suffering and salvation. Suffering and salvation."

As I sat there and listened to him unpack 2 Timothy, I couldn't help but realize how deeply those words hit me.

When you follow the Lord and his will, it isn't always easy. In fact, it can be downright brutal. Look back to the first followers of Jesus, I mean Peter was crucified upside down and Paul was believed to be BOILED ALIVE. What makes us think we shouldn't have to follow with the same intensity and risk as them?

I don't know why, but for some reason I've always thought I would/should be exempt from suffering. Selfish, I know. Call me crazy, but I'd really prefer not to be boiled alive if at all possible. I avoid suffering like the plauge. I always have. This adoption is, of course, no exception.

In fact I foolishly believed that I shouldn't HAVE to suffer during the adoption. That instead my road should be lined with raining money and singing sugar plumb fairies fanning me as I go. My rationale was that if I was following Gods will by adopting, that in turn the road should be smooth and stress free.

Laughable actually.

Unexpected bills, unexpected bumps in the road, unexpected delays, unexpected trials, unexpected tears and sleepless nights. So many things that have been unexpected.

Look closer at that word though, unexpected. Unexpected.

It's simple really. So many of the problems we've had have been made worse by our unwillingness to suffer. If we had only suited up properly before entering this adoption-knowing there would be trials and tribulations, had we only acknowledged (instead of avoiding) that fighting for these children comes with immense work, crazy financial stress, and unimaginable problems, than maybe we would be a better picture of what it means to suffer well.

Friends, we haven't ALWAYS suffered well on this journey. I pray that we will so that even in trials we would be a light to the world. It isn't always easy. I'll tell you this, the adoption journey has made me acutely aware of my sin and my need for a savior.

We have, on more than one occasion, almost let the stress consume us. We've argued, we've panicked, we've worried about money, we've questioned and we've doubted. Instead of working with an attitude of joy for the salvation to come, we've often worked as though we have a weight too large to carry. We've complained about the hard work it takes to do all of this stuff, and while we have overall been very joyful and hopefull about our journey, there are times it has been hard.

While my flesh does NOT want to suffer, my soul needs Jesus more than my flesh needs comfort. I need all of him, in every area of my life. If that means I am only guaranteed suffering and salvation in life, I'll take it. Jesus literally fought to the death for me, and I will not disgrace him by my own selfish unwillingness to suffer. We are committed to fighting for this child, for our child.

My friends, it's time for me to suit up. From here on out I refuse to ignore that this is battle. It is often said that adoption is not for the faint of heart, and I've never believed that so much as I do right now. I know that more bills will roll in, more things will break, there are sure to be many more unexpected's and more trials. After all, this is war. A war that I am honored beyond belief to be a part of. I've learned more about myself since starting our adoption journey than I have in any other event in my life.

The road may be long and rugged, but every step brings me closer to Jesus and closer to our baby. That, my friends, is worth fighting for.

In Other News:

We have to be honest for a minute. After losing the twins, and some other unexpected set backs, we were really starting to feel burnt out. We have been pretty unfaithful and negative the past few weeks and it was really starting to show to others I think. We were not an example of faithful suffering for sure. However, despite our faithlessness God remained steadfast and loving. Some friends of ours did more than help us out financially, they renewed our hope and gave us strength again. Our wonderful friends had their very own "secret" garage sale for us only one week before OUR garage sale! Seriously, how amazing is that?! Who does stuff like that!? There I was complaining about how much work garage sales are to them while the had to bite their lip to not spill the beans that they already had one!

The point is, despite our faithlessness God didn't give us what we deserved-but instead blessed us with two amazing garage sales. Thank God for his Grace.

Overall we raised around $1700 between the two garage sales and donations. That BLOWS my mind. Thank you to all of you who donated, shopped, prayed, or shared our garage sale events. Pretty spectacular! It's laughable now, but the night before and the early morning of our garage sale was a hot mess. I spent two days making signs for the garage sale. See how pretty they were?

Sigh.

That was before the sprinklers turned on and got to them. RIP, beautiful marker signs. Your replacements were ghetto and not nearly as beautiful as you.

It was also my brilliant idea to move some furniture out the night before so that there was just little bit less to do the morning of. It would have been a good idea had it not started dumping buckets of rain at 3 am. I woke up, ran out of the house looking like something out of a horror film while I pushed furniture back into the garage with no shoes on.

I get myself into some interesting situations, I'll tell you that.

All in all it was fantastic though! Through our garage sale, garage sale donations, and our friends and their super-secret garage sale we raised almost $1700.00

The Lord is good, and so are the people he has used to bless us on our journey! Thank you to all of you who donated, shopped, or helped with the garage sale, and a special thanks to our friends who did their own garage sale like it was nothing. Way to handle the stress better than us!

Our next fundraising effort will most likely be a craft fair this fall for Scrunch Nose Sews. Stay tuned, you just never know what ideas I'll come up with, especially if I learn to not be afraid of suffering :)

Until Next Time!

-TeJay, Ashleigh, Eva and Baby H.