Coming to the end of myself.

I know that it has been a little while since we have posted anything, but since my sister-in-law convinced me of the importance of keeping up to date I thought I would take a few minutes to catch up.
The kids and I are still in the U.S. waiting to be able to take our family home to Brazil. We are pretty much just in the waiting phase of this adoption. The seemingly endless homestudies and mountains of paper work are almost complete. We are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Now we just need to pray that the Lord will provide the finances so we can get rolling on the next phase of getting our family home (tickets, passports, and visas). We are praying about taking the kids home in the next month or so and then finalizing the adoption over the phone with a notary. We will just need a few more “mountains” to move in order to be able to do this.
The last few weeks I have had so many moments of freaking out. I start to think about all of the “Hows.” “How are we going to get all of this money together?” “How are we going to survive 6 kids under 6 years old on a plane and in airports for 30 hours?” “How am I going to manage raising 6 kids in Brazil when I had my hands full with 3?” “How, how, how?? Holy cow!!!? What are we doing? What have we gotten ourselves into?!”
It is in my moments of freak out that the Lord is always so faithful to show Himself to me. Not having Nate here has made me count on the Lord so much more. The Lord’s answer to these questions is always the same.
“You can’t do it. It is only by My grace that you are going to get through this.”
The Lord knows that I have a personality that I often need to be brought to the end of myself. I love to figure things out, and get things done. I also have times that I think that I love when people think that I am Super Woman! Haha, it is in these times that the Lord always lets me know that I am nothing without Him.
I remember a few months before I came back to visit the U.S.I had a time of being brought to the end of myself. It was shortly after EZ was born so I was still not feeling well after the surgery. It was almost dark, Nate was at a friend’s house, and I was alone with our 3 kids. I was just cleaning up and I heard our pittbull barking. I looked out the window and saw three guys trying to break into our house. I was a little scared because I was pretty sure that these were the same guys that had broke into my girlfriends house a few nights before. Poor thing, she woke up alone in the middle of the night with the guy just standing by her bed. The Lord had given her courage and protected her, but I was afraid of these guys boldness.
I went to the back window and started screaming for our neighbor to come and help but because of the strong wind that night they could not hear me. I gathered my kids, put them in their room, and then went to see if the guys had gotten in. I listened to the guys argue about how they were going to get by my dog. I started to scream again and my dog made it pretty clear that she was not going to let them just pass by. I am not exactly sure why, but they decided to go. Praise the Lord!
Nate came home a little later but the guys were gone. As I sat in my “bathtub” (a little plastic box filled with water) that night I began to think about what would have, or could have happened if the guys had gotten in. How would I have protected my kids when I was still sore from surgery? In that moment of emotions I started to cry.
“Lord, what are you doing?!” I asked “I have done everything that you have asked me to do! I moved here, I learned how to live here, I went through those terrible pregnancies, I have been poor, I have seen so many bad things - even my kids have seen so many bad things. I have had my pets taken hostage, other pets killed. We have had crazy people tell us that they were going to hurt our kids. We have watched adults get beat up, we have watched kids get beat up. I have opened up my home to people I don’t even know.. I have tried to always do what I thought it was that You wanted me to be doing. I LOVE it here Lord, but I am so tired. Please God, I don’t want to do this anymore. Please just send someone else. I am done. I can’t do this!”
As I sat there crying the Lord starting to speak to me. “I know that you can’t do this, but I know that I can.” It was then that I was reminded that the Lord does not need me. I am blessed to be able to be used by Him, but it should always be Jesus doing the work. I am just the vessel .
I think that I always have knows this simple truth, but because of my thick head I need to be often reminded of it. It is an awesome thing that the Lord would choose me to serve Him. I guess when He said He would use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise He was not kidding!
Please pray for us this next month as I am sure that Nathan and I both are going to have many moments of coming to the end of ourselves.
The Lord has already done so many miracles during this journey to adopt. I know that He would not have brought us this far unless He was going to be faithful to bring us to the end!

“Thank you Lord for your faithfulness. Thank you Lord for reminding me that without you I am nothing. Thanks for being my EVERYTHING! I love you.”