Our journey through adoption.

Today we went and signed all the rest of the paperwork and payed the rest of the money for our adoption agencies services… we signed Landon Jacob our last name on all the paperwork, so seeing his name with our last name on official paperwork was pretty neat! So until Landon is born we won’t be in contact with our adoption agency for awhile. After he is born our caseworker will come back in month 1 and month 4 to do in home, homestudies, just to check in and see that the 3 of us are settling in well as family and then after that there will be the 6 month court date to finalize the adoption officially. Lots of things in the future but all we want to focus on right now is the present and that means celebrating this Saturday at my baby shower, finishing all the random things we have on our “to do” list and waiting for the call to make our way up to him. Then we will go from there…one step..one day at a time.

We got a call back from Amy’s caseworker last night saying that Amy is doing good, working on finishing her schooling so she can graduate and working hard at work and that Landon is doing good. She also said that Landon’s birthfather has not contacted her since the call that he was going to sign off his rights, so no news is good news right! He is in my prayers now daily too, and selfishly I pray that his mind does not change in between now and the time Landon is born, but I pray for his life to be blessed as well. He is just as much a part of Landon as is Amy and without him we wouldn’t be being blessed with our son, so I am thankful for this young guys life and choice.

Please continue to lift up your prayers, especially how for a safe delivery! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Sidenote: Like I said before I recognize that there are always going to be others who are waiting for what we are about to blessed with and even when this journey to start a family is “over” for us I commit myself to prayer for those of you who are still praying, hoping and waiting…I hope to continue to use this blog to give you hope for your future…this poem in the Stepping Stones magazine is pretty powerful…the ending most of all!

Iridescent Dragon (by Rhonda Freed)

Infertility comes against me
As a huge gray dragon
With iridescent scales.

It turns one and way and flashes green,
A deep pang of jeolousy,
A grasping envy that bites and tears,
Destroying parts of who I am.

It turns again and blue blazes forth,
Melancholy of the deepest sort.
A desperate despising of this sorrow-filled present.
A futile yearning for a past that should have been.
A lack of hope for future change.

Another turn and patches of purple are revealed.
The pain of perpetual wounds,
Down deep inside,
Time and Time again,
A bruising on top of bruising,
Never healing.
Careless words,
Someone else’s pregnant belly,
A negative test,
Isolation.

And always, the light reveals ripples of aqua
Showing through here and there,
Tears and more tears, choking my throat,
Prompted by anything and everything,
Or worse yet,
By the empitiness of nothingness.

All around me red flashes as a latent anger,
A burning fire consuming with devastating finality
My hopes and dreams
Flaring and scorching,
Now smoldering in deceptive embers.
Leaving nothing but ashes.

Who can slay this dragon?
Is there a Prince or Knight in shining armor
To rescue me from this beast who wants to destroy me?
Who will save me?

I have a hero waiting for my call for help.
He’s the Crown Prince of Glory
And He yearns to win my heart
As the patient Lover of my Soul.

A Heavenly Knight in shining armor of the Spirit
Who has already fought the biggest dragon of them all
And defeated it in glorious victory.
He knows the battle tactics of my vicious foe.
And He has promised that this dragon too
Can be overcome and defeated.

This Thursday we have a meeting to sign final paperwork and pay final fees to our adoption agency…pretty neat considering that we wouldn’t be doing this unless we were in the final part of this process…and Amy is due in 24 short days…I put a call in with her caseworker today to see how she is feeling so we should have some updates about Amy and Landon. And this Friday my Mom flies in for my baby shower on Saturday that I am SO excited about. So busy, busy, busy…

Each day as Landon’s arrival date gets closer and closer Darrel and I get more and more excited. It feels unreal that this is really happening in many ways….but also so real in other ways. It’s undescriable what we are feeling…we cannot wait obviously but we also just have this deep love and respect for Amy and her family that we want to be so sensitive to them, so were nervous about how everything is going to happen once we get to the hospital, but we also know that the Lord is completely in control and that He already knows how that time will be and we trust that everything will happen as its suppose to as long as we pray over it.

