IT FELL RIGHT INTO MY LAP

For a while, I really wanted to one day work for/in/own an adoption agency.

Then things changed a bit, I've thought about the so many other options I have.  And it's not that I let go of the agency dream, it's just that it wasn't at the top of my mind all the time.  An option, yes, a great option, but not all I thought I wanted.

And now here I am, working at one.

With my mom's new job, we've become much closer with the Director of this agency.  We've all already had a love for this place and the people, because it's how we found Trey's birthmom.  I never at all thought for a second I'd be working at this very place.

And now I am:)

isn't it the best view?

It's just a summer job scanning paperwork and doing random office work.  But it's one step closer to the dream I've always had.  

It's funny... I seriously wasn't looking.  Didn't even ask.  I love how God works.  He hears our dreams. He knows our every secret.  I hadn't spoken of a job like this in at least a year.  I knew I needed a summer job, but I was not looking.  Still, He saw both of these things and He let it fall straight into my lap.

&....

The agency had a sweet baby girl in their arms for a month as they waited on some things, and, being the crazy baby-lover I am, I jumped at the opportunity to have her overnight.  It was a little different for me, but I loved it anyways.  What a precious thing.  To serve God and other people by loving on a baby.  She went home to her adoptive mama this week, and oh, the beauty.  I LOVE adoption.

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Really, God knows our hearts.  I am so very very excited for the doors He is opening through this little summer job.

Also... what a fun thing for me.  The fact that my first official "job" was at an adoption agency.  It doesn't get much more perfect than that.

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WAKE UP CALLS

Pinterest is great, it really is great.

I love the ideas I get from it.  I love the inspiration it brings and the things I learn from it.

But in the midst of inspiration lays a ton of covetousness.

A lot.

There are gorgeous houses and perfect kitchens and libraries inside houses.  There are clothes that are too expensive for us to be buy and posters telling us we have to live our lives right now.  There are charts on how to properly pack for a week long trip and blog posts on how to eat healthier this Summer.

And it seems as if the moment I get wrapped up in all of this stuff, I remember the babies I left behind miles and miles away and the babies that wait ahead in the same spot.

And it breaks my heart that I would ever for one second let myself idolize this website that makes me covet and compare and want and.

I become consumed with the gorgeous houses and the shoes I want and the wedding I can't even see in the near future and the clothes I will never afford that I forget about what I left behind 9823 miles away and what's waiting for me ahead.

I let myself believe the lie that I have to pack this way and eat that way and sleep more and drink X amount of ounces of water per day that I forget that there are real people who can't find a drop of water.

I pin that photo for future reference so I can get a shot like that and I pin that other photo of a bedroom so one day I can create a space like that.  But in the process I forget who I am and I focus on what I think I should be.

I forget to thank Jesus for the kitchen I do have.

And the roof over my head that I do have.

And the blanket that lays over my body at night that I do have.

And that I have clothes to wear tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that and on and on for another 6 months.

I forget to thank Jesus for the life I do have.

Because I don't know about you, but for me, with my Pinterest account that began a year ago, I've never been able to do that as much as before.

And in the process of reading things that tell me I have to live my life to the fullest, I realize I'm not.

I realize I left my heart in some place far away.

I realize I have a journey that I haven't taken yet.

I realize I've been really, really, really really really really ungrateful.

I'm not deleting my Pinterest account.  It is a perfect creative outlet for me.  But I am limiting what I follow.  The purpose of owning a Pinterest account, for me at least, is to be inspired.  Not become ungrateful and forgetful of what my real purpose is.

These kids are eating on the dirt and I'm dreaming of houses I'll never own.

It's not how it's supposed to be.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... 9823 miles is a long ways away to leave your heart but one day I'll be back.

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MY HOME

There's a place where people from all over the world gather together to learn.  They all spend their Summers the same.  Purchasing the same books, reading the same summer reading list, preparing for a full year.  They all spend their school years the same, too.  There are papers and assignments and final exams and tests and more books to read.  And every Tuesday and Thursday, or Monday and Wednesday, or Wednesday and Friday, they meet in the same place.

But this school is not like the usual.

It's over the internet.

You can go to class in your pajamas with your hair looking insane.  You can wake up four minutes before class and not be late (I don't speak from experience at all).  You can listen to music during your final exams and discuss theology in a classroom while someone four thousand miles away does the same.  It is literally the most awesome experience I have ever had the opportunity to have.  To be part of this school is one of my proudest things to tell people.  To be part of this school means I get pushed and challenged to a level I didn't think I could go.  To be part of this school has taught me to have a better work ethic.  To be part of this school has taught me to glorify God in everything.  To be part of this school has taught me to love harder than I thought I could.

The only way you get to know your classmates is to read whatever they choose to put on their profiles. There's a tiny photograph of them, their names and their location.  But that's all you get.  You have to push and learn and be intentional and love.  But that's been one of my most favorite things of this school.  The ability to get to know a person in such a unique way.

I gotta admit, I had no idea I'd be such close friends with some of these people.  Like the ones you look at for the first time and are like, woah, you're weird (you know who you are).  Things change when you push yourself and don't judge.  Nothing's felt quite as right to me as to sit down with these people I spend 360 days chatting with over the internet and looking at through a screen.  To hug them and hear their laugh and watch their faces.  To laugh out loud and not have to tell them you're laughing.

I love this school.  It is part of me, part of who I am.  It is some of what has helped to make me me.  It is what feels like home.

