A Moment Cherished: .Not Defeated.

Yes, we are sad about the time line that God is seemingly erasing before our eyes. But we talked and cried, prayed and held each other, and ultimately came to the peaceful conclusion that really we knew all along.

"My time are in Your hands" Psalm 31:15

We are trusting in that.

We are not defeated.

You are all such a blessing to me. Within moments of sharing my broken heart with you, my comments were filled with encouragement, my inbox was filled - both in my email account and on facebook, and my phone rang with sweet, precious friends and family encouraging our wounded hearts.

We are grateful, so grateful.

So please do not take this the wrong way. Because it is safe to say that you, my fellow blogging friends, have been one of the most significant encouragements to my husband and I on our journey to adopt Jamesy. We are eternally thankful for you and humbled by the love you have poured out on us. Many of you are strangers and yet you have wrapped your arms around us, shared Scripture with us when we most needed it, rallied around our family in prayer, and many, many of you have even sacrificed financially. We have seen Jesus in you. Both of us have come to this screen and read your words and just wept. We feel indebted.

But I cannot feel so indebted that I do not take this next step that I must take.

In the stillness of today, while we let the news of no court date settle over us, I knew in my heart that this extra time before Jamesy comes home is actually a sacred gift. God is graciously giving me more time to right some things in my home that need to be righted. To re-prioritize some things that have gotten knocked over.

Right now in this season, in this waiting, my God and my family deserves all of me. God has given me this time, and I cannot waste it. There is purpose in this wait. How foolish of me would it be to waste this wait and not use it for God's glory? Maybe Jim, Cadi and Scotty need a little more of me right now, so that I can give a little more of me to Jamesy later. I do not know. I cannot pretend to know.

His timing is not for me to know.

I am sad, but I am not defeated.

I am going to go live a little bit and enjoy the last few moments that I have with just two littles in our home. So dear friends I am unplugging until God brings me back.

I will be back, but it may look a lot different for awhile. It may be empty here for awhile. I don't know, but I am okay with that.

It's time to stop sacrificing my family for followers, because the only stats that matter at the end of the day are the number of kisses I gave to a blond headed cherub cheeked boy, the times I snuggled with a growing girl and listened to her cautious tongue learn to read, the I love you's that reached the ear of my husband, and the pages I turned in God's ultimate love story to me.

It has been said that adoption is redemption, and that is so true. I am finding so much redemption in this wait.

Not defeated. Redeemed.