Foster Care & Adoption Blog #3-The Journal

Aaaaahhhh....back to the sweet scripted escape of blogging. It has been too long since my last post and I do apologize for the delay in finishing up the story!

It continues...




I know what you're thinking, that that picture looks exactly like me! I know! It's so hard to keep myself from bragging.

Welcome to Blog #3! I am so glad that you are taking the time out of your day to read this-it means so much to me and hopefully it will be a blessing to you in some way today.


Let's jump right back in where we left off yesterday, shall we?

Since the trip to Colorado was very obviously *cancelled* I knew that I was supposed to go to the Women's Conference. I didn't know anything about it-only that Rita Springer was going to be there and that was pretty much it. I went expecting to hear some great truth from God, but before I went, I knew I needed some new perfume! That's what every girl needs before a road trip, right? Actually the real reason I was buying it was because I just to happened to have a gift card and felt the need to treat myself to something as a reward for my pain. There were probably a few other scattered rewards to myself such as sodas and snacks of all kinds, but I can't remember.

I walked into the store. They had some new smells which I'm sure now are discontinued. The one displayed at the front was "Gardenia". "Hmmm, that sounds familiar, what is that?" I thought to myself. I gave it a spray. "Mmmmm! That smells so familiar!" I couldn't place it and figured it would hit me later. Then I bought it. Little did I know that this was my first "clue" and it hit me hard.


***
Important Sidenote: I have to mention that I was supposed to have been in North Carolina long before this point. When I did all of my missions work, it was based out of Colorado through YWAM. I was originally signed up to be stationed in North Carolina, but the only reason I changed my mind to go to Colorado was to be near my boyfriend, military guy. God went to all that trouble to let me go to the opposite end of the country and around the world, to bring me right back to where He had originally told me to go. It took me 3 years to get back there. I don't really believe in mistakes though, at least not when God's involved.

***

I packed the necessities for the trip, most importantly the Gardenia perfume, and drove the 7 hours through the hills to Fort Mill, NC. I was met there by my dear, dear friend, Therese, who, strangely enough, had just bought the same perfume as me! Strange, huh? Or, maybe not so much?

The first meeting at the conference was the night I arrived. I was feeling disoriented when I got there-lost without knowing that military guy was just a phone-call away. The excitement of taking my life back by going on an awesome road trip to fill the void was already wearing off.

The Worship started. I swear there was something like a Holy Wind that literally blew Rita Springer's hair in it's breeze when she started playing the piano. It may have also been the stage fans, but who really knows for sure? :)

After the worship, a woman made an announcement that now they would be handing out hand-crafted, what they believed to be "prophetic journals" that the conference leaders had made themselves from random newspapers and magazine clippings. There had to have been hundreds of these journals, and they were all different. They had prayed over all of them, praying that each journal would fall into the hands of the right woman, as they were handing them out completely at random throughout the audience.

I got mine. Just look at it for a second.




I looked at my journal, and because this is where the mind of most young, single girls goes, my first thought was, "Is there anything on here that might mean anything about my future husband???" Let's get real, that's what we were thinking about. Even when we were trying to be so religious and not think about it, we still were. I actually tried to avoid looking at for a few days. That was the last thing that I need to be thinking about in my current situation, and I knew it. There were things on there that definitely sparked my interest. I mean, who isn't interested in a mysterious, prophetic journal that a stranger gives you with a promise that it will reveal the secrets of God for your life? Even if you don't believe in signs, you're interested.

But what I was more interested in honestly was the journal revealing that there in fact was a shot at me and military guy getting back together. He wasn't married yet, maybe it would work out?


Not a chance.

Later that day, it finally came to me-the perfume, where I recognized it from. This is the part of the story that I never tell because it seems so incredibly far-fetched and cliche, but yes, this actually happened.

I had bought some kind of oil from the same store that I remembered had gardenia extract in it. I even remembered exactly when I had bought it and when I had worn it. I was wearing it before I met military guy, when I was planning to go North Carolina (which, I must mention, gardenias only grow in the south. I had never even seen one before since I'm from Ohio). I wore it every single day, but never considered the gardenia element because at the time it meant nothing to me.

