My adoption story part 1

So I was thinking of writing a blog and remembered that I had one a long time ago so instead of starting a new one I figured I would continue this one. (at some point I think I should go back and read them)

So, I don’t know if I have any intentions of ever sharing this with anyone but I want my story to be down. I want something that I can look back at, something I can reread to remember and to see how God moved on this journey.

So, I’m starting at the beginning, a very good place to start (sorry I love the sound of music). So, I can’t tell you the moment or the year but it was early in my life, probably junior high age. I remember thinking that I never could see myself actually having children but would rather have a multi-cultural, multi-racial family. I think the structure was something along the lines of one African, one Chinese, one Russian (or some other fair skinned country) and then one from South America. I didn’t like the idea of 4 kids but I liked the idea of them being so different and them all being mine.

Of course, marriage and a husband were in this vision. A steady job (that wasn't teaching). A gorgeous house. Probably a pool. And this beautiful family would live happily ever after. Lol yep let’s take a step away to admire how absolutely delusional I was. But it was a happy thought.

Let’s forward a bit. I graduated high school, went on to college where I had full intentions of doing something with my life, anything with my life other than teaching! God said ha ha good joke Christi. And yes I graduated with a degree in education. 2 years after graduating college to solidify my “I will never be a teacher”, I got my Master’s in education. Well my occupation has been decided (with much kicking and screaming) but I do LOVE teaching 7^th grade math (well played God, well played) but what about the rest of my beautiful vision.

Steady Job- check

Multi-racial family - . . . .

Husband . . . .

Beautiful house . . .

Pool . . . .

So, the husband and marriage never came. And in my closemindedness I assumed that meant that a family was out for me as well. I mean how was I supposed to get the family without the husband?  And yes I know you can have a kid without a husband but that wasn't how I wanted to do it. Besides I still wasn't feeling the whole baby thing.

So, in 2013 there were some personal things happening in my life that got me thinking about fostering. To be clear adoption was still not an option in my mind until I had a husband. So, in a spur of the moment thing I went to a foster care/adoption information meeting. This was August 2013 I believe. I went thinking it was where I could get information about it, but nope it was a sign-up class. So, I figured what the heck I can back out later if I want.

To clarify I had NOT done a lick of research. I hadn’t done any questioning of those that went through it and to be honest I knew NO ONE that was a foster parent or had done a stateside adoption. I look back and think that I am pretty sure God was protecting me because if I had done research or seeked out others I would have ran for the hills.

After my August meeting, I got signed up for October PRIDE training classes. PRIDE classes are the foster care and adoption classes that are required. Finished classes in December, submitted all of my paperwork and all of my inspections by January. Home study was March or April. And was told in August that I had gotten licensed in May. And still my head was spinning. Everything happened so fast I didn't have a chance to stop and back out. I didn't have a chance to freak my self out.

I can definitely see Gods hand in all of it. Through this part of the process I felt quite calm. Can't wait to continue documenting this journey.

Be still and know that I am Lord!

Sometimes I forget to "stop and smell the roses". I love days like this where I can just sit and enjoy . . . I can't even think what it is that I am enjoying or even how to put it into words.


The beauty that can be found in the silence of the morning. (Until Levi hears something outside and for a moment breaks the silence) But I love just sitting in silence especially since the world is loud. My mind is so much clearer in the silence. The noise of the world just causes confusion and frustration. The silence brings peace and clarity. I love it!
The sunlight as it casts shadows across my yard and porch. In fact I would be sitting on that porch now if I was willing to get out of PJ's and it wasn't so hot. :) The thought that God created sunlight, which serves so many purposes but for me today it illuminates his creation. It's like a spot light that he uses to show off. And man he knows how to show off.
I just love nature. 2 squirrels chasing each other around the yard, actually Levi is going crazy he wants to place chase as well. But my favorite part are the red birds in the front yard. They are such a brilliant shade of red and are just beautiful! 


I wish I could make time every morning to just sit and do nothing. The silence has been great and so calming. I wonder if this is why Psalms 46:10 says "Be still and know that I am Lord" Psalms 37:7 "Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him . . ." Exodus 14:14 "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” 


Something to think about . . . 


Have a blessed day! :)

So it's been a while!

It has definitely been a while since I posted anything and have missed it. I guess now that life has slowed down a little bit I can hopefully start writing again.

Things have been crazy to say the least. Working a full+ time job and graduate classes has been a lot on my plate. And yes I did mean to put full+ time job, my job on paper may only be from 7:30-3:30 but off paper my job is A LOT more! But now is summer break and I graduate in August with my masters degree. No I am not sure if I will go for my PhD or if I will even get a second masters but I do know that I am graduating August 4 and right now that is enough for me.

