When we officially began our adoption journey our children were overjoyed. They too felt like this was God’s calling for our family. So much so, they had held a family meeting during the summer of 2016 to ask Dusty and I when we felt we would be ready to begin the process of adopting a sibling. God has been and continues to prepare all of our hearts for this sweet little one.
Once our official process began, they both felt like they wanted to do more to help. So they began to think about ways they could make a difference. Sophia decided to host a Read-A-Thon in April of 2017. We were overjoyed with what God did through that event. Her Read-A-Thon brought in $2,744.75 for our adoption process. This February she gave her birthday away and raised $450.00 for our adoption process. God has been doing big things through her little heart. Ansel had an idea early on to host a Bike-A-Thon. He thought it would be great to get together with his friends and ride bikes for a cause. Over time his focus has changed a bit. He has decided he does not want to use the money raised to help in our adoption process. Instead, he wants to raise money to buy soccer balls, air pumps, Shoes that Grow, and money for food. He has decided he wants to bless the children in the orphanage when his brother leaves them to come home with us. The Bike/Walk-A-Thon allows him to have an active role in not just our adoption process, but in making a difference in the world around him. The plan is to earn money, through the Bike-A-Thon, to purchase soccer balls and pumps that Dusty and I will take with us when we travel to Burundi to bring Ansel's little brother home. He also hopes to purchase some shoes from an organization called The Shoe that Grows. We are all so excited about sharing shoes with children in Burundi. His goal is to not only purchase shoes, but also for Dusty and I to take shoes with us to distribute while we are in Burundi. We are working with this organization and they are very excited to work with him to accomplish this goal. Finally, he hopes to have money for Dusty and I to use once we arrive in Burundi to purchase food for his brother’s orphanage. WOW! God has been working in Ansel’s heart and he is so excited to have you join him in this adventure. The Bike-A-Thon is still a ways off, but we hope you will save the date and consider joining us for this great cause. SAVE THE DATE
Biking for Burundi: Bike/Walk-A-Thon is Saturday, June 16th, 2018 at Meadowood Park in Speedway. Pledge packets will be available closer to the date, but we hope you will make your calendars now!
Dusty and I are overjoyed by the fact that God is working in our children’s hearts, but also that they are receptive to Him. This journey to forever has and will continue to change all of us into the people God would have us to be. We strive daily to focus on Him and go in the directions He is leading.
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It’s been awhile since I have posted. I guess I was afraid by writing it all down, it would become real. It’s been hard. This past week has been a very big struggle for me due to many things occurring all at once. I know some who read this blog, have walked before me. Sometimes you laugh, in love, as I figure out things (mostly emotions) that I thought I already had figured out. But some who read this have not walked the road of adoption or are just at the beginning of your journey. My hope is that my struggle to find strength will encourage you as you might be looking for strength too.
This week has been an emotional challenge. I am still struggling, more than I realized, with God’s timing. I daily, sometimes hour by hour, give this emotion to God. I truly believe with all my heart His plan is and will always be better than mine, but my heart still hurts and doesn’t understand. I feel hopeful that once our little one is home in our arms, I will see that God’s timing and plan were perfect. But he is not home or in my arms and the desire of my heart is so strong. And my fear is that I won’t see or understand His plan was better in this life time. God may choose never to reveal that to me in this lifetime. Maybe to grow me or challenge me to be all He would have me to be. This coming week my little girl will be 9 years old. My birthday is just around the corner too. Time is marching on. We received an email today that we need to begin the process of updating our paperwork as it is due to expire soon. Some will say, “You haven’t been in the waiting process that long.” While yes, our paperwork has only been in country since November and yes, it’s only been just over a year since we began with the agency. My waiting didn’t start on December 14th of 2016, it started in August of 2009. Maybe before. God has placed this desire on my heart and the emotions that come with that desire are real. I had been trying to hold those emotions in. I can’t explain why. But maybe because I don’t have this obvious belly bump to explain away my sudden emotions and waves of feelings. It’s not obvious to the world around me that I am waiting on a child God has promised. I know I am not alone in that feeling. I know many women in this world are longing and waiting for a child. A child maybe to come biologically or through adoption. Those hurts are real and the pain and self-doubt that comes with that wait is real. I think I was also afraid to let my emotions out because I feared that it meant I was not trusting God. Because if I was trusting