All I know is that we are so blessed and each day I thank the Lord for where we are today…for the hope that is overflowing in our hearts….I read other people’s adoption blogs that are still waiting to hear any news and my heart goes out to them, but being where we are right now will come to those people too in His perfect timing so I know they are all suppose to be where they are in their journey…I sometimes feel like this is all a dream…all too good to be happening to us……some things are just too big to wrap your mind around…and how the Lord works in wonderful ways is sometimes too big to even comprehend…this is one of those times for us…just knowing how He knew before our time that we would have gone down this journey…and that He would connect us to Amy, Landon and her family at the perfect time…that He knew that we would one day hold Landon in our arms and call him our son…that we would forever be connected to Amy in such a huge way…its amazing…and only He could put it all together so perfectly.

I received the Stepping Stones magazine I’ve talked about numerous times in my blog yesterday and there was this one story in it that really hit hard… this is just bit and pieces of the story the ones that touched me…”He has told us that we need to daily prepare our fields for His rain. We must have faith that He will pour down on us exactly what we need in order to serve and know Him better…in the toil of preparing our fields, we are allowed to dream and hope and pray for our hearts desires, but it’s up to the Lord to decide how His rain will manifest itself in our lives. Will God’s rain be wasted because we haven’t been in our fields preparing, planting or tending? He ask us to trust His judgement, pick up our cross daily, and follow His example…We haven’t been given the specifics of our life, just the command to live each day by faith…God promises His best for those who wait upon Him. We can rest assured that His best always brings us into fuller communion with Jesus Christ than our best intentions ever could.”

His plans, His ways are perfect…even more perfect that we could ever dream possible!

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

“I am leaving you with a gift-peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives” John 14:27

The one thing that I know that the Lord has been teaching Darrel and I as a couple throughout our journey to start a family is to trust in the peace He gives. After losing our first baby I completely shut out the Lord from my heart (He will still there with me, carrying me through) but I chose to blame Him for my grief and heartache. I can easily say that those months of my life were the loniliness months ever…thankfully the Lord rescued me…when we found out the second time we were pregnant I remember telling Darrel “I have a deep peace that everything is going to be okay…” and not because I thought that the baby would be okay, but because I knew that no matter what, we would be okay…after losing our second baby, the grief was the same but there was a peace in my heart that wasn’t there the first time because I didn’t allow it in the first time…and in our journey to Landon I’ve had that same peace…at times I have doubted in it and have had to get reminders, but from the beginning of hearing about Amy He has placed a peace in both our hearts. I was sharing with one of my closest friends just recently that I hope that I will remember all the moments throughout our journey, the joyous ones and the sad ones…I want to be able to share with others who are still in this journey. Our small group was talking last night about how we can mentor others…and it was said that all of us have a story to share…the stories we have to share are not mistakes, the Lord has put us on each of our journeys for specific reasons, and for specific people who will enter into our lives…

On a different note the countdown has officially began, only 30 more days til Landon’s due date. Oh my gosh, we have a “to do list” we are finishing up on and next weekend is my baby shower that I am beyond excited about. Yeppeee. So I know that he will be here before we know it! We CANNOT wait, we do need another week or so to finish everything but after that he can come anytime…and if he really wants to come into this world now we are ready for him!!!!!

Dear Landon,

We cannot wait to meet you…our son…I already feel this immense amount of love for you, I can only imagine what it will be like when we actually see you and hold you for the first time! We talk about you all the time…what we dream for your life. I keep telling your Daddy that I want to raise a kind, loving man who shows respect to everyone you encounter. We wonder what you will enjoy doing, what your passion will be? You have so many people around you that will love you, protect you and teach you about the Lord…you are going to have a blessed life my baby boy. We pray for your Mom too, for her heart and for her future…she is a part of you and a part of us forever, we admire her unselfish love so much. Only 30 more days little one…we are ready whenever you are.

