Thankful

It is hard to believe it is already Thanksgiving...it seems the older we get the quicker the year goes by. We have so much to be thankful for...

• My Lord and Savior - I am grateful God chose to send His one and only son to save  me from the law and give me eternal life. His grace seizes to amaze me. He is why I live.
• L - He loves me like no other. I am so blessed to love a man more than I ever thought possible.
• Little R - We may not know Little R yet, but he/she weighs heavy on our heart today. We hope next year we are giving thanks for God bringing him/her home to our family and I have a pal to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with me. I pray Little R's tummy is full and he/she has a nice place to lay their head. That God would continue to watch over and love on Little R.
• Family - My family continues to be a core encouragement and support system for me and I am so grateful for all they do. I am super thankful L's dad can cook an awesome turkey since I have no idea how to. We are grateful for how awesome our families are, we are truly blessed.
• Friends - I am grateful for the Fantastic Four, our new and old friends. Our community here in Austin continues to be such a wonderful blessing in our lives.
• Adoption Process - You might be surprised at this. I am too. The process is probably not on the top of many perspective parents lists today, but I am truly grateful. I am grateful the bumps we are experiencing came when they did and not after we were matched. I continue to be amazed at all God is teaching us through this process and how it is used to make us more holy for Him. I am so very thankful He has called us to adopt and our country allows it. God's wisdom and discernment He continues to provide is what is navigating our way to Little R - we could not do this without His leading. Through this God has opened our eyes to the global orphan and poverty crisis and given us a passion to fight for justice.
• Our jobs, home, health, and all the many other blessings in our lives.
• The Texas Longhorns...I am thankful for my school and football team. I love that we play on Thanksgiving night. I am not confident today...but am so very thankful we might not play the aggies for awhile after tonight. HOOK'EM HORNS...update after game...I should have been more confident, awesome win!

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Love from the R family.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalms 107:1

National Adoption Day

Today is National Adoption Day. I hope next year we have an adoption that is finalized and complete...wouldn't that be fun?!

With each day about adoption or big milestone, I am typically super excited. Today is not that day.

We have hit some big bumps in the road this week and it is disheartening to say the least. I cannot share specifics about the bumps yet, but know they are the kind you hate. The kind that make people like me cry. The ones that you hope do not happen to you as you read other stories.

Yesterday someone asked me if we were adopting and said "wow that is so cool" - it took everything not to cry and bare my soul on how not cool it is at the moment. I am sure this random man would have loved that.

I have heard people say "adoption is not for the faint of heart." I did not think I was faint of heart, but I would be lying if satan has not thrown in the idea that quitting would just be easier. And he is absolutely right. It would be easier. I would cry and hurt less. But quitting is not what God has called us to do.

When we began this adoption, I had hopes of a perfect process that went by so smoothly and we lived happily ever after. I know, I was dilusional. But a girl can dream.

More than anything, we have prayed and hoped this adoption process would be played out exactly how God wanted, and we still believe He is in control. We know this time is being used to bring Him glory and for His purpose, so as hard as it is, we press on to continue what He has started in us.

If you would like to join us in prayer, please pray the God would show us the perfect way to Little R. That satan would have no place in this process in any way. And that God's perfect will would be done.

1 Peter 4:12-13 "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

And with Thanksgiving right around the corner...I still say thank you Lord for this process. Thank you for using things like this to strengthen us and make us more holy for you.

My Favorite Things

Let me be honest. I was a little sad when Oprah went off the air. Go ahead, judge me. But I was. If for nothing else, her My Favorite Things show was a holiday season tradition. I looked forward to it and will dearly miss it this year.

Friends, although I cannot give you thousands of dollars in gifts, I do want to list some of my favorite things for you. All of these favorite things are free trade items or shopping that helps put an orphan in a forever family. Since Christmas shopping is just around the corner, I wanted to dedicate a post to these in hopes you could try to buy at least one gift for someone from the list below. I mean, who doesn't want to get a gift for Christmas with a tag that reads, "you helped place an orphan in a forever family" or "because of you, a family now has money to eat and go to school". Who's in?!?

• Be The Joy - this organization sells jewlery and was started by an Austin family who adopted two precious girls from the same place we are adopting. The proceeds are currently sending over thirty women in this country to school.

• Noonday Collection - we have a few friends who are ambassadors for Noonday and their profits go to help bringing their children home. You can find jewlery, clothes, bags, and even housewares here. They are made by woman across the world whose lives have been transformed by the income this brings.
• One Mango Tree - a fair trade organization that creates jobs for people through design of clothes, bags, scarves, jewlery and more!
• Baby Starfish - a family working to bring there beautiful baby girl home from across the world! She has everything from Scentsy to coffee, tshirts and paintings.
• The Walls - super cute pillowcase dresses for girls! Helps bring home their child from across the world!
• One Less Broken - cute leg warmers for babies/toddlers - all to bring their child home!

• Sugarplum Boutique - cute bows that benefit orphans!
• Our Beautiful Collision - homemade Ug@ndan vanilla!!! Helps bring a child home from around the world.

• R Family Tshirts - I couldn't not plug our own tshirts - we still have some left. Helps bring home Little R!

Happy Shopping!!

Contentment at 113

Waiting day 100, 113.

I thought for sure I was going to give you an update on day 100. Not because we would have any news, but mostly because 100 seems like an important number, and sure feels like a long time, so naturally day 100 of waiting would deserve its own post. Right? Wrong apparently.

The good thing about the news we received a few weeks ago is we are free to not anticipate tomorrow, because tomorrow is likely not going to consist of a referral or anything new. We have been anticipating since July 14th (at 10am to be exact), so this has been refreshing in a weird way. I was angry, sad, and an emotional basket case when we first received the news, but now I am content. So content that day 100 just zoomed right by me.

WAIT. Did I just say I was content about waiting? Yes. I did. And it is true.

I am not content because of anything that is in me, but because of Jesus and the perfect peace He brings. This is good in so many ways. One being my sanity. This waiting game moved into our life quickly, fiercely, and it meant business. It may seem like an innocent enough word, it is not. It was slowly driving me insane. It was consuming my life.

And for those of you who think 100 days of waiting doesn't seem that hard, I ask you, when have you waited 100 days for anything? We live in America where someone can make food for you in two minutes people.

I am so very thankful for the contentment and peace that passes all my understanding. It doesn't make sense, it is not my personality, and I love it!

In other news, my mom spent some time with us this week and it was awesome. She is so selfless and I found myself hoping I can be that selfless for my children one day. She took me to see a movie she had already seen (just because I wanted to), she **cleaned** my house (in only the way a mother can), and outfitted our dogs for Christmas, among many other things. Note: cleaned is bolded, starred, because all that she did is definitely deserving of way more than the word cleaned.

Mom, thank you for being such a great example of selflessness and love.