BUT THEN.... one year.

***Please don't skip over reading this Psalm & go straight to have I have written. 

I guarantee you there is more power in God's Word than in a single period of a question mark in mine.***

Psalm 77

I cry out to God; yes I shout.

Oh, God that You would listen to me!

When I was in deep trouble,

I searched for the Lord.
All night long I prayed, with hands lifted towards heaven,

but my soul was not comforted.

I think of God, and I moan,

overwhelmed with longing for His help.

You don't let me sleep.

I am too distressed even to pray!

I think of the good ole days, 

long since ended,

when my nights were filled with joyful songs.

I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

Has the Lord rejected me forever?

Will He never be kind to me again?

Is His unfailing love gone forever?

Have His promises permanently failed?

Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has He slammed the door on His compassion?

And I said "This is my fate, the Most High has turned His hand against me."

BUT THEN I recall all You have done, O Lord,

I REMEMBER Your wonderful deeds of long ago.

They are constantly in my thoughts. 

I cannot stop thinking about Your mighty works.

O God, Your ways are holy.

Is there any god as mighty as You?

You are the God of great wonders!

You demonstrate Your awesome power among the nations.

By Your strong arm, You redeemed Your people, the descendants of Jacob & Joseph. 

When the Red Sea saw You, O God, its waters looked and trembled!

The sea quaked to its very depths.

The clouds poured down rain;

the thunder rumbled in the sky.

Your arrows of lightning flashed.

Your thunder roared from the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world!

The earth trembled and shook.

Your road led through the sea, Your pathway through the mighty waters-

a pathway no one knew was there!

You led Your people along that road

like a flock of sheep,

with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds. 

I can identify with this Psalm. Especially within the past week.

We received not so good news from our agency regarding a license issue in Ethiopia and we were given options to seek the Lord about.

We can wait out the government making these changes to the license, with no time frame or guarantee that it will be resolved.

OR

We can change countries & leaving our Dossier in Ethiopia in case the government approves the license.

I know, you might be thinking "whats the big deal, change countries and roll with it."

Roll with it without the Lord possibly? No thank you.

We have come to a halt where a decision has to be made and if I could be honest it is overwhelming to think about. My emotions are so wrapped up in my thoughts "I'm too distressed to pray." I can not sleep and "my soul is not being comforted."

We laid in bed last night and I talking about "the good ole days" when we were completed the task at hand of paperwork and turning it in, going to bed at night with excitement "filled with joyful songs" and were fundraising seeing the Lord move and show off in big ways with BIG amounts. Everything was so exciting. 

My, oh my, what a different place we are in now.

It has been a year of waiting. A solid year of moving closer and closer to the top where we have finally reached the #1 spot and now look where we're at. The thought of the Lord "slamming the door on His compassion" of the country of Ethiopia being where our daughter is has crossed my mind, more than once. And when I think of the situation I can't help but to "moan" and wonder "What in the world are you doing, Lord? Will You ever be kind to us again?"

BUT THEN........

Oh, I am so thankful for His Word. 

I texted a portion of this passage to a friend this morning as encouragement and then as I began looking over the whole Psalm I found myself in tears half way through.

This Psalmist has been in my heart and wrote down on paper exactly where I have been for the last week.

Isn't it INCREDIBLE? The Word. This book written so long ago? It.is.alive.and relate-able and it SPEAKS!

Then BUT THEN... it's in the remembering and recalling....

{Through the lens of this adoption journey I began to recall ALL He has done.}

-The speediness of paperwork.

-The outpouring of friends with fun-raisers.

-The fact that every.single.time. we had paperwork to turn in, we had the funds! (sometimes you wait on the Lord to provide the money before you can turn in paperwork)

-The TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS HE GAVE US!!!

-And all through out this year of waiting the victories He has given us over sin & a restored marriage, the treasures from His Word, the intimate moments at His feet, the GRACE to endure the pruning and sanctify to be more like my Savior, the powerful private communion with my God and experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit like never before.

-The countless reminders of His presence through BIG things He knew would comfort me like, pink rainbows in an early morning sky, reminding me that HE IS a Promise Keeper & a Covenant Keeping God, or little things like her name in the most random places, like on the back of dressing room doors written in chalk or a random woman wearing precious jeans with little pink elephants on them and when I asked her who they were made by she said "Lily." 

I could go on and on....

The pathway the Lord chose to rescue the Israelites was HIS pathway. 

"...a pathway no one knew was there!"

I wonder what the Isrealites thought standing there looking at the Red Sea.

"This looks impossible. How will this ever work. What do you want us to do with that? Where's our boat? How will we all fit on it?" 

He made a way. 

And He WILL make a way and demonstrate His power among the nations and will redeem! 

And HE will be our Shepard and I will continue to pray for the "Moses" He has placed as our leader, my husband. 

This is my strength for today. 

And to remember and recall ALL He has done for us, not only in the adoption journey but on the CROSS! 

The power of sin is broken, death has been defeated and we.are.free!

(All of Romans)

May the things of Earth grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace,

Kim