Love,
Mommy

I sit here in complete awe of the Lord’s mercy and of answered prayers. Tonight Darrel, Wendi and I were sitting in the nursery talking about Landon among other things when our home phone rang, (we were actually talking about his arrival date at the time the phone rang) so when Darrel answered the phone and we heard Amy’s caseworker on the other line I think for just a brief second we all thought she may be calling to say “he’s coming…” but instead she gave us the most amazing news that Amy received a call from Landon’s birthfather that he has decided that the best interest for the baby is for him to sign the consent forms for us to proceed with the adoption as planned. Immediately upon hearing this Wendi and I began to cry and I just kept saying “thank you Lord, thank you Lord…” and then Wendi and I went in another bedroom and started making calls to parents, friends, our small group, anyone and everyone we could think of! Each time I would call too it was so neat because everyone would respond by first saying “thank you Jesus, God is so good!” What an amazing answer to prayers this call was!! YOUR prayers that you’ve lifted up for us over the last week have been answered! He listens to our prayers and He answers prayers, Praise You Lord!!! After calling everyone Darrel and I got down on our knees and lifted our prayers of thankfulness to the Lord, prayed for Landon, for Amy and for the birthfather and the huge decision he made out of love for his child.

We now have joy and hope fully restored in our hearts, now when we go to make the drive to meet our son, the son we have been praying for before we knew him by name, we can have peace when looking down into his eyes that the Lord’s will is for him to be ours. We donot take this gift of life that the Lord is blessing us with lightly by any means, we made a promise to the Lord that Landon will be raised being taught about Him, and we pray that he will do big things for the Lord.  We cannot even begin to imagine what its going to be like holding him for the first time…we know though that this is the Lord’s will for Landon and for us…after 6 very long diffucult years we see why the Lord has had us travel this journey and though its been hard its so worth it…His path for us, is perfect.

 I wish now I could look back and say that I never doubted in Him, but I have, I wish I could say that I’ve always trusted His plans and timing, but I haven’t but the one thing that I do know is that He has never left my side even in my doubt, He has carried me through, when I have stumbled, He has picked me up, He has been my rock..and like that video down below in my other blog, even when I have waivered He has pulled me back in and fought for me…He loves me and shows me mercy and forgiveness even when I have not shown the same to Him…thank you Lord. I can confidently say that without Him guiding us, leading us, picking us up, carrying us through we wouldn’t be here right now. Never, ever give up…always, always turn to Him and I can promise you with all my heart that He will guide you.

This scripture is the scripture that will be above Landon’s crib, and oh how perfect it is. James 12:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above”

Thank you ALL so much, what’s been so humbling is knowing that people we don’t even know personally have been lifting us up in prayers, and we have so many amazing family and friends who have been so awesome and supportive to us in the last week, we thank the Lord each night for you all…even those of you who we don’t know…know that you are being prayed for…

Victory, Praise and Glory be given to the Lord!

And let us run with endurance. . . . keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.” Hebrews 12

My emotions have varied over the last week, sometimes I am okay, then other times I am worn out. Yesterday we were thrown another twist early in the morning and I felt like “what’s next?” and then I allowed myself to become overwhelmed, with a few emails coming in to remind us to keep going and a good pep talk from Mindy, I felt better. When Darrel got home we talked alot about what the next few months will be like for everyone involved, lots of unknowns but what Darrel keeps saying is, “we have to keep focused Jul…this is where the Lord wants us to be, I believe it is and until He shows me otherwise we cannot stop…” This morning I woke up with a new burst of energy and hope and was blessed to receive the scripture above in a daily devotional. I know that I must keep running in this journey…keeping my eyes on Jesus from start to finish. I cannot allow circumstances that may come up to detour me from the finish line, I cannot allow my feelings to get the best of me, I need to stay focused on what the Lord requires of me, and not only do I need to run this race with endurance, I need to be joyful while running it because I know that there is a reason that we are running this race and that the Lord is using it for His glory! So in believing this, in knowing He is using us, I feel honored and joyful. Does it hurt, yes, is it hard, yes, but is it worth it, YES! So from now I am going to try to remain focused…will I stumble or fall…yes, but I know I He will pick me up along with the people He has put in our lives to help us….the one thing that I won’t do is take my eyes off of Him because my faith depends on Him and so does Landon’s future. I donot know what will be but like Mindy said “then again if I did then I wouldn’t need Him or faith”… so I willingly give this race up to Him.

