Today is my birthday! I am 32 years old. According to my students at school, I am "so old." I'm not quite sure when it happened...but it did.
God has been so faithful to us over the last few months. He continually blesses us with reminders that He has promised us a daughter named Avery Joy. We had our last home study in August. We have a few more documents to turn in to complete the home study process. The next step is the dossier. The Road Map below may give you an idea of where we are in the process.
Please continue to pray for us. Pray for us to have wisdom and patience as we move forward. Also, pray for Avery. Pray for her protection. Pray for her to be held everyday. Everyday I pray for Avery to feel love from her caregivers. Also, pray for Avery's mother. Pray for her to be surrounded by people that love her and show her God's love. Most mornings, I get up at 5 to run in the treadmill. I don't like getting up early, however, I love that the house is quiet. Ricky and Aubrey are still sleeping. It's peaceful. Just me. I enjoy my time on the treadmill because it gives me time to think and pray. I have spent a lot of time praying for Avery. This morning as I was thinking about my birthday, I prayed that by next year, I will have Aubrey and Avery in my lap to blow out my candles! It gives me chills to think about. I love you Avery. You are in my heart everyday. I don't know if you are near, or faraway, but I am thinking of you today.
Avery Joy, today I prayed for your mother. Something I've never done before. I pray that she has no fear when she is pregnant with you. I pray that she will feel God's love and blessing as she prepares to give you away.
Avery Joy, I long for you to be in my arms. I long for you to complete our family. God has planted a seed so deep in my heart for you. It hurts that you are not with me. I trust that one day, you will be in our home. I pray that God will keep you from all harm all the days of your life. Genesis 28:15 says "God will not leave me until he has fulfilled his promise." Avery Joy, you are the promise he has spoken to my heart. I will continue to long for you. You are loved. You are wanted. You are hoped for.
Today is the due date for the baby we lost in September. I've had a lot of anxiety about today. This morning when I woke up, I had a choice to make. I could choose to camp out on disappointment, or I could choose to have abundant JOY.
I choose to be confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13). I choose to be grateful for all the blessings God has given me. I choose to not focus on what I don't have, but to focus on everything I have. I choose to look past the disappointments, and to capture the sweet moments. I choose to be thankful for the journey God has put me on. Philippians 1:6 says, "being confident of this, that He that began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ." He's not finished with me yet! He is faithful. He will complete the work that He has started in me. We get so worked up in the present day. In Philippians, Paul is writing to the church from a prison cell. He is awaiting his execution. He doesn't say, "I hope this turns out..." No, he says with confidence, that God has started a work in us and He will carry us through that work until the day we see Christ face to face! There will be no worry on that day! There will be no fear on that day! I have never been a very confident person. It fills be with great joy, knowing that I can be confident. I can trust that He is with me. I can trust that He will fulfill His promise to me. I heard on a podcast recently, that God is not like men. Men conduct experiments, but God carries out a plan. There is no guess work. God has numbered each and every one of my steps. So...I can choose JOY, even on a day like this.
I suffer from depraved indifference.Most of my life has been about me, what can I
get, what can I do, how can I make my life easier and better.Laziness and materialism have been my down
fall.I’ve been given so much in life,
anything I’ve ever wanted…I got and more.It was a normal occurrence for my Grandmother to give me a $100 every
time she saw me for me to spend on whatever my heart desired.I spent my school years amassing one of the
greatest sports collections I have ever seen.You name a player this side of Babe Ruth I’ve probably got some
autograph or card of them.I won’t lie,
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey of amassing this collection and some of it has
led to some great times with my parents, with my grandmother, with Beth, but I
have all of this stuff now…and it sits there and I look it.I look at it and I think how I wish someone
would have told me to not waste the money, time, energy, thoughts that it took
to get it all.I wish someone had told
me that there are more important things in this world than stuff.The most important of those things is Jesus.Being the hands and feet of Jesus is to be number
one in our life.
