It's the Little Things

Lately it's felt like life has been put on hold. It seems like everything is hinged on the phrase "when the adoption is over." Especially things involving money.

I'm not a big spender. Never have been. We never had a lot of money growing up and I was taught to be smart with the money I did have. This has carried into my adulthood. I go clothes shopping for myself once in a blue moon. I find unless I can get something for a good deal, I don't want to spend the money on it. That being said, we do like to spend money on outings, as a family or just John and I. We like to treat ourselves once and a while. Since we've been saving for the adoption though, we've made ourselves cut back and only spend money on the necessities (groceries, gas, you know, the FUN stuff).

Especially lately, this has been hard. My parents and brother are leaving in a few weeks to go to Belize to visit my sister. If we were not saving for the adoption, we would be going too. I am sad about this. Of course, I want a baby more, but I am sad to be missing out on the memories they will be making (and the hot weather). Plus I just miss my sister.

I feel bad saying this stuff. I am beyond grateful that God has led us to adopt again and that we are in a place where we ARE able to put money away towards it. I know how blessed we are. Especially today.

Lately God has been bringing little things into our lives to help us lighten the load. Last week a man in our church received a $100 grocery card as a gift, and he passed it on to us. My sister-in-law was cleaning out her freezer and had more hamburger meat then they knew what to do with, so she gave a bunch to us. I have so appreciated all of these gestures. I've realized that some people can't give straight out of their pockets, but helping in ways like this is just as good! Today we received another very special blessing! Our youth pastor has a ski trip planned for this Sat for the youth and anyone else who wanted to join. We so badly wanted to go, and it wasn't even going to cost that much. We talked it over and decided as much as we wanted to, we should just say no this time. Today we were approached by a lady in church who asked us if we liked to ski. I said yes, and she said she wanted to pay for us to go skiing this Saturday.

I cried right there. It's not like this ski trip was a once in a life time opportunity, but it was something that I thought would be fun and I truly believe that God likes to give us gifts to make us happy. He used this person to give us a wonderful gift. It made my day and now I'm really looking forward to Saturday!

So I guess I'm trying to say thank you. Thank you for lightening the load for us. Thank you for praying for us and for our baby. Thank you for being the body of Christ to us in a real way.