I haven't posted in a while because well life is busy with 4-year-old twin boys. There’s so much to share and update. This journey to forever God has us on is a wild ride and I would be lying if I said I am full of joy always. We are doing great, but there are moments that have been hard.
We often tell our teenagers that hard does it mean bad. Hard means hard! Putting in the hard work usually yield great results. April 30th, will mark 6 months home with our sweet twin boys. It has been very obvious that God's hands we're all over this process. Truly the boys are bonding and attaching and thriving. God has covered everything we have asked and more! It is a great joy to watch them thrive in their new surroundings, home, and roles as brothers, children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews…LOVED! Even still, life goes on. We quickly fell into a routine. Life gets busy, but we tried to meet the boys' schedule where they needed it to be, maintain schooling for the big kids, find time to go grocery shopping, prepare meals, and get everyone to practices and games, etc. It’s in the routines of life that we get stuck. And about 3 months after the boys came home, I got stuck. I allowed Satan to the whisper lies and cause me to feel trapped in my circumstances. Our ever. Changing. Circumstances. The last few months have been a roller coaster I didn’t see coming. I struggled with feeling less than, not enough, and overwhelmed as a wife and mother. Satan lies. God doesn’t make mistakes and I am exactly where He would have me. Three months after we brought the boys home, Dusty lost his job. We found ourselves facing uncertainty and yet we knew God was going to point us to His best for us. We learned through our adoption journey that even if we have complete faith that God has the ending in hand, the middle can still be hard. I was struggling in this middle place. The stress and fear got the best of me and I was overwhelmed to the point my body was reacting physically to the stress. We continued to remind ourselves we are to consider it “pure joy” when we face trials. God was working in our family and I needed to rest in his shelter. God has been growing something in our hearts since before we left to bring our boys home. We believe He has more for us to do in Africa, Burundi, the world of adoption, or for orphans. We don't know what it is yet, but He has our yes. We know a seed was planted and it's growing. Since our boys have been home we felt it begin to sprout and we were so hopeful we could identify it, but we are still not sure what's growing. In His perfect timing, God will reveal His desires for our family to serve Him. In the meantime, I can’t push and stress over what God is waiting to show us. I have to be patient. I had to refocus and ask God to search my heart and pull out my wrong focuses. To show me His way and direct me once again from the path I want to forge because I thought it was the best direction for me and my family. It’s not always comfortable to sit in the presence of Christ, but it's beautiful! When we ask God to search us and we are willing to listen to the Holy Spirit, we hear and have to face where we fall short. It’s easy to slip into self-loathing and allow Satan’s whispers to become your truth. Staying steadfast during the hearts cry for God to make you more like him is a mighty battle. It isn't always pretty, clean and glamorous. During this season, I felt broken, weak, battered, and bruised. God was and is making me beautiful in this hot mess. We can see the big picture from the mountain top, but we grow in the valley. God has our best in store and we are trying to follow Him as we wade through these uncharted waters. Does Dusty’s job change have to do with how God is calling us to serve Him? I tried to solve it all in my own head and that only brought more fear and anxiety. God doesn’t need my help. When I was overwhelmed in the day to day and feeling all was lost, I remembered it was “pure joy” to be in this place. God was showing me so much, if I would just look up and see it. And on days I was stubborn, He really showed off. Super bowl Sunday we were so excited to be back with friends enjoying a night of fellowship. I took my crock-pot full for my part of dinner and of course plugged it into their wall. That is exactly moment when it decided it was time to literally shoot out fire and short out circuits. Considering it was a wedding gift, almost 19 years ago, it was destined to go any day. But why there? Now I had to worry about a mess I made at someone else’s house. Thankfully, we were able to get all the outlets in that part of the kitchen up and going again. Now I had to face the task of buying a new crock-pot. Nothing is made well anymore and the thought of spending money at this point on a crock-pot was not on the top of my list. I searched. I knew I needed a bigger one because we had added two 4-year olds that can out eat most grown men, and I finally decided to get an 8.5 quart that was on sale for $85. It arrived and I was sad to see that the button panel was detached. I am not above gluing things back together, but for $85, on sale, I decided it should be corrected and I submitted a return. The company refunded our money and said to keep the product. No big deal…expect that God wanted me to see that He has us covered. Even on little things like crock-pots. So we praised Him for his prevision. That was enough for God to shake me out of my fog. For me to realize that He still has our journey in His hands. My outlook got brighter and I remembered who I was in Him and started to find joy in my daily tasks as a mom, teacher, and wife. But just to make sure we REALLY got it, God orchestrated, as only He could, an even bigger moment. Dusty had been driving a company car for many years. So with the loss of his job we also lost our second vehicle. We were prepared to arrange being a single car family as needed for a time. The only struggle was we had to manage things around the schedule of 4 year-old boys, whose schedule was vitally important. My sister and her family offered to let us borrow their vehicle for a short time as we searched for a reasonably priced car that was reasonably safe/reliable. Blessing number one! Ansel joined a basketball team the week we left for Africa. We so appreciate the team welcoming him in. We felt out of the loop for a time because we were gone and then home with the boys. Once we started attending games, we began talking with a family from the team that also has a heart for adoption. We quickly felt connected though our adoption journeys’. Their encouragement in