Fun with Grace

Grace is here for a visit! She is my cousin and she is awesome. After we picked her up from the airport we headed home to eat some lunch. We quickly got our trip underway with a trip to the Carnegie Science Center.

Grace went for a spin with her new friend Olivia.

Then we toured a submarine. (If you can't tell that is Grace through the window)

She thought the sub was really cool, which it was.

I liked it too!

The first night we made tacos with homemade tortillas and got a little messy!

Grace really likes Theo and the dog that I "puppy nanny" for, Wilson.
She REALLY LOVES Wilson and he is pretty fond of her too!
We made chocolate Chip cookies too!

We just got back from a good hike at Schenely park. We came back muddy and exhausted. This is only half way through the hike and you can tell that Theo is having a fun time.

We also caught lightening bugs last night. Grace caught about 20. She said she would give me some pointers because I only caught a couple!

Check back periodically to see all the fun we are having.

On the agenda tomorrow: church, more hiking, and then the Justin Bieber movie in the park!

I STILL BELIEVE!

A realization hit me today. It was one of those crazy ones that I didn't know that I didn't feel this way until I did feel this way. Do you follow?

I was sitting at my computer playing minesweeper and listening to Pandora (yes I make great use of my time indeed). I realized, right here, doing nothing, pursuing nothing, just sitting, that God is still with me.

I didn't even know that I was doubting that. I didn't know that I wasn't certain where He was.

I was wondering when this lie started creeping in on me, the lie that God wasn't there or that he didn't care. I've been trying to get pregnant for over a year now. I one by one watched over 13 friends and family members get pregnant around me. I saw another friend who has been trying to get pregnant for 4 years miscarry. I saw several people around me get pregnant at the exact same times that I (or rather my body) failed to. I watched people around me post sonogram and ultrasound pictures. I saw their bellies slowly grow with life and hope while mine sat empty with a huge, neon lit vacancy sign, shining as a shameful beacon from within me.

Sometime during all of this, this lie, disguised as bitterness and protection from the hurt, started creeping up. It tried to swallow me whole. It made me skip church on Mothers' Day and avoid anything to do with Mothers' Day. It makes me avoid facebook for fear of another "announcement". This lie has kept from interacting with anyone pregnant or with young babies.

This lie, that God doesn't care, or that He doesn't have a plan tried to drown me.

But here is the truth. My God is BIG, He is POWERFUL, He is EVERYTHING I need, He has a plan for ME, He has a plan to make me a MOMMY. My God can see the next chapter. He sees our Christmas cards with smiling children and elated parents. He sees our car on family road trips with empty sandwich bags and crushed gold fish. He sees all of this and so, so, so much more. I am in His hands.

The song "Salvation is Here" by Hillsong United says:

"Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
It's gonna be alright...

Salvation is here,
Salvation is here and it lives in me"

I know that my God saved the day. And I know that His word never fails and His word says in Psalm 113 that "He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord." I know that God has made a way for me. I have no reason to doubt this. He has always made a way for me, why would he fail me know? He can't fail! Therefore, Cassidy, it is going to be alright.

God is with me! I still believe that God is with me!

I know that God is with you to! Find peace in the fact that even though today there may be pain one day there will be joy. And for those of you that find yourself with peace and joy in abundance encourage those around you. Lift them up and share your love for them.

Even more changes...

We just found out that the agency we are working with will most likely not be able to place us with an infant and truth be told we don't have money for an infant adoption and our agency just feels like the right place to be.

We are now pursuing an adoption for a child under 3. I am sad that we won't have the time period of infancy but I am getting excited about being the mother of a toddler.

I just found this fun site that has 101 things to do with a toddler. I am excited about taking our child on walks and making little boards for practicing buttons and snaps and zippers. I am excited about taking our child to the farmers' market to look at different vegetables.

Yes, it will be difficult. Yes, it will be hard. Our child will come to us already having experienced hurt, disappointment, neglect, and possibly even abuse. But I know that my Redeemer, my Savior, can transform anything. God can make beautiful things out of the dust.

Gungor "Beautiful Things"

Some of the lyrics are:

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

I love the line "Could a garden come up from this ground at all". I feel like I am a garden... right now an infertile garden, that without God's grace cannot produce fruit. Yet God can make my barren soil a family. He can bring together people from different places and knit it together into a family. Some day our family will have so much joy, it will seem like a garden bursting into blooms!

