Sticks and Bricks & Sticks and Stones

The initial pain of letting go of the house is slowly subsiding. It's only "Sticks and Bricks" as Sara calls it. I'm reminded of a line from a Mat Kearney song where he says "When all is lost, all is left to gain". I like that. Now that this piece is complete, I feel like we can move on and meet the next challenge the Lord has for us.

Speaking of the next challenge, that came and hit us broadside this morning. A personal matter that left our family reeling and wondering where the cameras were hidden. I would never compare our present trials to Job (what he went through far exceeds our perceived "problems"), but it's the similar one-after-the-other nature that leaves us scratching our heads. It seems the deeper we go in this journey, the thicker the foliage gets and the heavier the air presses on our lungs. God's not ready for us to start relying on our own strength yet.

I am amazed at the lenses by which we all view the world. It's like those optical illusions where one person sees an image of two people looking at each other and the other person sees a skull or something like that. How our past experiences and our life journey color the way we see the world. I've never been involved in a situation where this truth has played out so dramatically than this morning.

To burn off some of that energy, I grabbed my running shoes and hit to the streets, my favorite place to meet with the Lord. Whenever I enter into confrontations, afterwards I try to examine my behavior in the light of my Savior and his actions when on this Earth. You know what I think is interesting? The only times you find Jesus ripping into people is when the religious leaders and those who would make a mockery of the temple of the Lord were serving their own self-interests over those of the Lord. He saved his choice words for the "evil doers" who were intentionally distorting the truth and deceiving the people for their own empowerment. Yet for everyone else, the everyday person struggling with everyday difficulties and everyday sins He had a completely different approach. A direct rebuke, yet full of love and compassion. When Jesus tells the Samaritan adulteress at the well to "go and sin no more", you can tell that he really cared about her. That he loved her. He didn't pull any punches with the rich young ruler when he told him to "go and sell everything you have and give to the poor", but you always knew that he had his best interests in mind, the eternal and not the temporal. Up to the end, even when the crowd was hurling insults at him, spitting at him as he hung on the cross, his answer still dripped with compassion. "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." How powerful is that? And as I pounded out the miles, this statement reverberated in my mind. My response to the morning's onslaught needs to be the same. How we move forward from here to reconciliation only time will tell.

But as I neared the end of the run, I had to smile as the Holy Spirit, "the comforter", revealed to me that even this morning's events were part of his plan. Our God is bigger than we can fathom, and no situation that he allows is without its purpose. And while I am still trying to grasp the crux of this one, I know one thing. It has pulled our family even closer together than before and drawn us ever closer to the Lord. And that is always a good thing.

I read this statement in a devotional just given to me yesterday by a friend, and it stuck in my mind today. In regard to Jonah's prayer of thanksgiving while in the belly of the great fish, "The time to express gratitude to God is when in the darkness, not after deliverance." These words are incredible, and so true. To that, I say "Thank you God that you are with us during this time, and that you promise you will never leave us. Thank you God because we know that your hand will lead us out of this darkness."

JP

Up We Go

It's a fittingly cloudy day as I am sitting on my front porch for the last time, writing what will be the last in a string of entries from this house covering 2 adoptions and a complete spiritual transformation. I have been dreading this day for a long time. I had to take a deep breath before opening the door so the county rep could walk through and confirm that it was vacated. I had to hold back tears as I was signing the papers. The key ring feels noticeably lighter in my pocket. I walked around the outside one last time and was greeted with a flood of memories...all good. We moved here when Isaac was two and Benjamin was one. Ethan was born here. Elijah and Micah joined our family here. I can't fully explain it, but it is almost like leaving a member of the family behind. An always silent, but nevertheless important member. If I knew exactly what the future held, it might be a little easier. But I leave here with a few dollars in the bank, the strength of five resilient boys and an amazing wife alongside me, and faith in a God that promises He will be with us through the valleys. As I sit here on the cold asphalt step, I feel we have reached the floor of that valley. But the reality is there is no way to go but back up. And that's a good thing. Lord give us the strength as we begin the climb...

JP

One Chapter Down, The Next One Begins

To update you all, we have officially moved out of our house. Saturday morning we said goodbye to our home for the last 10 years and moved our belongings into storage in Camarillo. It was definitely emotional, but we fully expected that. Saturday afternoon we hit the road for Wisconsin by way of Arkansas to pick up Sara's mom. I flew back to California mere hours after arriving in AR on Monday afternoon, while Sara continued the trek to WI. I am staying with friends until Christmas, when I will fly to Wisconsin and bring the family back to CA. We are working on a few ideas for where to go when we get back. As soon as we have something solid, we will definitely update. Right now we are praying our way through this.

We want to thank everyone who has given us encouragement and support. You don't know how much it means to us. Back when Sara and I set out on our adoption journey, it was first a dedication of our lives fully to bringing glory to God. We knew that when the adoptions were completed, that our dedication was not to end there. So here we stand, in a place we never thought we would be in circumstances we never thought we would find ourselves in. But our call hasn't changed. And while I don't know what tomorrow holds, I am praying for courage and the faith to trust that this is all a part of that call. And knowing my personality, it was going to take something extreme like this to get me to move on and step forward to the next chapter of our story. And I am confident that this one is going to radiate His glory even more brightly than the last...

JP