our early days home was so welcomed and comforting. Shortly after Dusty lost his job, I shared with them that we were “considering it pure joy” to walk through these trials. We discussed the crazy market for car shopping. A few weeks passed. I was up through the night praying for a situation in Burundi and while making breakfast, I started thinking about this family and the work they do to support children in Africa. As I made breakfast, I prayed that God would show me how to connect with them to have the conversations He wanted us to have. Within 5 minutes of that prayer, I received a text message from them asking if I would give them a call. OK God what do you have planned? I dialed the number anxious and excited about what God was about to do, but I was not on the same page as Him. I thought we were going to get an open door to how God wanted us to serve orphans in Africa. Upon answering the phone I was asked, “Are you still looking for a car?” I said, “Yes”. Followed by, “will Ansel be at practice tonight?” Again, “Yes”. “Great. We have a van we want to give you. We will bring it to practice tonight!” . I had to have that repeated. They called to say they were GIVING us a van...that day! Wow! To be honest this we very emotional for Dusty and I. Who were we that this family we barely knew would give us anything, let alone a vehicle? God had put so many pieces into place. The van had belonged to the grandmother of Ansel’s teammate. She had just gotten a new vehicle (after a very long wait). The parents of this teammate called her and asked if they could purchase her old van to give to a family on their son’s basketball team. They were willing to purchase this van for US! She began to cry and said, “No”! Confused they asked why. She told them that when her new van arrived that day, God told her to bless someone with her old van. She had spent hours online looking for a place to donate her van. So if they knew a family that could use it, that she wanted to give it to them. And she did…after filling up the gas tank for us! The owner of the van was grateful God had given her a plan for the vehicle. That the timing of her new van arriving fit His perfect timeline. The teammates parents were are blown-away that God would allow them to have ring-side seats to what God was doing. We were blown away that God had laid all of this out to benefit our little family. God has been showing up in our valleys. He walked us to the mountain top when we brought our boys home, but he is not done and so down we go. Walking behind Him as he leads us to get back to work. To the valley where we can grow. We live in a fallen world. We all have brokenness. Adoption is brokenness. We opened a door and welcomed brokenness into our lives, family and home. God is preparing us to face the brokenness. He is guiding us through trials of many kinds to show us His perfect care of us. God is showing us His best for us. We just have to be brave enough to walk through the transition to get to where He's taking us. We’ve seen Him move mountains. We have watched him miraculously move for our family in our adoption story. And one would think after seeing it, it would be really easy to trust the next time. And I would say to a point it is. Taking a leap off the next cliff, you feel a little less apprehensive, but I am not perfect nor will I ever be in this lifetime, so I'll have apprehension. If you have followed this blog for any amount of time you’ve see the highs and lows. Every story has highs and lows…why should ours be any different. God has been with us on every avenue in bringing our boys home. It is amazing how they have simply and easily grafted into our family and family life. I truly don't know how an adoption could be any more like a fairy tale then what we're experiencing. But that doesn’t mean it's not hard. It doesn't mean that the brokenness isn't there and the struggles aren't real. We’ve all had grieving. We have grieved big and small things. Some things have been more devastating and harder than others, but for each of us individually the grief has been impactful. We have grieved the way life is now even though we are better together. We have grieved over the opportunities that have changed and we've missed. We have grieved losses of friends, homelands, languages, and life as it used to be. Grief takes its toll on your body physically and emotionally. We are pulling together as a family and solving it and working through it. Hard isn’t bad. Update on the kids: We had a feeling the boys were going to grow quickly and that Ennis had a bit more catching up to do than Harrison. Time has proven us right. Ennis has gained 8 pounds since arriving at home. He has grown a whopping 4 inches! His feet have grown 2 shoe sizes. He was wearing 24 months pants when we came home and is now in a 3T. He is not showing signs of slowing down. Harrison has gained 5.5 pounds since arriving at home. He has grown 3.5 inches, and his feet have grown 1 shoe size. They are growing by leaps and bounds. The boys are communicating extremely well in English. Their vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds. They both still love cars, trucks, trains, and anything with wheels. We play cars for hours. They can both count to 10 and sometimes, by accident, to 20. They love to read (be read to), sing songs, and be tickled. They love riding their bikes and scooters and just being outside. With the arrival of spring, they have found joy in finding bugs and worms. The want to go to the car wash every time we pass it. They love to pick out snacks at the grocery store. They are settled and comfortable with us and American life. Ansel and Sophia have been amazing. Truly, they deserve far greater praise than they daily get for being amazing siblings. We are blown away at how awesome they have been with their brothers and how well they have adapted to this huge change in our family. They are rock stars! Every day is a new journey. We are all thrilled with this plan God has laid out for our family. We still don’t know exactly where everything is going or how it will all look, but we know He has it well in hand.
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AuthorMy name is Deidra Miller. I have been married to my wonderful husband, Dusty, for 17 years. We have two biological children and our family is growing again. We prayed for 2,786 days and God answered our prayers. More days (almost 4 years) have been added as we wait for God's perfect plan for our family. We can't wait to meet our beautiful twin boys! Archives
October 2022
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