The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.

My heart is racing with excitement about everything God is doing, and at the same time God is slowing me down; making sure I wait on Him.

We got home from the beach late Saturday and there was a message on voice mail saying that our Adoption Agency will call this week with our travel date to Ethiopia to bring Aster home! We are so ready to know and go! But that phone call hasn't come, so we wait...

We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. Psalm 33:20

My literary agent called Monday to tell me Baker/Revell Books wants to offer me a contract on my book. Ya'll remember all that praying we did together about "this" baby? Remember the writing and re-writing, and how you kept encouraging me not to give up! God's answering our prayers the way we hoped! Two other publishers are considering it, too. I'm so thankful! But we don't know exactly how this will all unfold yet, so we wait...

And in the midst of all that is "wonderful" and dreams coming true, we've been processing a very hard decision. I haven't been able to post about it because it was too tender and we needed to know what we were doing since it involves our boys. But we weren't sure of God's direction yet, so we prayed and we waited...

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3

For the past few weeks we've sensed God might be leading us to take our boys out of public school and prayerfully walk towards applying for a small Christian school. Andrew is so happy! Joshua is not so happy. This is traumatic and very upsetting to him. He's wants to go back to middle school with all his friends.

His responses have made me cry. My momma-heart-emotions have kept me up at night. I've woken up many mornings feeling very sad about all these changes. I've feared it will make him rebel and pull away even more than he's doing as a normal 14 yr old. His reasons for wanting to stay have given me reason to doubt our decision and question if it's God's leading, so we waited...

"The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." Lamentations 3:24

School is starting in a week. We had to make a final decision by Sunday night. There was testing they had to do last week and placement that had to be decided this week by the new school. We were completing applications and needed to take our paperwork to the new school and request records from the old school on Monday. Joshua still had to complete a new student questionnaire, and I wasn't sure how that would go over.

Waiting...is the hardest part!

I woke up in such a bad mood Sunday because I don't want to be in this hard place. I want to be in a happy place, focused on my new baby and soon-to-be book. But all the blessings in the world don't matter when a mother's child is hurting. All the celebration and joy a baby and book can bring can't take away the pain of seeing my son so sad.

I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1

I cried Sunday morning. Driving to church, I begged God for clear direction that these are indeed His plans and not ours. I got there just in time to hear the sermon about our mission in life: to find our joy in Christ and not in anything else. The final point being that we are like John the Baptist, preparing the way for others to know Jesus and find life in Him as well.

God's peace sunk deep into my soul. Our role as parents is to prepare the way for our kids. The message confirmed why we feel called to send our children to this school. The school's goal is to bring learning to life and give kids a Biblical world view while leading them to find life in Christ.

God kept the confirmations coming all day Sunday. JJ and I spent more time praying and writing down what God had done to confirm His direction. We made our decision and took the next steps of faith and obedience. Now we'd watch to see if God would open the door for them to get a spot at the new school. Everything was in place.

Yesterday I got my first EVER official book offer!!! And right after that, I got an email explaining that the director of the new school is out of town and won't be able to review the applications we just turned in until next week. Their first day is Aug 31st. But guess when the first day of public school is? Next Tuesday Aug 25th. Guess we'll just keep waiting...

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. Psalm 130:5

PS.Thank you so much for your prayers and precious notes last week. I am saving them all for Aster!