If Someone You Know is Adopting.........

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse.

 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn..."

(Romans 12:9-12)

   Okay, so this may be a little edgier for me than normal, but I just feel a great conviction to speak something that may trouble your heart. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or make you feel guilty for the day...I just want to say something to you that may make you think twice before you open your mouth and say something.
   Kurt and I have had a lot of lovely, and well-meaning, people come up to us in the last couple of days since we made our choice to adopt public, and immediately launch into stories of people they knew (or had heard of) who had done the same thing we are doing now, and got to the very end only to have the birth mom change her mind at the last minute and leave them with empty arms, and broken hearts. Then they have gone on to tell us in detail the concerns they have, or what happened after that, and I can honestly tell you there have been a few times I felt like a bucket of water was just dumped on my head. I am sorry to be so blunt, and I hope (again) I have not hurt you, but that is the truth of it. Kurt weathers most of these much better, being male and not personalizing things, but of the two of us, I would say my faith is just a titch stronger in this area.
   Kurt is a man of faith, and often he can see things I don't. In this circumstance I have had the blessing to have had all the conversations with our birth mom and heard her story and her situation.
   Listen folks--thanks for your love and your outpouring of support. We are aware of the risks we are taking. I wish I could paint a picture for you of the painful journey this has been for both of us, for our marriage, and our daughter. I wish I could tell you in plain and simple words that every minute of every day we are hanging on that this is God's plan not ours, and lifting the situation up to Him when we begin to be afraid.
   I also wish I could ask you to, for just a minute before you speak, put in your mind the plight our birth mom is facing--alone, afraid, and facing a very very tough choice. I would hope your heart would swell with compassion, and all those horrible stories that we have heard, or seen on the news, or known from friends would take on a different face--one of mercy, and grace, and understanding.

You are all right. 

   We may get to the first week in March, see these babies born, and hear the heartbreaking words "I am going to keep them". Do I believe in my heart that is going to happen? Absolutely not. I really dont. I believe this whole thing is something God has been preparing our hearts and marriage for for a very very long and painful time. But it could, and I see your point.
   However, this is not about us. This is about stepping in and taking the opportunity to pour a taste of God's grace and mercy into a life that is broken and hurting, of binding someone's wounds and offering them a cup of water. It is about being the arms, and heart, and words of Jesus to someone in a very difficult position.

 It is about living our lives not focusing on the circumstances, 

but on the mission---and that is to love,

 to cry out to the lost, 

to do what He asks us to do 

because He will in some way turn it around for His glory.

   So, thank you for your love and your concern. Please please please let us live this out, pray fervently for us and for her, hold your breath and take a leap of faith with us. Some things in life are more important than the money you might lose, since that all belongs to God anyway. Kurt and I have been to the dark side and back--we will survive anything, and so will our marriage.

We serve a God who routinely does the impossible.....

I hope you believe that too.

The Great Adventure

     Do you like roller coasters? Boy I sure do. I love the thrill and silly terror of climbing that tall hill at the beginning, knowing there is NO WAY you are getting off until the whole thing is over and the ride is finished. I love that long drawn out pause at the top of the tallest peak where you hang suspended in mid-air until suddenly...with a rush....you are off on a wild ride: up and down and twisting and turning.
Now I have never been a brave enough person to want to throw my arms up in the air and hold my hands up over my head, screaming with delirium through the whole thing. You see, I love the roller coaster ride, but have a hard time trusting that my car and seat will not have something faulty with it. I know, I know--it is a less than 1% chance that I would be on the roller coaster with problems, and probably even less than that that I would be the person something happened to.

   But it has been my experience, that my life does not often fall into the same grouping as the masses, and that I am more often in that 1% than I will ever get comfortable with! So some areas of life I am totally willing to take those risks in and throw my arms up, and others---I think I value my life more than trusting to someone else's ability to take care of it.
   The only reason I am telling you this is because last night I was trying to explain to one of my best friends how I feel about this whole process with the adoption and reaching out to our birth mom and all the myriad of feelings I have been going through. We have had some changes, big ones, in the last week, and yet I feel this surreal peace in the midst of all of it.

   I told her last night that I feel like I am on the biggest roller coaster I have ever been on--with the biggest hill to climb. It will be the biggest rush I have ever had

....but the seat is locked, the bar is down, and there is no getting off until the ride is over.

