My Favorite Christmas Things

I love Christmas with kids around.  There is something about the joy and anticipation in a child's face on Christmas day that is so fun to watch.  I have so many Christmas memories with kids in them.  In fact, last year was the only year I have spent without kids as part of my Christmas day.

Growing up, there were lots of kids around. I remember younger siblings waking me up on Christmas morning begging me to help get mom and dad up.  I remember walking out into the living room with my younger siblings (there were eight of them for those of you who don't know!) and seeing their eyes light up at the sight of all the presents.

Then I went to Thailand, where I spent five Christmases.  The first, I was caring for a friend's six Thai foster babies, all under the age of two!  Wow, that was a fun Christmas! 

For the years following I had foster kids of my own.  I have so many good memories of decorating our little fake tree, listening to kid's praise Christmas music, making sugar cookies and paper chains and going to the orphanage for an afternoon of games and fun Christmas celebrations. 

One of my favorite Christmas memories though is of my foster kids acting out the Christmas story. J was Mary with a blue blanket wrapped around her, C was Joseph with a towel over his head, and A was baby Jesus, sometimes the other J was an angel...precious kids they would walk from one end of the house to the other to get to Bethlehem. Then they would stop and play with the nativity. This nativity is the one toy I kept of my kids, I couldn't let it go, way too many memories.  I can't wait to see our kids playing with this nativity!


There is something so very special about a nativity set at Christmas, it keeps everything in perspective.  Reminds us what the season is all about.

While in Thailand I found this hand painted nativity.

 

Complete with an elephant!

 

My deepest prayer for my siblings, for my foster kids, for my future kids, for myself, and for you is that we would always remember the true meaning of Christmas and that it all started because of the baby Messiah-He is truly the greatest gift of Christmas and He gives us reason to celebrate.

 

So children or not this Christmas, I will celebrate because He came and was born.  Born that He might bring hope and joy and even more, everlasting life. Merry Christmas!!



The Well is Always Here

One Thousand Gifts.....if you haven't read this book (by Ann Voskamp), I highly recommend it (Thanks Whitney!). It is so appropriate to read this time of year as we have been celebrating Thanksgiving, and I sometimes still struggle to focus of what I have instead of what I do not have. 

The holidays are a hard time for a lot of people, many are alone or facing some sort of family, financial, or health difficulty.  And for some reason these things can all seem a little worse around the holidays.  I know that's true for me.  I have always loved the holidays, but the last couple of years they have brought with them this undeniable sadness. They have made me miss having children in a very deep way.  Even though we now know who our children are, they still aren't here. Yes, it is our last holiday season without children, but we miss them. And this holiday season, I am once again having to choose joy and choose to go to the well.

This morning, my heart was stirred by this passage from the book I was just telling you about:

"Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water" (Genesis 21:19 NIV).

"Hagar and her boy were dying of thirst with a well less than a bowshot away. 

In this wilderness, I keep circling back to this: I'm blind to joy's well every time I really don't want it. The well is always there.  And I choose not to see it.  Don't I really want joy?  Don't I really want the fullest life?  For all my yearning for joy, longing for joy, begging for joy--is the bald truth that I prefer the empty dark? Prefer drama? Why do I lunge for control instead of joy?  Is it somehow more perversely satisfying to flex control's muscle? Ah--power--like Satan.  Do I think Jesus' grace too impotent to give me the full life?  Isn't that the only reason I don't always swill the joy?  If the startling truth is that I don't really want joy, there's a far worse truth.  If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep in this moment--am I not ultimately rejecting God?  Whenever I am blind to joy's well, isn't it because I don't believe in God's care?  That God cares enough about me to always offer me joy's water, wherever I am, regardless of circumstance.  But if I don't believe God cares, if I don't want or seek the joy He definitely offers somewhere in this moment--I don't want God.
Blasphemer.

In His presence is fullness of joy.  He is in this moment.  The well is always here.  God is always here--precisely because He does care.

You have to want to see the well before you can drink from it.  You have to want to see joy, God in the moment."

This holiday season, I want to see joy, God in the moment. Do you?  Easier said than done, but we must choose to go to the well and drink of joy's water.

How to Give to Our Adoption

As I mentioned in my last post Lifesong for Orphans wants to give us a $2,500 matching grant!  They will match dollar for dollar what people give toward our adoption up to that amount.  Anything over that amount will still be put toward our adoption, they just won't match it. Our goal is to match this grant by December 31st.

100% of your donation will go directly to helping us bring our kids home.

If you want to help us reach our goal of $2,500 there are a couple of ways you can do this:

1. Give by Check

• Please make checks payable to "Lifesong for Orphans".  In the memo please note our account number #4037 and our name, Curley. (ie: 4037, Curley)
• Mail checks to:                                                  

              Lifesong for Orphans
              PO Box 40
              Gridley, IL 61744

2. Give Online

• www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate
• Select "Give to an Adoptive Family"
• Complete online form and fill in "4037" for "family account number" and "Curley" for "family name"

Lifesong has asked us to note a couple of things as we share about how you can give.

• In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization (Lifesong for Orphans). This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.
• Individual donations $250 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $250, will gladly be sent upon request.
• Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization.

Thank you for reading along and joining us on our journey!!

Overwhelmed

I remember one time asking my dad when I would stop being surprised at God's blessings.   When I would just expect Him to bless, know that He will, and not be surprised when He does.  His answer was "Never. God's blessings are designed to surprise us." Surprise and amaze us, that's exactly what God's blessings have done in our lives yet again.