The one word that comes up each day is….VICTORY…I believe that the Lord will be victorious in this run and for Landon. There is a “fight” being fought right now and the Lord is going to claim victory when it is through.

So from start to finish we will run this race because on that day when the Lord claims victory and we are holding our son Landon in our arms HE will recieve all the honor, praise and glory and yet He being the loving giver of life will bless us with the most amazing gift of Landon…

Update: I had to get on and add this scripture that Mindy sent to me this morning after praying for us!  2 Chronicles 15:14-15 “They shouted out their oath of loyality to the Lord with trumpets blaring and horns sounding. All were happy to hear of this commitment, for they had entered into it with all their hearts. Eagerly they sought after God, and they found him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies.” I want to write everything down so that I can come back to this in the times of need!

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy”. We pray with all our hearts that the Lord is ahead of us, fighting this battle, and that He will be victorious….so that on the day we hold Landon for the first time we may give him without fear or reservation the deepest love possible, if this “battle” has not been won, we pray that the Lord removes any and all fear from us so that Landon may experience fully the happiness, joy and love we have in our hearts for him.

The last couple days have been really hard, yesterday especially. Before we got the call about Amy and Landon I was feeling like I could give up on our journey of having a family, everything I have, all my strength, everything has been taken out of me throughout this long journey…but then we got the call, what a joyous day that was. Then we spoke to Amy and felt in our hearts a deep sense of peace…then we welcomed her and her family into our home and again felt a deep sense of peace…and since then we’ve moved forward, letting our guard down, to prepare for this little boy to come home to us in a short 6 weeks from tomorrow…then we received the heartbreaking call this Tuesday that the birthfather is not wanting to sign over his rights. Yesterday I locked myself up in the house and allowed the what-if’s and doubts to overtake me…what if we bring Landon home and then the judge orders us to bring him back…what if the judge allows the birthfather some time to get his life in order and in the meantime we have Landon, and he does get his life back in order and we have to bring Landon back…the what if’s can go on and on and on…last night Darrel said Julie, “you and I have to fight for our son, he is our son, we have to bring him home and step out on complete and utter faith that the Lord will protect Landon and us by doing this…we have clinged to our faith all along this journey, we cannot stop now.” We know in our hearts that the Lord has not taken us this far down the road for us to quit. My struggle has been that I feel I have no more “fight” in me to give…but what I realize now is that this is not my battle to fight, it is His and all He is asking of us is to trust Him enough to continue down this journey no matter how hard it will be, let this be His battle and His victory so the glory is given to Him. (deep long breath) so today we have made the commitment that we are going to go as far as the Lord needs us to go in this process…our plans are to bring our son home with us, we are going to celebrate and love him. We are not going to allow this to stop us…we know that the Lord loves Landon more than we know, and that the Lord already has Landon’s life planned out, and we are going to choose to believe that the Lord’s plans are for Landon to be ours…if that day comes where he will be taken from us…then we will have to give everything over to the Lord and trust in His promises to us, that He will not give us what we cannot handle. Either way Landon is our son, he was born into our hearts the minute we received the call, we love him like we love our other two angels in heaven, he is a part of us and our family. We have to do what is best for Landon as parents, put outside our fears and doubts. So we give this battle up to the Lord, ….here goes everything we have to Him and to Landon…everything….