   I am not saying I am not totally thrilled with what is happening, or that I am having second thoughts, because that can just be tossed out the window as silly. It is that I am feeling that I am just a participant on the wildest ride of my life, and that it is totally out of my control--which is where it should be because I would just mess it up anyway. :0)
   It is a strange feeling to be just completely over your head, swept along in a Divine plan for your life, taking the twists and turns and tunnels at breakneck speed.
   And the question I keep asking myself is---do I trust the Lord? Here is where the rubber meets the road. I either do it in every circumstance, or I dont. This is one wild crazy ride, possibly the greatest adventure I have been on so far. And how thrilling it is!!!
   SO I am going to throw my arms up, my hands in the air and just trust that the God who is making this happen has my best interests in mind. There will be no crash, no hanging in mid-air, no harnesses that come undone (He has me in the palm of His hand and nothing can remove me from there). I wont go into a black tunnel that He wont be there shining His light. And best of all, eventually this ride will end, and He will be right there too.
   I hope you too can find something like this in your life--it may have taken a total upheaval of our family to bring me to this point, but I am thinking that even in the little things in life I love the taste of this so much that I am going to try to do this all the time, not just now. To walk daily leaving it all up to him and not trying to hold onto it myself and orchestrate it to work perfectly.  

To just live...and led Him lead.

"Consider it pure joy my brothers when you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverence. Perserverence must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, tossed and blown by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." (James 1:2-8)
" And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of our God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perserverence; perserverence, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us." (romans 5:2-5)

Changing your DNA

   I was very blessed this morning to sit in church, after an incredible time of worship where I really felt the Lord meeting me, and listen to a sermon on change.
   Romans is such an amazing book, and as our church and Sunday school classes have been dealing with many chapter of Romans for some time, I find myself thinking deeply on some of the concepts it presents to new believers, old believers, and those who are seeking the Lord.
   I have always believed (although not always lived) the principle that what goes in must come out. You see it in children all the time--often in not very pretty ways. Give a kid a box of candy--let them jump on the tramp for a while, and I guarantee you what was put in will come out--and it wont be chicken soup. :0)

We can laugh at that...but when was the last time you seriously thought about that principle?

   One of my favorite verses is "Out of the mouth the heart speaks"---it is found in Proverbs. I can think of many many times I have found something coming out of my mouth that clearly (no matter how hard I try to avoid it) shows what I have endeavored very hard to hide. Whether that is anxiety, bitterness, fear, hurt...if I haven't dealt with it, it it sitting in there and it will come out....
   Now you may be wondering where the whole thought of DNA comes into this principle, and I have to say that until Pastor Bob talked about it this morning, it had never really occurred to me in that context. But it was so brilliant I have to share it with you.
DNA is blamed for a thousand things nowadays. If you are a part of the gay/lesbian community you are pouring money into research for them to find the DNA link that will tell the world that you were made the way you are, and it is not a choice. If you are on trial for murder, you cant tell me that you are not watching the news, hoping for the research on DNA to prove that you have the gene for murder, and therefore you could not help yourself. There is DNA manipulation for those couples with enough money to choose what characteristics you want in a baby..and it goes on, and on, and on. Genes for anger, genes for asthma, genes for anything and everything that everyone would like to pass off as something that can not be helped, but just is.

Well, let me tell you something, world, and do it with a heart of compassion.

  When you were created, God followed the same principles that He has been following since the beginning of time--principles that have been laid out in his Word for thousands of years. They don't change and neither does He. It doesn't matter the kind of package you want to slip it in, how you spin it with words, how you try to make something new or declare falsehood, truth, and vice versa.

It is the way it is.

Period.

   There is only one way to change your DNA and seek a new life, a new beginning, and a new strand of genes for righteousness--and that is by bowing your knees, and crying out to the One who loves you more than life itself. And when you do that, there is such a power and transfusion of the Holy Spirit into a broken body--that the old one dies and a new one is born. It changes the way you think, it changes the way you act---and if it doesn't then it is time to take stock and check who your heart really belongs to. It is the biggest gamble of your life, and it takes grit, and courage, and guts to stand against everything around us that is telling us we are fools. But I promise you, one leap.......and you will find yourself in awe that the God who created everything not only notices you, but LOVES YOU, DIED FOR YOU, and now CARRIES YOU.

If you want change, there is none greater, because what goes in...must come out.

What a Week!