Remember when I told you we applied for three adoption grants?  Well friends, as of today, we have heard back from all three of them and we got all three of them!  You read that right, we have received three adoption grants!!  The first one we heard from was Lifesong for Orphans, they are giving us a matching grant of $2,500. Lifesong will match dollar for dollar what friends and family give us or we raise up to $2,500!  That would be a total of $5,000! If you feel led of the Lord to give and want to be a part of helping us reach this $2,500 goal with Lifesong for Orphans, please read my next post where I will share details of how you can give.

Last week we heard from the JSC Foundation and were told we received a grant from them! Today, we got a letter from Show Hope (this is the organization that Steven Curtis Chapman, one of my favorite all time Christian artists, started) telling us that they are giving us a grant!!

As an adoption caseworker, I tell people about these grants all the time.  I tell people all the time, "don't let finances or the lack thereof keep you from adopting.  God can provide.  If He wants you to adopt, He will provide the money".  It is a very different thing to talk about grants and tell people that God will provide but then I had to take my own advice and apply for grants, step out in faith, and trust that God would provide.  He is so so faithful.  We are so overwhelmed at his provision and His love for our kids.  "He sets the lonely in families." (Psalm 68:6) HE sets the lonely in families.  This is His plan, His doing.  He wants to give our kids a forever family.

He is using organizations like Lifesong, the JSC Foundation, and Show Hope to accomplish His plan, just like he used those 300 Israelites to defeat the 135,000 Midianites (see my last post) and it is Him alone that receives the glory!!

Where He guides, He will provide!  This is true in my life and in yours too! Could He be guiding you down a path toward adoption?  Please don't let the money stop you! If He wants you to adopt, He will provide every dollar you need to bring your child(ren) home!  It may not be in the way you think He will or the way you think He should, but He WILL provide.

Glimpses of His Glory

A couple of months ago, I heard a great sermon on Gideon.  The simplified version of the story goes like this: There were 32,000 Isrealite soldiers who were going to go and fight the Midianites, but God said that was too many soldiers, and so He widdled it down to 10,000, still too many. Still a chance that the people would think that it was them fighting the battle.  So once again, He widdled it down. This time to 300 men.  300 men to go out and fight the army of 135,000 Midianite soldiers, that was a ratio of one Israelite to every 450 Midianites! The pastor said that God didn't want to share His glory, that He didn't want the Israelites thinking it was them that defeated the Midianites.

Well, I feel like this is what God is doing with our story, He doesn't want us or anyone else thinking we are the ones bringing our kids home, it is Him and He needs to receive all the glory!! So, we went from thinking we could pay for our adoption on our own to realizing that was just not going to happen.  He widdled down our resources as we paid one adoption fee after another and then He gave us two kids so we needed twice the amount of money!

Honestly, we haven't known how God is going to pay our remaining adoption fees, but we have known that He has a plan and we are getting to see more glimpses of that plan and it. is. amazing. Amazing to see Him at work, amazing to be reminded over and over that He loves our kids even more than we do.

Stay tuned as I share some of the glimpses!

This is Our God

I heard a song recently that I am loving right now.  It is a song by a long time favorite artist of mine, Chris Tomlin.

There are so many things that go on in our world that are hard to understand.  Sometimes people struggle to believe in God because of all the pain and sadness, all the disease and sickness.  If God is good, then "why?" many ask.

The way I look at it though, those things are not because of God, they are because of sin, because of man's poor choices.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that if you are suffering it is because you sinned, but its because of sin in general and the fallen world we live in.

God created a perfect world.  He did not desire suffering or pain or heartache, but He gave man a free will and man choose to mess up the perfection He created. Where is God in the midst of the suffering and the pain?  He is there.  He is....

A refuge for the poor

A shelter for the storm

This is our God

And He will wipe away your tears 

And return your wasted years

This is our God

A Father to the orphan 

A healer to the broken

This is our God

And He brings peace to our madness

And comfort in our sadness

This is our God

I cannot help but wonder if someday my kids are going to ask why, why did God not work it out so their birth parents could raise them?  Why did they have to experience loss in their lives?  They may wonder where God was.  I would love to have this conversation with them because I so want them to know that God was there all along, He was and is a Father to them, He is their healer, their peace, their comfort, their refuge, their shelter.  He never wanted them to suffer or be alone and so He helped their birth mom find the help she needed, He brought comfort and peace.  He has been their shelter and refuge.  This, this is our God.

Pad Thai

Sure have been thinking a lot about and missing our kids lately.  How its possible to miss someone so much who you have never met, I don't know, but I do.  Its only been two and a half months since we found out about them, but it has been years we have been praying for them.  This week we have been praying even more as there is flooding in Thailand right now, specifically in and around the province where they live.  Flooding is a pretty common thing there, but so very sad.  Two years ago when it flooded over 800 people lost their lives.  Over 30 have already died in this flood.  I take great comfort in knowing that God sees them and knows them and loves them even more than I do.

On a happier note, I had a birthday last week and my dear husband gave me this....

I have been eyeing this necklace for awhile and am so enjoying having it to wear!

Tonight, perhaps because of my missing Thailand and our kids mood and perhaps just because I love Thai food, we made Pad Thai. 

 

This is one of the most common Thai dishes, its considered street food in Thailand and you can buy it at a stand on the side of the road for 20 or 30 baht, less than a dollar, and its yummy! 

 

Oh, and we made "cha yen" as well, or cold Thai tea, another of our favorites!  

 

If you haven't tried Thai food, you are missing out!!