It all Begins

I am writing this blog to share with everyone what God has done in our lives. This is just a glimpse of what our God can do.

James and I were married in 1994. We both were 24 years old when God finally placed us in each others life. (That's a whole different blessing!) After we were married three years, we were ready to start adding children to our family. I never thought it would be that hard. After several years of trying and many heartaches, we were finally pregnant at age 29. By the time Ian was born, I was 30 years old. That was not exactly how I had planned it, but I knew God was in control and he had blessed us with a precious boy.

Well, we wanted our children to be close in age so after two years we began to try again. Nothing seemed to happen. I took several rounds of clomid but it did not work. My doctor sent us to a fertility specialist. James and I both seemed uneasy about going but we did anyway. We knew in our hearts that God could do anything and if we were to have another child he would be the one to do it. We stopped going to see the specialist. Years went by and by and by. I just did not understand. It was not easy to forget. We desired to have another child. Why was God not allowing it. Through out a period of eight years, I had three doctors tell me I was in early menopause! What! How could this be? Why? Why us? I never accepted it. So many people would say "just forget it and it would happen" . People, you don't just forget it. I prayed that God would take this burning desire from me if this was not his plan but he never did. I really believed that there was another child for us to love and share our home with. We started looking into adoption. I was interested in adopting from China. I met people who had adopted from China. Was this God confirming our direction!! I was so excited. We began to fill out our application when I saw one of the questions wanted to know if either one of us has a convulsive disorder?? Does that mean epilepsy? Because I did, but it had been almost four years since my last seizure. They were under control. I spoke to the agency and I was devastated when they told me yes, that included epilepsy. They really wanted me to be seizure free for five years. I got my neurologist to right me a letter. It did not matter. China was out. What was God doing?

Fall of 2008 I participated in a bible study called Believing God by Beth Moore. If you have not done this one, I challenge you to. It changed me. I was doing this study why we were going through all the adoption stuff and I just could not figure out what God wanted me to do. I really felt God leading me in a direction then it was pulled out from under me. Each day he spoke to me and helped me understand him better. But I felt like I was crazy most of the time. Would, could God really speak to me like he has?

My Promise
I was frustrated one Saturday because I was feeling crazy. I thought God told me he had a little girl out there for us, I just did not know which way to go to find her. If we adopted from China I was going to name her Ava. Her birth name would relate to our name Ava. It would be a sign that God had orchestrated it all! That Saturday afternoon Ian an I went to Longview just to do get out of the house. I was always looking for another car so I thought we would stop by dealerships. On our way, I was really fussing at God. "What are you calling us to do? Where is this girl you promised me? Where are we to adopt from? Am I just crazy and you have not promised me anything?" (and I was doing all this fussing out loud!) At that moment we stopped at a red light and I looked up and the name of the street was Avalon. I busted out to God, "what is this God, you want me to go look at an Avalon car?" ( and I was sassy!) I looked up at the sign again and I tell you the truth, all I saw was Ava!!! My skin begin to scrawl and I began to cry! "Lord are you giving me a promise?" This is the way I ended that day: "Lord, I don't know who Ava is. She may be our daughter in another country. She may be Ian's wife. She may just be a girl that needs my prayers, but God, I commit to pray for her whoever she is." Wow what a day! It is an awesome feeling to see God work and I believed with all my heart that he worked that day!

How do I keep Believing?

I knew I had to have faith and keep believing God's promise. The following Tuesday night was our Bible study meeting. As I went in, I wanted to share with all the ladies about what had happened, but I kept biting my lip. They are going to think I am crazy and what if it never happens. I remember in one of our lessons, we learned that we have to proclaim God's promises if we are to believe in them. So, that night my mouth flew open and I shared with my those sweet ladies about Ava. Crazy or not, I had to proclaim it. That night there was not a dry eye in the room. They were so excited to one day find out who Ava was! I told them that I did not know if God would give us another child but, if he did it would not be ordinary. It would be a WOW moment and everyone would know that it was all because of HIM!!

During the past year

I have not stopped believing. I have had to step out several times and share my story. Some of those I shared with thought I was crazy and some stood behind me and began to pray for Ava also! I never forgot about adopting. My heart went out to children all over the world that needed a family. Why could I not help them. I kept looking for open doors but they seem to keep closing. Life goes on and on and on. In the fall of 2009, I became convicted about my busy life. I thought, I get up, go to school, come home and take care of my family, run Ian all around town, gripe about my house not being cleaned, gripe about not having enough time, and so on. As I thought about this, I realized, this was normal. Everyone does this and I was right there with them. I was no different. I was ordinary. The Holy Spirit convicted me about this and I began to try to figure out how I could be extraordinary. I wanted God to do something with me. How could I be used for him? During this time, Dr. Tilley preached on this and I told James at lunch that day about what I had been struggling with. I told him I just wanted to step out of my box and do something extraordinary. And before I knew it I said "I want to go to African with the church". He said "well, go." We would be traveling in July. I was so excited to see what God was going to do in my life through serving other people. Later, I mentioned to James, what if while I am there, I find Ava? He said, I guess you will have to bring her home!

God's not late!

Easter day all my family came to our house for lunch. We had a great time. Ian had been sick the week before with a virus and that Sunday I felt like I was coming down with it. I was hoping it was just my nerves from trying to get everything set up for my family! Well the nausea feeling did not go away. Wednesday I decided to do a pregnancy test. I knew it would be negative. For the past eight years it was always negative. Guess what??? It was positive. It said Pregnant! I did not believe it because I had been taking some progesterone since I was going through menopause! It probably caused a false positive. When James came home from youth bible study, I told him that I had done the test. He had to see it. He set down on the side of the tub and started laughing!! I was in shock! We did not get our hopes up because of the progesterone. The next day I called my doctor and told them that I thought I was pregnant and needed to come in. They tried to get me in the next week. I said "no, you do not understand. I will be forty next month, I needed to know now!!" I went in on Friday. I did the urine test but they did not even complete it before they took me in to do a sonogram. The whole time I was in shock. I did not know whether to laugh or cry from excitement. Could this be real? It was real!!! There it was on the screen and then I heard the heartbeat!!! James and I were in SHOCK!! The doctor was in SHOCK!!