I dont plan on making this a long blog today, just a short revelation on what has happened this week and where we are today after the week is over.
Monday and Wednesday were blessings of days, where I was able to go and help out a friend who really needed someone to come and help her with her little ones while she was on (we hope) temporary bedrest. This is a friend that I wronged years ago, shutting her out of my life at one of the most painful moments in my personal history--lumping the good in with the bad and just tossing it all onto the trash heap and walking away. I told her I was sorry--I have grown up a lot since then (praise you Lord) and we found ourselves chatting about all manner of things. When we were last laughing like that she had one little one--now she has three beautiful fun kids and the last one on the way. I have missed so much due to my issues. So what did the Lord teach me with that? That there are always new beginnings, and that grace can be extended by people as well as the Lord. And that SOMETIMES taking a chance to open a door you shut in the past means you have to trust, hold your breath and leap--knowing God will help you make the best of a bad situation. :0)
Amazingly, that was the same day that my little sister and my birth mom called from the doctor office, crying, laughing and not making too much sense...except to tell me that we would not be adopting ONE baby in March/April, but TWO. Shock, awe, a strong sense of the Holy Spirit moving in the midst of what had already been a crazy situation...and here was this blessing I was able to share with a friend whom was blessed by the info, and to be one of the first to know. For those of you just catching on at the end of the adoption train--Kurt and I started this journey last March, attending and finishing the foster/adopt classes here in SW MN, started a homestudy through a Christian agency only to have it dropped when their charter was changed so we could not adopt a child under 9. Next came turning to our county to do the homestudy, and were finishing that up when our beloved Birth Mom called us out of the blue and asked us to adopt her baby when it was born in the Spring. We had probably one of the worst choices to make--to take a chance on this dear person and possibly end up with nothing, or to continue down the safe path and know eventually we would be welcoming a sibling set into our home. That choice was made in September, and there are those of you who know the tears we shed over this whole thing. We did not understand why NOW of all timing we were being given the hardest choice we had ever made--take a leap of faith with all we had, or take the sure steady path. And now, here we are, parenting a beautiful sweet 9 year old, and expecting twins in March, with a birth mom who calls me almost every day and who I have had the priviledge to pray for and support with my friendship--knowing the Lord did this for a purpose. :For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a purpose."
What did God teach me in all of that? That when you think you are blessed to where God can not possibly bless you anymore, just hold your breath, blink, and hold out your hands---and He will fill your cup to overflowing.
And today is Saturday, with a day of worship and blessing right around the corner, things have finally sunk in, our hearts and minds have kicked into gear and we are in the planning stages of a true revolution of the Estey household over the next 6 months. Whew--what a week.
So Lord Jesus, I am just going to tell you in words, in public, that You are one Holy, Mighty and Amazing God. Help me to overcome my unbelief that you can outgive, outlaugh, and more than anything, outbless me. I cant wait for the day I can run into your arms and give you the biggest hug that this poor servant of yours could give. I bless your holy name.....Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come, With all Creation I sing praise to the King of kings, for You are my everything and I will adore You....

Some days you just call "beautiful".

   There are, and will always be, some days that a single moment will define that day in your mind 

as "a beautiful day".

   It doesn't matter if your car broke down. It wont matter that you got up at 5 am blindly reaching for the coffee pot only to find out not only is it not turned on, you are out of coffee.

   It is a day where all those things fade into the background with a single blinding flash of light when you are given a precious, incredible moment where you realize just a small piece of God's plan for your life, and everything falls into place.
   All the pain, sorrow, and suffering you have been through however recently...all fades just a little more as a part of the puzzle of your life is completed.
   And you feel just slightly ashamed as you think of the thoughts you have had recently, adult temper-tantrums in a way, with the Lord, over why your plan was not going forward the way you thought it should, and in your time frame.

Because that single moment changed it all.

   You see how much the Lord knows you...intimately..and absolutely adores you. You see that He is working with the master plan on building your life, while you are working with the ones for the bathroom. And your soul revels in the realization that He is bigger, and stronger, and so much more real than any of the painful things you have gone through in your life.

   He chooses not to erase those things...but to bless you through them. 

Talk about the silver lining on the dark clouds of our lives!

   Yesterday was such a day for me. I can barely tell you what I did after 4:32 pm yesterday. Oh, I knew where I was, and who I was with....I know I must have driven to get myself from there to home and then to church.
But it all fades in light of the glorious moment that broke in upon my heart yesterday at 4:32 pm.
   My life has not been an easy one. I hear those beautiful stories from brothers and sisters in Christ of their life of faith, their steady walk, their devoted Christian family--how they accepted the Lord in Sunday school when they were three, and everything just fell into place from there on out. No "drama or trauma" as I would put it. There seems such idyllic qualities in that to me, peacefulness and steadfastness proof.

And then I think "Oy--what a mess I am!" :0)

   Well, I don't have to go into all that yuck for now, but I will share with you a little bit of my heart this morning.
   There has been one area in my life that has been more painful than any other, and that is in the area of having children. Many of you know this, many of you have held our hands and prayed with us, a few precious ones of you have wept tears face down on the floor with us. Bless you for what you have poured into our lives...bless you, bless you, bless you. I can honestly say we would not be here, literally, without you.
   Always having wanted a houseful of children, surrounded by families who have many, it has been a bitter pill for me to swallow for many years. I never thought I would recover the day we laid our precious newborn son in the grave and my husband had to walk me away from the grave. I never thought my darling 29 week, 1 lb preemie daughter would see her "almost 10" birthday. And I never thought I would painfully struggle through 12 miscarriages of 13 children---ones who were so desperately wanted and would have come into a home of love and devotion to Christ. I had come to a point where I would force myself to be around women who were expecting (sorry ladies) because they needed me, and I knew I needed to surrender it to the Lord, and enjoy children through them.
   But yesterday those broken shards of colored glass were in a second transformed into a glorious window of understanding and conviction of the Love of my Father...for me. Me! That all of those painful days were not in vain, but part of His continuing plan for my life.