And then I thought, "Why did I stop wearing it?" I thought that maybe I even still had a little bit left in the bottle and then was wondering where it was. I realized why, and I think I actually gasped. Because I had bought a new perfume when I met military guy. Not to please him, but it so happened that I grew tired of the oil around the time we had met. It was called, "Love Spell".

"Whoa. Weird", I thought. And no, I'm not saying that the perfume had a magical spell over me; it was the symbolism of it all that shook me so much. There was something about Gardenias that God was telling me was so important. It was the buying of the "Gardenia" perfume to replace the "Love Spell" perfume I'd been wearing all of that time that told me a new thing was about to transpire...

Another Sidenote:

I know that there are people from all walks of life reading this blog. Some Catholic, Agnostic, simply non-Christian, Charismatic Christian, some non-Charismatics who believe that "the gifts" or whatever you'd like to call them, don't exist today. Well obviously you've already figured out that I believe that they do exist, but I'd also like to give the disclaimer that I don't think it's supposed to be this way for everyone. God works with us all in such a different way, and at this point in my life, this was how He saw fit to do things. At the current stage of my life, He's much more subtle and less mysterious, and something about that makes it all much more wonderful.

Conference Day #2:

This was the big day for everyone-the prophetic day. I know what you're thinking, "This has C-U-L-T written all over it." Ha! Maybe so, (I guess we can never be sure) but a darn good one.

Therese and I were going in to prophesied over together, and we were feeling in an especially rebellious state that day which was not out-of-the-ordinary. See, we believed in it, but also mocked it. Strange how that works but that's how the cookies crumbled back then.

I won't give every detail, but when we went in there was a group of 3 people to give us a word from the Lord. Now, this isn't fortune-telling, but merely words of encouragement-which is really what the word prophesy means to begin with. It is overspiritualized today but really it is a very simple and useful tool for church edification, it just is unfortunately abused by many.

There was a middle-aged woman in the group with long and straggly brown hair. She studied me for a moment. We were encouraged to bring pens and a pad of paper to write down what they told us, but I actually took in my video camera! Hence the air of rebellion about us that day, I guess. She studied me, and mind you, these people know nothing about us. They don't even know our names. She told me, without knowing what I had just gone through in the past couple of days with much seriousness, "I want you to know, when you meet the right one, you'll know without a doubt in your mind that he's the right one."

I tried to not let on that my interest was peaked so just nodded and wrote it down in my new journal. She then rattled on about how she saw my friend Therese and I going into some kind of business together, selling our art. I don't think this will ever come to fruition but she may have been partly right as I did end up becoming a photographer and Therese and her future husband run an amazing T-Shirt printing business along with being musicians. You have to pick and choose from those things sometimes, what's true and what's false.

So, I would know without a doubt in my mind? How would I know? How could there possibly be no doubt in my always questioning mind? In my last effort to find out, I simply asked God, and His answer truly surprised me!

It was the second night during worship. I asked Him, "How will I know when I've found him?" It was spoken SO clearly, God said, "He will come to you dancing with gardenias."

....

Foster Care & Adoption Blog #2-Ah The Redemption

Good Morning to all!

Thank you for reading Blog #2.

It's a rainy morning in Brunswick County, creating the perfect atmosphere for snuggling up with espresso in front of the computer to do some good ol' fashioned bloggin'.

A few weeks ago I was at church looking around and thinking, "Who will I make conversation with to not let my awkward social skills be obvious to all? Ah, there's someone." A girl there that I know who was going through a truly trying time walked over to me. I asked her how she was and she said with a smile and a hint of revelation, "I'm here. We're all just here." I can't stop thinking about that. "We're all just here." I say it to myself and it causes me to exhale-we're all just here. We're all in it together.

Romans 8:22

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."



Mother Theresa-one of my favorite people, has been a refuge for me in my times of doubt. Her words have often helped me to go on. She knew we were all just here too.

