The Lord is so Good...To Him we give ALL the Glory!!!

 

Well, I figured it was about time to write on my blog again since I haven't since little Miss Audri (that is what we have named her with the help of her birthmother) arrived into our home...She truly is a "Princess of the Lord" as her middle name SARIAH means.  She is absolutely beautiful and I am so thankful for the Lord's tender mercies in all the events surrounding her placement with us.  The Lord was preparing us for her and her birth family for us.

I was speaking to my best girlfriend today and she asked me how it all felt to have her especially in light of the struggles we have had to endure to get to this point and all I could say is that this was all the Lord's work...He is truly in control of it all and everything we do in this life is for Him and His purpose.

Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. 

Proverbs 16:3

The past few months have been some of the most rewarding and darkest moments of our Life...But thru all the hardship and struggle we had to endure after Emerson's placement disruption we could have easily chosen to turn away from the Lord and try to deal with it within "our own understanding" and not progressed to be what He wanted us to be, but instead we CHOSE to stay close to the Savior..to rely on Him, to Love Him, to seek Him, to cry to Him and to truly get to know Him more than we ever thought we could...In many ways I am so thankful for this struggle (I am not saying I would have chosen it and still it sometimes hurts to think about).  It pushed us to dig deeper and feel more and look at others as He does.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him; He shall direct thy paths.  

Proverbs 3:5-6

I haven't shared Audri's placement story yet (not sure how I plan to share it on here due to wanting to keep Audri's birthmothers privacy) but the same day that we found out that Audri's sweet birthmother wanted us to be Audri's family, it was the same day Emerson's adoption placement finalized!  Talk about amazing...that morning I saw a picture of Emerson's family commemorating it and all I could feel was JOY...I felt no pain at all...none...The Lord is so good to have always given me peace in this way...  I was so incredibly happy he was in their family now forever.  He is loved, adored and most importantly has the Gospel... His adoptive mother and I have a really special connection, one I can not explain and I love her dearly for all she does for him.

I had seen their finalization picture on Facebook when I thought that Audri was just going to be with us temporarily to foster...her birth-mother had to choose a family still and I was't sure if that was going to be us or not, but I remember thinking how grateful I was to the Lord that He would even trust us a few days with His precious daughter and How beautiful He was for this.  Of course, you can only imagine my joy when I showed up to LDS Family Services around noon and they told me that Audri's birthmother had chosen us!  All I could think was Thank you Lord for trusting us and I realized that for the first time in my life I truly gave ALL CONTROL to Him and He Blessed me more than I could have ever imagined.

Every word of God is pure; he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. 

Proverbs 30:5

Today, while I was taking care of Audri I watched the movie This is Our Time and in it they were dealing with grief.  It spoke of the fact that often times pain helps us to become who the Lord needs us to be at this very moment.  Meaning, if we hadn't endured this 7 year struggle of infertility, an adoption scam, a failed placement, and Emerson's placement reversal...we wouldn't be the people He needs us to be right now for Audri, Abbe, Audri's birthmother, for each other, and most importantly for Him. He truly has used us to touch other people's lives thru this struggle and to Him we give ALL the glory of this precious gift...