So you knew that I couldn't write a whole post without mentioning my sweet, sweet baby boy! Levi is doing great. I can tell that he is getting older, he's now 3 years old and he is slowing down. He still enjoys playing but he enjoys sleeping A LOT more. He loves cuddling and if I am sitting anywhere you can guarantee that he is sleeping right next to me and he really likes using my leg as a pillow. My favorite thing about Levi is his hugs. When I am sitting on the couch he will come sit on the couch next to me and lay his head of my chest. It is so sweet!

So that's it for today. But look for my next post to be soon!

Christi

The most precious sound in the entire world!

THE most precious sound in the entire world!

I should start with a small fact about myself. I love to sing! I love to listen to others sing! I love the effect, motivation, joy, peace and so on that music brings to my life. So this morning in church as I was singing I was listening to others worship around me. The unique and diverse sounds and sights of others’ worshipping. Worshipping surrounded by family and friends is a blessing to start with but have you ever just stopped to watch or listen? There is so much beauty in hearing and watching others worship. I believe that we should experience worship and that isn’t just through singing (though music is NOT the only way to worship) but through listening and watching others worship. It definitely brings me closer to Lord watching and listening. But that is still not the most precious sound . . . I’m getting there! 

So today in worship I took just a little time to watch others. My friend Angie with her hands in the air in complete surrender, Luke sitting in prayer and thought, Laura and Patrick worshipping as a couple, others with their eyes closed singing their praise to Him. But then we started singing “he is good he is good when there’s nothing good in me . . .” and I hear this sweet voice next to me singing this song that she knows so well because she has been raised in church and around Christian music. My sweet cousin Kylie, in the sweetest and purest voice I could imagine singing to Him. It was the most precious sound in the entire world. I swear I heard the angels singing with her. And though my first instinct was to just listen (how can you not just stop and listen when you hear that?) but in some weird way I felt compelled to join in. I didn’t want to miss out on singing this praise with this precious girl next to me. I don’t know how to explain it. The longer I listened to her the more I felt I HAD to sing with her. I even tried mid song just to stop and listen again but still felt that tugging that I NEEDED to be a part of it. The most precious sound in the entire world is the worship of a child and today Kylie was that child!

Most recent project

After a stressful and I mean S-T-R-E-S-S-F-U-L day I have found that painting objects makes me happy! Its funny I will just paint an old picture frame for the heck of it, I have no talent for designs or anything but I enjoy just using paint. So I put that new found passion into action. For mothers day I painted my step mother a flower pot with a verse on it. But the picture below is my favorite one. It is a flower pot I painted for my grandmother! Of course there aren't any flowers in it right now.

It says Mimi's Grands at the top and then around the bottom I have glued pictures of all of her grandkids (including one of Levi) around the bottom. I have added hand painted flowers to add some . . . prettiness! :)

Here is a close up of the flowers that I painted around the edge! LOVE IT! I finally did something creative that I am proud of and can show off! :)

Mark 1:40-45

So tomorrow I am teaching Sunday school and I am going to post my lesson. Its a small parable that I somehow stumbled on when thinking and praying about what to teach on tomorrow and this is what I got.

The story is of a man with leprosy being healed. It's 5 verses and yet the meaning of it today and what was revealed to me is so much more.

First what is leprosy? yes I know its a skin disease with many emotional and social problems along with it. So I broke it down into physical and emotional/social.
Physical: A lepor may lose sense of touch, develope skin lesions, ulcers, it can cause eye damage and facial disfiguration. It mainly effects the hands, feet, face and knees.
So this wasn't a disease that could be hidden or denied. If you had it, everyone could see it and it wasn't something pretty. It was something that made people cringe because of how discusting it was. Because of the disgust of the disease and the fear there were many emotional/social problems associated with leprosy.
Emotional/Social- The individual would be an outcast. They would be rejected by everyone, friends and family. They were isolated away from anyone that didnt have leprosy. They most likely had a low self-esteem. No one could touch them without being deemed unclean themselves therefore they weren't touched. They had lost all human interaction with those without the disease.

So let me get this straight. This poor person was living with this disease that they didnt bring on themselves. Induring the physical pain and ugliness of the disease and what did we as a human race do, we told them they werent worthy to be around us. They werent worthy of touch or even interaction. They were deemed unclean and those that interacted with them were unclean as well. All of this out of what. . . fear?

And I thought about our sin. Christians hide their sin, thats what we do. We dont broadcast it and some of us even judge those that do show their sin. Sometimes we even shun, reject or outcast those that display their sin.
I tried to think of sin in our world that Christians shun . . . homosexuality, transvestites, prostitutes or excorts, exotic dancers, adultors, child molesters, those that view child pornography or pornography. Then there are those with actual diseases that are shunned HIV, aids, STDS (or STIs whatever they want to call them now) and the list goes on. We cringed when we run into someone in one of these sins. We keep our distance, I mean we don't want to catch it right. Like homosexuality is contagious.

But when did we decide to put a value on sin. How is sin that is shown and displayed different in Gods eyes than my sin I hide? A sin is a sin no matter what human value we put on it. Sin seperates me from God, done deal . . no matter the "value" of that sin. Hmm . . .