A story from Brennan Manning:

When he (a man named John Kavanaugh) met Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she replied. He then uttered the request he had carried thousands of miles: “Clarity. Pray that I have clarity.”

“No,” Mother Teresa answered, “I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.”

When Kavanaugh said that she always seemed to have clarity, the very kind of clarity he was looking for, Mother Teresa laughed and said:

“I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”


There's a scripture that talks about how God is not a God of confusion. The unknown and confusion are not the same I've realized; Confusion is only present when trust is absent. I wouldn't necessarily label my trust status as "absent", but let's just say, "tardy".

You know when you are in the midst of a downward spiral and you find yourself in the dark pit? You're there for a few weeks, months, or years, and then something wonderful happens and God picks you up, takes your hand, and leads you around the corner to something brighter. You look back at the way you came and almost always, you say, "Aaaahhhh! That's why that happened; that's why I had to take that road to get here!" It all of a sudden becomes so clear and what was ugly to you before then becomes exceedingly beautiful.

Well, that's been the story of my life anyway.





What gives me faith when I doubt is what's in this journal. Only a few people know the full story of how I met my husband (I call this the "Holy Spirit" version). We have gotten into the bad habit of only telling the worldly details: how we were both 'Casey Townsend' when we met on myspace, how we made the discovery of his family living in my hometown hundreds of miles away to give him the excuse to come to meet me for the first time, how we only saw each other in person 4 times before we were married, and how we were engaged for a grand total of 17 days. You can gag yourself with a spoon after you finish reading.

The God stuff is absolutely the best part. If and when I sink into the blackness, I remember our story and I believe.

I know, I know, "Get to the hilarious foster care stories!!!" For you to appreciate it in its fullness I have to fill in these few gaps first.

I have to tell you all that I had more than a few relationships before I met Mr. Casey. On the flip-side, he had had NONE. 23-years old, and he'd never so much as held someone's hand. Ah, the Redemption. I know many of you out there know what I mean.

I was in what I'd call a "serious" relationship before I met him. A military guy who I tried to make myself believe I'd marry someday, "when I was ready". Sidenote: if you're not ready now, if you can't picture yourself with them now, it's probably not going to happen. Think about it.

The short version of this story is that we were together, me and military guy, for 2 and a 1/2 years. He was overseas in Iraq, and was finally coming back for me, or so I thought. God, in His always infinite wisdom, knew that I had been planning a little "Welcome Back" trip to Colorado for him. There was a women's conference taking place in Fort Mill, NC during the same dates I was planning my trip to Colorado. My favorite worship singer, Rita Springer, was going to be there and it was killing me that I wasn't going to be there because I'd never seen her live before.

I firmly believe that if God wants to lead you somewhere, He'll step in to redirect your path. This seemingly conflicts with free will, but somehow I think it's all reconciled but I'm simply not smart enough to explain how.

I had plans to drive military guy's truck out to Colorado with one of my friends (probably Jenna, I can't remember) and meet him there. These plans were quickly squashed with one epic break-up phone call.

He called one night, and I was gushing with excitement over seeing him, asking how we were going to meet up, making our plans. I could tell he was uneasy. His initial reply was, "I don't think you're going to be coming to Colorado." You know that sinking feeling you get? Yep, that's what I felt.

He informed me that he had been having a second relationship with someone in the military with him. It had been going on for almost a year. His exact words were, "I've got a baby on the way." He shared all of this with me in one epic break-up phone call right before he was coming home for his leave of absence from the field, during which I thought we would be reuniting and planning my move to Colorado and our eventual marriage.

WRONG.

He married her just a month or two later.

Needless to say, after the "epic break-up phone call", North Carolina was in luck. :)



Please come back for Part II of the story in Blog #3 tomorrow and I will reveal the secrets of the journal!
Thank you for reading.

Foster Care & Adoption Blog #1

Above: Kenya 2005

To start off: I really should have done this from the beginning. This colorful journey over the past 7 years that has led my husband and me to what seems like the edge of a sky-dive has been so amazing, God-Directed, and heart-breaking at times. I want to share the journey (though partly in retrospect) with all of you! This is a collection of blogs that illustrate our journey to become Foster and Adoptive Parents. Stay tuned for unadulterated racism from outsiders and the hilarious stories from Foster Care Classes-you won't regret it!

