Blog Tired, but back with a Renewed Spirit!

I have to admit that I have not been into blogging this week. I am "blog tired", (like dog tired!), and I think that it is just because I have been in a funk this week. You know how you have days (or weeks) that you just want to be over? Well, this is one of them!! Nothing bad happened, but I just felt that everything was just jumbled together and it made me unsettled! But this morning, I have a renewed attitude! Maybe it is because it is Friday! But no matter what caused it, I felt like blogging!

Usually, I have time at night to sit down (or lay in bed) and read a little. I have had this pile of magazines on my nightstands all week that I wanted to read, but I have not had a chance to do it this week! It is not like me to pile anything up, so it bothered me even that much more that I did not have time AND that it was a pile! Every night we have had things that have kept us running until bedtime. Since my husband and I carpool to work (saves money and the environment!) and he has to be at work an hour before I do, I have lots of time to kill before I am officially "at work"! I brought my "pile" of mags to work to look through before 8am!

I received a magazine from Holt International which is an adoption agency. We sponsor a child each month through Holt so that her needs are partially taken care of and so she may have the opportunity to be placed in a foster home rather than an orphanage. It is proven that the children tend to do so much better emotionally, developmentally, and socially when they are placed in a foster home, because they get more attention and better nutrition, as well as other things. Our first sponsored child was adopted after the first month that we sponsored her. We have only had our second sponsored child for a month now. They send us updates about the child every month or so. I guess that is why we are receiving the magazine now, too. We found out about the sponsorship program when we went to Winter Jam (a Christian concert) and the group NewSong was there representing Holt International. They showed a video from a recent trip to an orphanage in China and stressed the need of sponsoring a child. They urged us to pray about it, but when the lights came up and my husband saw me crying from the video he said, "Go get a baby!" We have both of the girls hanging on the fridge (where I visit most) so we can pray for them!

Let's back up about a week! Last Thursday, we went to an international adoption information meeting and I have to say that I was a little disappointed because I did not learn anything that I didn't already know. I left thinking that it could have been better, but we were planning on attending another meeting on Saturday morning with a different agency, and I felt that it would be a little better. Well, we ended up not getting to attend the second meeting and I was disappointed again! I told myself that we have plenty of time to attend a meeting somewhere else. During that day, I reasoned with myself that we are not really ready to adopt. I have to be 29 1/2 before we can start the adoption process and I am not even 29 yet! I resigned myself to decide that I was not going to think about it until next year when I am less than a month away from the 29 1/2 mark! So this week, I have not talked about it or researched it!

Now back to today! After a week of trying not to think about adoption (and I think that I have done pretty well) I start reading this magazine from Holt. This volume was about special needs children and the special families that adopt them. Most of the children that are labeled as special needs children, actually do a lot better when they are adopted. Not only are they loved and nurtured more in a family, but in the U.S., we have better medical facilities and knowledge and can usually correct the need without surgery. Most are just from a lack of something in their diet. Of those that require surgery, most are not major surgeries. Now, I know that there are always those cases that are more severe, but that gave me new hope for the special needs children that are waiting! Love may be what they need more than anything else.

There was also an article by an adoptee called, "Motherland Revisited". This girl was adopted at three months of age from Korea and was able to travel back this year with 22 other adoptees to see her homeland through Holt. She is now a college student. She tells about working in the orphanage and having to learn to let go and walk away from the children that are there. That hit home to me because we are going to face that same thing in a little over a month through our mission trip. Their tour leader took the time to advise them to be prepared emotionally for what they would see and face. She also had the opportunity to be reunited with the foster mother that took care of her for her first three months. The first question that her foster mother asked her was, "Are you a Christian?" How incredible is that! Her foster mother later gave her a silver cross necklace and told her that she prayed for her everyday! I just find it amazing how God brings these people together! It is not that often that you see Christianity in other parts of the world that tend to have no freedom of religion and here God found this foster mom and placed her so that the children that she cared about for a short time might have an opportunity to learn about Him. I guess that it made the pictures on the fridge come to life just a little more. Who knows, maybe the child that we will one day adopt will have that same opportunity! That adoptee was able to see adoption come full circle, as was that foster mom!

I guess the whole point of my blog today was that I realized how often I do not realize what God does. He took a woman in Korea over twenty years ago and used her for three months to make a difference in the life of a child. He then brought that child back to her so she could see God's miracles for herself! How much can He do through us when we open ourselves up to Him to be used?