God, I would have no worry and be filled with peace, but I have come to a point where I realize, I can trust God and still have emotions. This past Friday was the day it all flooded out and I fought it. At some point I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and once they started they rushed out. In no time, I was in a ball sobbing like I haven’t sobbed in a long time. And even then, alone and sobbing, I questioned why I was feeling these emotions. I thought, I trust God, I do…so why do I feels so helpless and alone? At some point during all of that King David came to my mind. I thought to myself, “That guy got all kinds of crazy when it came to losing his children and telling God how he felt when he was in his deepest despair.” David gave God his full range of emotions. AND IT WAS OKAY. Then I started to open up a bit more. God's knows my emotions are there, but it’s okay to tell Him how I feel. In fact, crying out to God with all my emotions raw and exposed didn’t mean I was questioning Him. It meant I trusted Him enough that I would share my most vulnerable emotions with Him. That I would open up my deepest worries in fears to Him because I trust Him. God wants us to cry out to Him. God gave me those emotions and maybe just maybe there is a reason I am having them and an even bigger reason I need to feel them. REALLY feel them. I was curled into a ball deeply feeling emotions that overcame me and God was trying to use that moment to grow me. You see, my feelings of emptiness, worry, fear and some anger are nothing compared the emotions of God when His only Son became sin, my sin. A dear friend shared with me about this today. Our Earthly minds can’t understand the intimacy between God and Jesus. It’s a connection beyond our understanding. So when Christ chose to die on that Roman cross for me and for you, He took on our sins. In doing so, He was torn apart from God. They were separated. We will never know the depth of that grief. Jesus took my sin upon him on the cross and because of my sin, not his, He was banished from God’s presence, for God cannot be in the presence of sin. Jesus took on ours sins, and was thus separated from God. God knows emotions! God is also bigger than my emotions. I can feel them and be in them and know he is bigger, stronger and capable of pulling me out when the time is right. God is working through this journey. His plan is in constant motion. He is preparing me to love a child through a grief so deep most of us never want to imagine or talk about it...losing everything in your entire world. I can't even fathom a grief that deep. I don't know what it's like to lose both my parents. I don’t know what it’s like to never know any of my extended family. I don't know what it's like to lose a home. I don't know what it's like to lose a country. I don't know what it's like to lose my language. I don't know what it's like to be physically adopted as we know it on this Earth, but my little one will know. His heart will struggle through all of this. How am I supposed to be the best mom to him I can be? I have to let God show me, teach me, and grow me. God has given me a little insight of what it is to be adopted by allowing me to join his family. I struggle daily with feeling like I don't fit into God’s family. I wonder often how I can really be loved by a father who is so different from me. I wonder if my best will ever be good enough for His family and that leads to feelings of unworthiness. I know that God's working on me in this waiting. Through the counsel of some really awesome friends, God is showing me that I need to embrace what I am feeling. I'm starting to see and understand that God is preparing me. He's readying me to be the mom he created me to be. I need to feel this hurt, longing, and loss so I can empathize, if even a little, with this tiny human who has had more loss and trauma than some of us will have in a life time. We do need to be cautious. Knowing the difference between the voice of God and the voice of the great deceiver sometimes is the hardest part. Because there are lies that sneak right in in the midst of all of these feelings that can overcome us and derail us from the purpose God has for us. See I'm not unworthy. I am completely worthy because Christ chose to die for me making me his co-heir and making me fully adopted into God's family. What I've discovered and hopefully I'm continuing to learn is that I shouldn't shy away from these deep emotions and feelings that I'm having. In fact God gave me these emotions and is allowing me to feel them to prepare me, to grow me, and to help me be the mom that he's created me to be. Every day is a journey. Every day is hard. And every day I am sad that my son is not home with us. But every day he isn’t home, is one day closer to him being home. And every day that I allow myself to learn and grow from what God is doing in my journey and through my emotions is a day that I'm bettering myself as his mom when he is here in our arms. |
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AuthorMy name is Deidra Miller. I have been married to my wonderful husband, Dusty, for 17 years. We have two biological children and our family is growing again. We prayed for 2,786 days and God answered our prayers. More days (almost 4 years) have been added as we wait for God's perfect plan for our family. We can't wait to meet our beautiful twin boys! Archives
October 2022
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