So how did I get to this point where God has changed my
heart from its all about me to its all about Him?Here are a few of the “AHA” moments in my
life:
I asked Jesus to be my savior when I was in the second grade
after a man gave a talk where he pretty much scared us all into asking Christ
so that we didn’t go to hell.I grew up thinking that I had taken care of
that and I was going to Heaven, but it didn’t change me on the inside.I did good because I wanted my parents to be
pleased with me and I used Jesus as a my own personal genie that when life got
hard or if I needed something I would pray for him to fix it so I could have an
easier life.Beth and I joined
Silverdale Baptist Church in March of 2008.Through the teachings of Pastor Tony Walliser and Pastor Travis Jones,
God began to show me how He desired a relationship with me that was more than
just the guy who was keeping me from Hell, but as someone who as Travis says
“Died on the cross in my place for my sins defeating Satan, Sin, and Death.”He did it all for me and He desperately loves
and wants a personal relationship with me.He didn’t care that my heart was
dirty and nasty, but that only Jesus could change it and that His Heart could
become my heart. “AHA”
Beth has always wanted to adopt I remember even when we were
dating she mentioned a few times about wanting to adopt and each time I
remembering thinking you are crazy if you think we will ever do that.All of the negative thoughts of adoption
would flood my mind.The kid wouldn’t
look like me, we would be taking away from our “real” children to help someone
else’s child.No way in the world would
I want to take that on, it was just be too difficult.In June of 2011 my brother and sister-in-law
adopted a little girl from China.I
thought it was awesome, great for them, can’t wait for her to get here, but
that wasn’t for me.They sent us a
picture of her as soon as they could, a very simple picture of her sitting on a
bed in her pajamas and in that moment God super naturally warmed my heart and
melted away all the insecurities about adoption.He showed me how beautiful it is to love the
least of these like Emma and that there is child out there like Emma just for
us.“AHA”
I’m not a great reader, but I love listening to podcast and
sermons.I have a 25 minute ride to work
and then home every day and I usually spend that time listening to sermons of
pastors I enjoy.On most days I listen
to one of Travis Jones’ old messages; it’s amazing what God can teach me
through a sermon that I’ve heard 4 or 5 times already.I also spend time getting caught up on Kyle
Idleman’s sermons from the past 4 years at his church Southeast Christian.If you don’t know Kyle Idleman, his book Not a Fan, will radically change your
life.It’s pretty much a biography of
how I lived most of my life as fan of Jesus, but not a follower, but that’s a
story for another blog. His message from March 9th was entitled “Money Talks:
Who do you Love?”The point of the
message was look at how you spend your money and that will tell you what you
love and is what important to you.Like
I said above, my money told the story that I was in love with myself, but over
the last few years, God has shown the light on my heart that my money should
show that He is my first love.Since
Aubrey has been born, I won’t lie my thoughts have mostly been about her and
not so much about the adoption, but God used this sermon to speak to me
directly that it’s time to trust me completely with the adoption and quit
dragging your feet.“It’s time” was what
I kept hearing throughout the message. I needed to obey and He would handle the
rest.During the sermon, Kyle played a
video called Depraved Indifference by
Eric Ludy that broke me to the core.I’ve attached it below.Its 7
minutes, but please watch its very powerful.www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHJ6-YhSYQ
If Jesus
Christ can change a man like Ricky Allison into a man that feels what Jesus
Christ is feeling, then he can’t stay in
suburbia USA anymore and do nothing.Heroes are made because they are moved not in their head, but in their
heart.You have to be moved in such a
level where you will shed blood.Jesus
Christ was moved, For God so loved the world that HE gave. And that Son that
was given, suffered and died for the cause that is being laid before us tonight.It wasn’t head knowledge about the disaster
taking place in this world.It was life
abandonment unto the cause of those that are dying.Unto the eternal souls that are around us.Do we care at the level that God cares, do we
carry a burden when we go home tonight will we grieve over the fact that those
Children are God’s Children and He is longing for an advocate to stand up and
say I’m willing God to fight for what is Yours.I’m willing God, burden me.When
Jesus was in Gethsemane, you know what He was there for? He was there for life.He was burdened with the weight of it all for
life.He was willing to sweat great
droplets of blood.Are We? For our King
and His Glory we will rescue these little ones.“AHA”
So what can
you do?Well, first we covet your
prayers.Prayers for wisdom in all
aspects of the adoption process.We meet
with the adoption agency tomorrow and hopefully through that God will show us
the path he wants us to take to bring Avery home.Also prayer for our protection from the lies
of Satan.I’m attacked daily with lies,
but I know that God has called us to adopt and He will provide.I’ve listed several of my expensive items
from my sports collection on eBay so pray that my items can sell quickly and
that those buying will pay genrously for them.Also you can like our Facebook page Sweet Chicks of Chattanooga
Beth
is selling all kinds of new stuff other than cake pops now, so please at the
very least like and share our page with your friends on Facebook, so we can continue
to raise the support for the adoption.You can also buy stuff, most of the stuff Beth is selling is under $15,
but most are custom items that would make great birthday, Christmas, Easter,
Teacher appreciation, mother and father’s day, etc. gifts, so please keep us in
mind when you need a small gift.