 That He would trust me above others to raise not one child for His glory but two at once?

   I don't know how, or why, and what else He will bring (other than 1200 diapers in the first two months) into my life, but I will forever look back at this day as the day He hugged me from Heaven...and poured out a lapful of blessing on a broken and devoted daughter.

I think I will just stay right here...for a while.

**This post was written the day we found out we had been chosen to adopt identical twin girls, due April 20th,2010.

Well, I have finally taken the plunge and decided to start a blog on life in the Estey home.
If you want to click off, now is the time!!!!
   Normally a woman who tackles just about anything with gusto and delight (other than toilet cleaning) I have to be honest and say I have avoided this for many years. We have lived down in SW MN for over 5 years, and while many family and friends have asked what our life is like now, it is easier for me to pick up the phone and call them, than it is to think of doing something like this! Perhaps I am an old-fashioned girl at heart and wonder where all of this techo-stuff is going in the near future. But so many of you have asked, and so, I bow to the masses and dig in..

   Today as I made a short trip (3 hours round trip) to the big town "nearby" to pick up my sister at the bus station, I was pleasantly surprised to see the early snow and rain we have been experiencing in no way damaged the beautiful fall colors on the many groves of trees that we passed. The area we live in is rolling prairie, with many different kinds of trees, field after field of corn and soybeans, and giant windmills that stand tall against the sky. It is a land full of history--farms that have been in families for 5 or more generations, cows feeding along the fences everywhere you look, and especially this time of year, farmers out bringing in the crops before the snow falls. I admit it, I am like a child when it comes to this time of year. I have been known to be so excited seeing a combine or tractor out in the field harvesting that I will yell out "Look! My side! My side!" only then to realize that I am the only one in the car.

So I look. :)

   Today as everyone was chattering around me, a recent conversation was rolling around in my mind...one I had with a friend who farms for a living. He was talking about how it was almost not worth his time to harvest his crop, unless he held on to it, because his cost was almost half of what he would earn, and with seed prices, gas for his harvesting vehicles, etc, he would hardly break even. So he was thinking that perhaps he would just harvest everything and store it, waiting for a better profit for his time and effort.
The reason this conversation stuck in my mind was not because of his predicament...but mine.
   I am just like that man in many ways. Too often I weigh the cost of what something will bring me in light of the cost I will put out in doing it, or achieving it. Friendships, housework, you name it, I am thinking in that light. Shameful, and a little embarassing I will admit, but in an effort to be honest, I am letting you know, deep inside, that I am often at war with myself on doing what I know to be right instead of balking at it because of the cost to me.
   I looked at the leaves, the windmills, the beauty of a fallen world as it gets ready for the winter, and thought to myself---Jesus never counted the cost when he did what he did for me. He didn't calculate his risks, or hold out for a better model, never added up the cost of my ransom versus his painful and gruesome death.
   Instead He chose to do what He knew He needed to do, no matter the cost. And rather than regretting that, or putting strings on His love, He offers it freely, and abundantly, and more besides.

How blessed I am!

   So what is my vow, my prayer, this week, as I watch all change around me and the crops go in.

 "Lord, make me available, fruitful, 

knowledgeable, and sensitive to those that need me, 

no matter the cost.

 Help me to step in trusting You,

 no matter what risks I am taking, because You are behind me, before me, and surrounding me. 

You lead me to the harvest Lord, and show me what I am to do. Help me to come to a place where I remove all thought of myself from the picture and just begin to see my life as an extension of Your hand to others, just as your extend Your hand to me daily as I need you."

   This farmer friend does what he does to make a profit--it is his business and his food on the table for his children. I admire so many of these men down here who have taken hit after hit the last couple of years in grain prices, then on the hog market. He is doing what he needs to do to run his business.
   My business is the people God calls me to serve. And there is no place in that calling to calculate the cost of what it will take from me, because His strength is sufficient in my weakness.
   I am thinking of Paul when he said "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took a hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but on thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead I press on to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus"
                                                                                       (Phil 3:13)
   So pray for me, and I will pray for you, that we forget the cost and lose our lives only to find them in the plan God has for us.