God is amazing and I trust him through all of these changes and uncertainty.

Adoption

^{Romans 8}

¹⁴ For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. ¹⁵ The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

^{Ephesians 1}

⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will

So, after one terrible round of clomiphene Mitchell and I have decided to stop pursuing fertility treatments. We have now started the long paperwork intensive path to adoption.

There is a lot going through my mind as we embark on this path. Yet I have hope.

I trust that someday our house will be full of little foot steps. The child will not be from my belly but rather a child that I have prayed for and will one day meet, born from a different mother.

Please join us in praying for our future child. Please join us in praying for the birth mother wherever she is. It is hard not knowing anything. I don't know if my child is already born or even if the mother knows that she is pregnant yet. Please pray for peace within me and please pray that the process goes quickly.

New Paths

Through much prayer and searching Mitch and I have decided to pursue a new course. Please keep us in your prayers. I will share more info with everyone soon!

Thanks everyone.

Job:

I have been feeling just empty and lonely lately. I started re-reading the book of Job because I feel like Job. It seems in my life that many things are not what I would want for them to be. Rather than complain and all that... I'd rather... well...

Job has three "friends" that are trying to tell him different things... that he did something to deserve what was happening and even his wife told him to curse God. I feel like all those derogatory voices are coming from within my head. I am doing my best to block out all the negativity I have been telling myself. (All these fertility meds are so "hormone-y" and I am sure that does NOT help my head state right now)

I wanted to share a part of Job that has been really speaking to me these last couple of days.

⁸ “But if I go to the east, he is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not find him.
⁹ When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
¹⁰ But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
¹¹ My feet have closely followed his steps;
I have kept to his way without turning aside.
¹² I have not departed from the commands of his lips;
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.

¹³ “But he stands alone, and who can oppose him?
He does whatever he pleases.
¹⁴ He carries out his decree against me,
and many such plans he still has in store.
¹⁵ That is why I am terrified before him;
when I think of all this, I fear him.
¹⁶ God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me.
¹⁷ Yet I am not silenced by the darkness,
by the thick darkness that covers my face.

I am certain that on the other side of this I will have more strength than I have now, which is more than I had at the start of this and that is more than I had before that. I know that God still has big plans for my life like Job says in verse 14. I trust that.

I love the image in my mind of me being tested and purified to create something brilliant and shining. I wanted to know how to refine gold so I looked up on eHow. To summarize:

1. Put gold in container then add nitric acid and let it sit for 30 minutes.

2. Add hydrochloric acid and muriatic acid. The mix will turn brown and will become very hot.

3. After an hour filter out any particles that could contaminate the gold. The mixture will be a clear emerald green if not do it again.

4. Add urea to balance the ph. Slowly add boiling water. It will foam so don't add it too quickly or else you will lose gold in the overflow. Once the foaming is done you are done. The ph has now gone from .1 to 1. The nitric acid is killed but the hydrochloric acid is not.

5. Add storm precipitate to the mixture with boiling water. Slowly add this to the acid. The mixture will become muddy. Allow 30 minutes for the gold to form. Check the mixture to ensure that no gold will be thrown away.

6. Pour out the acid through a filter. In the bottom you will have something that looks like mud. This is the gold. Add water. Rinse three or four times with water. Pour aqua ammonia on the gold. White vapors will appear. Rinse with water then let dry. There is your gold.

It all seems very painful. Though I love how careful the process is... that it is done delicately to protect and retain the value of the gold. It can be especially painful in the moment. It can feel like acid and boiling water inside of me. But I trust that God knows what He is doing. I trust that the pain will bring great joy one day. In the end of Job it says that he was blessed more in the last part of his life than in the first. He has beautiful children and he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation! That is so amazing.

Trust is easy when the road is flat and straight but as I walk into the forest and brambles crawl across the path and the sun is almost invisible because of the obscuring leaves and vines this is when trust can be difficult. It is hard to believe that God who I know has started a good work in me will continue it to completion (Philippians 1:6) Even though the sounds of critters in the forest is terrifying, I know that my redeemer lives and that His hand is guiding me.

Please continue to pray for Mitchell and me as we continue trusting God.

New Blog Look

I decided to revamp my blog! I hope you guys like it.