Also,
if you feel God is leading you to give to our adoption you can do so on our
blog through paypal.
Thanks for
reading this long post.I assure you
it’s just a small portion of what God has been teaching me lately, but I pray
that it blesses you and speaks to your heart about adoption.
Exodus 14:14 tells us that The Lord will fight for us, we need only be still.
What a comfort knowing that God is in my corner, fighting on my behalf. My responsibility: BE STILL!
God has been telling me to be still since our last miscarriage. On several occasions since then, I have heard it during my prayers. "Be still, Bethie, my sweet lamb, be still."
Over the last two weeks, God has given me a new word: JOY. He's given me a desire to have a blooming joy, a desire to choose joy.
For far too long, I have not had true joy. My joy has been tied to my circumstances. My joy has been tethered to things that can be broken, things that can be lost, things that can be taken. TODAY, I desire to have an abounding joy. TODAY, I choose to have a blooming joy. My joy comes from my Heavenly Father. My joy comes from advancing the kingdom of god. My joy should be tethered to Him. TODAY, I choose JOY. A few weeks ago, I heard a pastor pray this prayer over his congregation. He asked the church to listen to the prayer as if it was Jesus speaking over them. This was his prayer: "You are weary, but I want you strong. You are encumbered, but I want you free. You are hindered by many undue concerns when I want you abounding in my joy. Come close to me. Come away my beloved and I will minister to you and revive your spirit even though the climb be more steep than ever before."
I have spent too much of my time being worried about the timeline for getting pregnant and adopting Avery. I've lost my joy along the way. I've learned (I'm still learning) that no matter what happens along this journey, I can still choose to have JOY.
Fear can grip the heart. Fear clouds the mind. Fear steals opportunities to experience God! Fear steals the opportunity to experience awe inspiring moments. Fear is debilitating. It exhausts you mentally, weakens you emotionally, hinders you spiritually. Operating in fear spoils what God intends for you to encounter. Operating in Faith will fill your heart with God's peace and you will overflow with joy. Faith gives you courage to rely on God and trust Him when he invites you to experience extraordinary things. Faith is confidence in God. Faith strengthens your soul. Faith calms your mind. Faith renews your spirit. I don't want to live in fear any longer! I choose to put my faith in God and trust that He will fight for me (Exodus 14:14). I recently heard John Piper say, "Get alone with God and preach his word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for."
Well, my last post was on 5/21/12! I'm a little overdue in posting. Here's a brief update: Ricky and I had a beautiful baby girl on November 5, 2012. Aubrey Elizabeth Allison was born at 6:14 AM. She weighed 6 pounds, 3 oz. She is absolutely perfect. Completely worth all the waiting!
Aubrey has been such a blessing to us. Everyday we are reminded of God's faithfulness and love. We've had a wonderful year learning to be new parents.
We recently celebrated her 1st birthday. It was such a joy to celebrate her birthday with family and friends who prayed with us, cried with us, and laughed with us on our journey.
This past year hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies, we've had ups and downs like all new parents. We've had many sleepless nights, runny noses, ear infections and even RSV. Everyday is an adventure! We wouldn't trade it for the world!
This past August, we found out we were expecting. We were so thrilled, and a little shocked, to be pregnant. Unfortunately, at our 10 week ultrasound, we learned that we had lost the baby. There was a genetic abnormality that caused the baby to die. We trust that God has better plans for us. We are walking faithfully with Him, as we continue to hope for other children.
We still plan to adopt. Many people don't understand why since we have Aubrey. Adopting was never about just getting a baby when we were having difficulty having our own. Following the call to adoption is more about being obedient to Him who called us and gave us a heart for adoption. We are a little unsure of the who and when…but we know there is a child for us out there somewhere. Please join us in prayer as we seek direction.