Dear Lord,

You know how much we love Landon and Amy and her family. Lord you know what Landon’s life is to be…where he is to be…who is to love him day in and day out. Lord I donot have the strength to fight this battle on my own, I do have the love for Landon to share with him, the love I hope I get to share with him forever…Lord, you are a big God who is capable of miracles, you are a God who shows mercy and love, I pray dear Lord that you will take this fight from us and fight it for us, I pray Lord that Landon be given every single good thing that You have to offer Him, Lord I pray for our little boy, that He will be home with us forever, that this journey be one that glorifies you Lord. I pray for guidance and wisdom during this time. I pray that we do only what it is you desire us to do. Lord my heart is Your’s, for You to use it as you need to, Lord my ulimate desire in life is to serve you and do right by You Lord, I want only what You want for me, no matter the cost. Protect Landon dear Lord, protect his future, we love him so much dear Lord, as our own, we pray for this precious, innocent little boy. Please protect him…we trust you Lord…we trust you with our little boys life, we trust you with our vulnerable hearts, we know that You are good and so are Your plans. Please Lord guide us as we bring him home…allow us to soak up every single moment we have with him, whether it be a day or forever here on earth…Thank you Lord. Amen.

In closing, this battle is not one that I need to fight…it is His, we are here to protect Landon, to love Landon to nurture him. I really cannot say what our future will bring….all I do know is that Landon is the love of our lives and in our hearts he is our son, so we will do anything and everything we can for him, including taking the ultimate risk of loving him for only a short time, if that is what the Lord has in store. This is the HUGEST leap of faith I know we will ever make, but we cannot not make it…we must do it and do it fully for the love we have for Landon and the faith we have in the Lord.

This video is amazing, listen to the lyrics of the song, as I watched it today I watched Jesus in the background, waving His arms, trying to get “my” attention, saying I will fight this for you, you donot have to do this alone, I alone can do it for you…let Me. I hope you watch this video, I promise you, you will be touched by it. 

Lifehouse Song Everything

Find me here And speak to me I want to feel You I need to hear You You are the light That’s leading me To the place
Where I find peace again You are the strength That keeps me walking You are the hope That keeps me trusting
You are the life To my soul You are my purpose You’re everything

And how can I stand here with You And not be moved by You Would You tell me how could it be Any better than this
(Ahh Yeahhh)

You calm the storms And You give me rest You hold me in your hands You won’t let me fall You steal my heart
And You take my breath away Would You take me in  Would You take me deeper, now

And how can I stand here with You And not be moved by You Would You tell me how could it be Any better than this

And how can I stand here with You And not be moved by You Would You tell me how could it be Any better than this

Cause you’re all I want You’re all I need You’re everything, everything You’re all I want You’re all I need
You’re everything, everything You’re all I want You’re all I need You’re everything, everything You’re all I want
You’re all I need Everything, everything…

Would You tell me how could it be Any better than this….

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

I write this blog with a heavy heart…I’m sitting here with Air1 blaring in the background…with tears streaming down my cheeks…today we got a call that the birthfather is having serious doubts about terminating his rights to Landon, what would this mean to us if he chooses not to…it would mean that Landon would not be coming home with us….after many, many tears and calls to loved ones asking for prayers to be lifted up, and starting to feel doubt I had to pull myself out of the heaviness and reach out to the Lord asking Him to guide me to what it is I am suppose to do with this news…it hurts, its scary, its a big blow after we just recently allowed our guards to come down….I reached for my Bible and randomly opened it and the first thing I read was this Pslams47:6 “Sing Praises to God, sing praises…For God is King of all the earth” He is bigger than all this, He is able to intercede, He is completely capable and I’m not going to doubt in Him, in the power of prayer and I don’t want to lose my sight of Him, of what He has been doing in our lives and the lives of others around us. His will, will be done, I have to continue to trust that He is faithful and that His plans for us are good and loving. I also love Landon already so very, very much and if this is part of the journey to him, then I will fight my way through it, until I’m holding him in my arms.