Disclaimer: Has it been easy to lay aside my own desire to have "our own" children and take in someone else's, hoping to graft them into our family? NO. Do I think I'm some kind of superhero because I am laying aside that desire? YES. LOL-NO! Of course not. Honestly, the true reason for this Blog Collection is this: to remind myself of what God has done and what He has said. This is my healing.
I will be posting a daily, or at the least weekly blog to journal the class experience-YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT-TRUST ME. If you've been having a hard time laughing lately, just click on the link to my blog and you won't regret it.
Many of you know the story in part, but to the unsuspecting person who stumbled upon this blog on in a state of depression and despair, this one's for you.

***

How it began: God's Crazy Ideas

Before I met my husband in 2006, I had the heart of a missionary. I had the amazing opportunity to travel and saw things that changed me forever, and I remember solemnly swearing that I would never forget the desperation I witnessed; I promised God that I would be one to help to meet the world's needs. I even wrote myself a letter before I left the mission field and had my team leader send it to me 6 months later so that I could be reminded of my heart's desire, lest I'd already forgotten. Through these experiences, specifically in my travels to Kenya, I heard God calling me to adoption.

This picture paints me as some kind of spiritual giant, but I assure you, I AM NOT. I didn't run off into a field with fluffy white flowers and kittens and cuddle all of the parentless children in the world. I left the mission field and went to back to school, which I loathed with my whole being. For about 2 years it seemed like any kind of spiritually that had mustered itself up in me was sucked out by the Institution of "Higher Education". I didn't spend my days day-dreaming of adopting my ideal child. Instead though I did daydream seemingly hopelessly of having a chance meeting with my future husband(whom, by the way, I didn't know yet) and also indulged myself deep into an eating disorder which consumed my life for the majority of my college years. Sound like adoptive mom material?
***

I was never a "baby-loving" woman. I didn't spend a lot of time with children, was not the kind of girl that just loved being around them. Frankly, I didn't understand them and I don't think most of them really liked me, so I just steered clear of the whole thing. When I was in the mission field I would often laugh to myself at how every place I ended up in, I'd be working with orphans. God has a funny way of planting His seeds-and oh, how I mean that.

***
It was like a faint whisper that I couldn't certainly distinguish-like in those moments on Lake Victoria I could feel the seed being planted in me, deep, deep down. It was the strangest thing-to be very certain of what's to come, but to not yet have the desire, but to desire the desire...

***
Not being a "baby-loving" woman, I didn't think that I would ever become pregnant. I didn't spend much time thinking about the subject since I wasn't even married yet or finished with school, but I always had a sneaking suspicion that God wanted me to adopt so badly, that He would go so far as to shut my womb to make it happen. It was just a little subconscious instinct that I had, but no Doctor's had ever confirmed anything of the sort. I tried to explain this to my family, that I planned to adopt my children someday, and they very obviously brushed it off as a mere whim.
Actually, here's a great story for you:
Recently my Grandmother asked me what I'd been up to lately. I hesitated at first, but then decided to respond with:
"Well, we're doing great! We're getting things ready for our final home visit tomorrow and then we'll be getting licensed to have children in the house!"
Her response: "Oh."
"Well, do you have any new recipes?"

This is what we've been dealing with lately. Your thoughts are most likely, "Well, they're just old school." Yes, this is true, but they're not your typical 85-year olds; they're with it-very with it. I want to excuse their behavior just as badly as you do, but let's face it, some people just suck.


But, you know what?
I'll tell you more in the next post! Thank you for reading Blog # 1.

European Travel

Literally a Place of Grace

Everyone has said that Brunswick County and the surrounding areas are a place of healing. Many people gravitate to the water when they have undergone some kind of tragedy/change and want to start their lives over. It is a curious thing when I think about the people who have moved here, to this place of grace, to start over.