It sucks to spend 5 days with your best friends face to face when you spend 360 over the internet.  It really really sucks.  It's not natural to train yourself to live without the people you love most.  But it has to be done.  And I am learning everyday that there is a purpose to this.  One day it will all make sense.

& one day it will all work out.

I am holding onto that.

I love you all.  So much.  I miss you more than words can say.  Thank you for who you are.  Tears <3 p="">

(We are the cutest people on the planet, Olivia.  I already know)

I don't have to type hahahaha to laugh!  yay :) How it's supposed to be.

<3 p="">

The best Omnibus teacher there ever was!  

<3 p="">

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I WANT TO LOVE LIKE THAT

Growing up in a Christian home has always left me hanging on for that "transformation" you feel like you don't get.

I'm not sure what I mean here exactly, but it's those moments where you feel like if you had to tell your testimony to someone it wouldn't sound all that meaningful or life-changing.

When I was 6, I "prayed the prayer" on my living room floor with my mom and brother.  It wasn't what I sort of wish it was.  There were no tears, no strong convictions, I was just ready.  I had gone to church since I was 2 weeks old, spent years singing Jesus Loves Me in Sunday school, and I always knew that I was a "Christian."

But when you hit your teens you start to feel as if it wasn't real.  Not that you've been brainwashed, but that in your heart you haven't fully accepted what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ.

It seems as if when people come to Christ later on in life, they have these life-changing and convicting testimonies that make you cry.  They are hit hard with what Jesus did for them and what they've done to not deserve what they get.  And when you grow up your entire life being a Christian, it's hard to make the transition to following Jesus.

It was the Summer of 2009 in Africa when that seed was planted.  When my idea of a "Christian" was changed.  And then it began to grow a bit a year later when our family did foster care.  And, the moment the seed blossomed into one of the most beautiful things, adoption hit me straight in the face.

I couldn't escape it.

Never in my life had I been presented to the fact that I had been adopted.  I'm sure I heard about it, but it never hit me so hard in my life.

People say all the time that things change your life.  But no, this altered the way that I live.  I will never again think of being a Christian or following Jesus or loving like Jesus ever again.

And tonight, I felt it again.

Watching a birthmother hold her baby for the very last time with the woman she chose to be the momma to her baby standing over her as she cried.

It's a vision I will never forget.

And then all at once she has to go, and she hands her baby to her new momma and she says through tears "I'm so excited for you."  And you think of the baby, the precious child that she carried for 280 days, and the way her life is being altered.  And her new brothers and her new sisters waiting at home for their new baby sibling.  And it's all overwhelming Jesus love that you just can't get over it.

When you hit your teens being a Christian your whole life, you search for the tangibile parts of Jesus' love.  You'll either drop your faith or something substantial will go on in your heart and you'll never doubt His love again.

For me, it is this vision.

The picture of a woman holding her baby for the very last time.  The picture of the baby's new mother with her arm around her.  It's the words "I don't want to but I choose it anyways."  And it's the thought of a man nailed to a cross bearing my sins sealing my adoption for ever and ever amen.

I just can't get over that picture.  I lived fifteen years before I felt this love so tangibly.  I grew up singing about it and I knew I was supposed to believe it.  But when you hit the age where you choose for yourself, you see Love differently.

I am transformed.

I am chosen.

I am adopted.

& someone chose the hard thing for me when I didn't deserve it.

& I live today because of the sacrifice made for me so long ago.

I want to love like that.  I want to abandon my desires and love with surrender.

Lord, teach me to love like a birthmother.

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THOUGHTS FROM 30,000 FEET IN THE AIR

Thoughts from 30,000 feet in the air, wrote in my Notes app on my phone.

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Why did God allow us to create planes all those years ago?

I think it's because He wants us to stand in awe of the beauty He creates.

When we watch a sunset unfold from above the clouds, or lightning erupt from the point of view of God.

It all makes me stop breathing for a moment.  The way He creates and the way He creates for us and our pleasure.  It doesn't seem like the God of our every second in life wants us to partake in and enjoy His creation.

And what about tears?

Why did God create those?

I have to believe it's not just so that we can show emotion.  I think it's so that He can carry our pain.  We humans, we're tangible people.  We like to touch things and know things and see the proof to things or it's not worth our time.  And we're made in His image.  I have to believe that that is one of those things He wants us to know to be true.  These things like tears and flying.  They are tangible things.  He understands our need for tangibility, and He gives it to us freely.  He wants it to be real for Him, too.

Before He created the world He saw us in a metal tube flying above the clouds.  He saw us soar and He watched our eyes as we stood in awe.  And in case we had any bit of doubt in our hearts it was cancelled out with our eyes.  Because when we humble ourselves and take ourselves out of reality for a few hours we see the realness of life.  We see His beauty.  And we see the world in a new way.

And because of His tangible love seen through opening our eyes to His creation, we meet the face of God.  We see Him in the clouds and in the sky.  I look down and see the tininess of the cars and the people and I realize my little life isn't as big as I think it is.  It's this little tiny square that has no meaning until He says it does.  And when it has meaning?  When He creates the value in it?

Life is beautiful.

Because He gathers our tears that fall from our eyes and He stores them in a bottle and He holds them close to His heart.  And He chooses to walk with us and grieve with us and still love us.  Even when we screw it all up.  Even when we hurt.  He makes our grief worth it.

And when there are 10 bottles of tears there are 10,000 bottles of grace.

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"

Psalm 56:8

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