Kutless- Winds of Change (this is the very 1st song I heard after turning Air1)

Can you feel the pains in life wrapped around you like they’re chains restricting all your dreams. Do you wonder if there is a way? A way to set you free. Set you free. So tell Me your dreams. Tell Me all your fears and what you’re longing for the most. It’s not another way that’ll end up the same for its under control. Do you feel the winds of change? Soon this weight will fall away and take you to a place only found through these winds of change. A breeze that’s new and free, new and free. I’ll be the one who you can cry to, the One who will give you wings. Someday we’ll sail away, mounted up on wings like eagles. We will run and not fade away. I’ll be the One who will give you wings, wings to set you free.

So what I am to do with this news…I am to sing praise to Him through it, I am to pray, worship and be in the Word, I am to be strenghtened through Him and my goal is to not lose sight of Him…not to allow myself to become hardened by trials but to grow through them….to share our experience openly and without fear so that maybe others may be blessed by Him…we ask that everyone please continue to pray for Amy, Landon, her family, for the birthfather and his family, but most importantly for Landon, this precious little soul that is loved by all of us, that the Lord place this little boy in the arms He needs him to be in!

Okay so as each day is ticking away, some days quicker than others we are starting to really realize how much is left to do to get ready for this little guy! We are so excited and know everything will get done, and whatever doesn’t get done will be okay too. On Friday night we went out for a late night frozen yogurt run and as were sitting quietly in the parking lot eating it, Darrel looked in the back seat and said “Can you believe that in only a few weeks Landon will be back there?” and I said “I don’t know if we will be doing late night frozen yogurt runs anymore after he gets here…” but we both said that we will do fun things like that still together, with him! Those are the things we’ve always done as a couple that I love…and we look forward to Landon enjoying it with us too! Who knows maybe that will be the trick to getting Landon to sleep, car rides?

Today was my first and almost last day back with “my” class since Christmas vacation, actually tomorrow is my final day with the class…I truly do love teaching and though this class has been “tough” I have loved working with these kids and I will miss them and will miss teaching. It’s weird to think that this may be it too for teaching, at least for a very, very long time (at least until Landon is grown)…but I know I will be doing the same things with Landon and it will be so neat to concentrate fully on him.

Today I recorded “Bringing Home Baby” on TLC for Darrel to watch. It’s a show that follows couples the first 36 hours after they bring home their baby, its obviously edited and I’m sure not quite like what they show people on T.V. but the one consistent thing that I always hear when watching it is “how they can’t imagine their lives without their baby in it…and how exhausting it is, haha”…that is what I am most fearful about, the lack of sleep, I know its comingand I know we will be fine…like I mentioned in the other blog a couple days ago…we are not sleeping good at all, I sat wide awake in bed last night until 2:30 in the morning and then woke up every half an hour and then got woken up by the alarm for work…so I really do think maybe this is God’s way of preparing me (us) for what is to come, since I obviously am not pregnant it may be a complete shock to my system if I was sleeping well then had Landon….so God is preparing me, just in a different way maybe? The couple on the show today’s little guy came 4 weeks early…I know that they tell pregnant couples to be prepared at week 35…that is ONLY a week and a half away for Landon…so our plans are to have the carseat in the car ready to go next weekend…go get it safety checked…and by week 36 we will have our bags packed and ready to go for when we get that call. So we need to be prepared for anything to happen in only 3 short weeks…ahhhhhh!!!!! SOOOO EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!

So many things changing in our lives…exciting things…I just hope that Amy is doing okay. I think about her all the time…I hope she has peace in her heart, at least as much peace as she can possibly feel at this time. Please continue to lift her loving heart up in prayers, as well as her family.

Only 46 days left…46 days…oh my goodness gracious!!