I believe that this is true. You can feel it in your spirit. Where I'm from, in Dayton, Ohio, not many move there to start over. The ones who do move there are often the ones who have lived there before and have family there, and I do believe that some are called there. It is a place of spiritual warfare-you can feel it in your spirit. Not many move to Dayton for healing and grace, not like here. I just think it's so amazing how different places have this different spirit about them, and how I know that God has designed it this way.

My conclusion is that in this place of Grace, we are called to have more grace. The people who are here and who have moved here, God has put here because we need this healing and grace. He wants to pour this Grace into us and it will heal others.

I can feel in my spirit, despite the many recent conflicts at Generations Church, that we are bursting into a time of healing and power.

I come from a very charismatic background. I believe in tongues, the prophetic, all of those things that many traditional Christians here in the south have frowned upon. At my old churches, these things were talked about and encouraged often, so of course you would see people practicing them and it filled the churches.

At Generations, there is no talk of any of this. There is only talk of Grace and Love, and yet the spirit in the church and the worship have become so powerful and spirit-filled that I feel like God Himself could show up at any minute, again, despite the conflicts (which I hope will be healed soon and I know are part of His plan somehow).

The revelation that I'm having is that His grace and love hold the power of deliverance and of all of the gifts of the spirit to follow. It makes the appearance of gifts much more natural when it is truly an overflow of the spirit and not coming about because a preacher has been telling you to do it all morning in a sermon. So amazing, the power.

A New Revelation

I woke up this morning after a night's sleep of coughing, choking, and runny nose from allergies. As you can see from my blog title, I'm not from around here. North Carolinians have dubbed me a "yankee", but in fact I am from the midwest, not a true northerner.

My little sinuses apparently haven't grown accustomed to the pollen saturation that spring brings in the south. In my state of loathing, I've been considering other things that have plagued my mind...my lack of friends in my new life....the ever-struggling relationship with God. I keep trying to get back to "that place" or accept that I won't ever be at that place again and that that's okay. I try to start new with God and relate to Him as my new, more predictable, stable, and boring self in lieu of my old, unpredictable, soaring on waves, God's victim self. I have not learned how to live the Christian life when nothing exciting is going on, when I'm not "sacrificing" for God through missions work or desperately dependent on him to supply my needs when I had no husband to take care of me. Now that I have everything that I need, the eyes of my mind are clouded and I can't see God anymore. I think my husband has become my God...decorating the house...thinking about finishing the house....food....

I was actually reading my Bible this morning-the book of Philippians. This is blasphemous, but I've never really enjoyed the book of Philippians because it is so happy and I just can't grasp it. It is almost annoying to me. The only reason that I did read it is because it was part of my homework for the "Created to be His Help Meet" book that I'm going through. I'm in the chapter on being joyful-practicing being joyful. I don't know if any of you have ever felt this way, but I don't like feeling like I have to brainwash myself to do this whole Christian thing. This is one of my struggles with Christianity-sounds weak and lame-but it's so hard! I've come to the conclusion that my flesh is so beyond control, that the only way to fight it is to beat it into submission by fasting, to make my spirit easier to hear the things of God and my eyes more clear to see the spiritual realm of things. Oh, my old, dear friend the fast. You helped me so.

My revelation today was not about fasting though. I was reading my ever-joyful friend Philippians, and came across the old, cliche scripture that reads, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." And it hit me. When I read this scripture in times past, I immediately associated it with weakness, like, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength in this time when my dad died"....or, if you get sick, lose your job, are having issues in marriage, etc...I never thought about it the other way around. This scripture is apparently saying that He can give me the strength as a rich, blind, deaf, and spoiled brat to know Him. I have no physical need; I cannot get out of this worldly rut that I am in. I never thought that I would be where I am now. I thought I would be God's little victim forever, always in want, always able to relate to Him as my Savior in that sense. Now I find it nearly impossible, finding that I don't need Him anymore. But, I guess I do need Him. It's empty inside. I need Him to give me the faith to believe because I cannot muster it up on my own.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me-be a Christian in the midst of living an absolutely ordinary life.