Now I do realize and know that when being around others sin, I have to guard myself. Of course. When a doctor is healing an HIV patient they dont walk away from them because of fear of catching it but rather puts on gloves to guard or protect themselves. The same way, we should be guarded and protected but I dont believe we should stay away.

In this healing the leper saw Jesus as His rescue and Jesus has compasion on him. Jesus didnt run away, or hide, or shun him but rather responded out of emotion for him. Jesus broke the social norms by touching him, by just being around him. Can you imagine the boundaries we would cross if Christians responded to the those listed above with compassion, rather than jugdement. If we reached out to them as Jesus did. I bet some views on Christians would be reversed.
Jesus' touch alone had the power to heal. The man reached out to Jesus out of desperation but Jesus reached out, when no one else would, out of compasion. And with that touch healed not only the phyical but the emotional and spiritual as well.

I think we sometimes forget that we are all unworthy of his touch, of his healing. We are all unclean and need his touch. Like the leper who reached out to Jesus believing that there was no hope for him, no cure, others believe that too. They live their life in sin because they don't believe that their is hope for them. They are too far gone. They are too deep in. They don't think their is a cure. As Christians we are to be the hands and feet of Christ and that means showing them that he is the cure and using our own healing as a testimony. It goes for our sin as well. Some of us are in a sin we can't seem to escape, we are too addicted to it. But Jesus is the cure.

The healing ends with the man not following Christ's instructions and according to vs. 25 caused Jesus to not to be able to enter the cities and therefore might of hindered some of His ministry. But I can't stop thinking about how happy this man was. He wanted people to know that he was healed. He probably wanted to shout it from the rooftops. He now was part of society again able to talk to people, interact with people, touch others. Things we take for granted, he could now go to worship or have lunch with his family. He could hold a new born baby and the list goes on. He was a new man both inside and out.
The only reason I could think that Jesus didnt want him to tell is because he didnt want to be bumbarded with those seeking physical healing. I dont know why Jesus said this (knowing that the man was going to go tell everyone anyway). Maybe he did it out of humility. He told him to show the priest because this was part of the time. To return to society he had to have the blessing of the priest. And it never says whether the man showed the priest or not. Oh well, we may never know.

I told you . . . 5 small verses said so much to me. Leprosy is not that big of a deal anymore because of modern medicine and even then its not something we see in America. But we do have lepors in our lives. We have people that are shunned for their sin. I think I have a new view on those I shun for their sin. I do say shun but in many ways its "judge" them for these sins.

Well I dont know how to end this so I am ending it with . . . Thats all folks! Please comment I would love to hear any insight you have on these small 5 verses.

SHOES are the cure for a bad day!

Took today off as a mental health day, a much needed mental health day. Monday night I took my last final of this semester, so now I just get to focus on teaching and then the week that teaching is done I start summer school. So things are definately not slowing down for me!

So today was a great day. I woke up somewhat late and did nothing. :) Went to conroe and met Diana at Olive Garden and then went to a nail/spa place (the best one I have EVER been to) and got a pedicure. Seriously one of the best places ever. It was about the same price as the others Ive been to put they put a hot towel thingy on your next, you choose you own lotion from a list of like 10 and your own salt scrub. They spent about 15-20 minutes just massaging with oils, salt scrub and then lotion. AWESOME!

So to the shoes part . . . I needed to go to Michaels for a few project things. Actually I messed up a few projects and needed more stuff to try it again. As Angie (a very creative friend does) maybe I should post my projects, though they are very very simple maybe I will. So I wanted to look at shoes because I really wanted some and I LOVE shoes. And I have a great philosophy on why women LOVE shoes (and it works for handbags as well). No matter how fat, skinny, tall, short, funny looking or pretty you are, pretty shoes look good on you. I love that. I have so much trouble finding clothes that look good and forget about them fitting right and decently priced. But shoes you can always find a pair that looks good, they almost always fit and are good priced. "Big" girl clothes cost more and are rarely on sale. Shoes on the other hand, it doesnt matter the size or whether you need narrow or wide you can always find your size on sale and the price isnt dependent on the size you wear. I love shoes. Its like the shoe industry doesn't discriminate against size because size doesnt determine the price. I bought 2 pairs of shoes from Room rack and 6 pairs of baby socks for $35! I LOVE shoes! And I love a good deal on shoes! :)

Oh and we topped it off with Tutti Frutti, a great yogurt shop! You can choose from 14 different flavors of yogurt and then there are like 60 plus toppings you can add and you do it all yourself and the price depends on the weight of your yogurt! I got cookies and cream yogurt with brownie pieces, heath bar, cookie dough and receeses on top! Yum! Diana on the other hand got french vanilla yogurt with strawberries, sprinkles, carmel sauce and cookie dough. Definately need to try it!

So in short, when you are having a bad day here is the cure! Sleep late + Olive Garden + pedicure + new shoes + tutti frutti = CURE FOR A BAD DAY!