He is Greater.....John 3:30 says He must become greater, I must become less"

Tomorrow is my mama's birthday.  When I think about her, I smile.  She is.....ferocious.  She is captivating.  She is smart and talented and full of compassion.  She is beautiful.  She is a leader and she is a follower of Jesus.  It is an amazing thing, that I was allowed to have her as my mom.  Because she was and is my mom, I have a responsibility in this world.  I need to reach out to all those babies that didn't get what I got when God made her my mom.  She did so much of it right.  My first baby is named after her.  Claire Barbara is named because my mom, Nana Barb, was so happy for me when I got pregnant the first time and started my journey as a mom.  She slept in make-up for many nights because I was overdue.  She knew I would call her when we were ready to welcome our baby into the world.  When Claire was ready to be born, we called her and she was at the hospital in minutes.....in full makeup with lipstick even, so that she could be ready to receive this child.....

Tonight I dropped Claire off at the local college for an overnight/college visit.  She has had 2 college visits before this one and for both of them I felt excited for her, eager to hear her thoughts.  Tonight was different.  I watched her walk toward the student center and my throat got tight.  Tears filled my eyes.  This is really happening now.  We aren't just talking about college visits.  She is making plans to go to college.  She will leave home soon.  I don't want her to go.  I don't want her to stay forever either, but I really don't feel ready to let her go.  I like her.  I like having her around.  I enjoy her presence.  I will miss her so, so much.  When I was her age, it was different.  I wanted to leave and go as far away as I could.  I could not wait to go.  I was in a different place than she is.  I was troubled and hurting.  I didn't know who I was or what I should be doing.  I was not following the Lord.  Claire is.  She so much is following the L

2 Corinthians 10:5 says "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."  I have written about this before but I am doing it again.  In seasons of my life where this tool is needed, I will probably always share it again and again.  I first learned this passage when I was learning about spiritual warfare.  I was reading a book and the author shared this.  He said, when you are feeling attacked in your thought life, take those thoughts captive in obedience to Christ.  I began to use this phrase whenever thoughts popped into my head that were unwelcome and dangerous and negative.  Initially it was hard to form the phrase (because the devil wants it to be hard) and so I had to write it out on paper and then read it to myself when the bad thoughts came to mind......I take these thoughts captive in obedience to Christ........and I would sometimes have to say it over and

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  This weekend we were out of town, in Omaha, which is a larger city.  There is more cultural and ethnic diversity in Omaha.  Sometimes I wish we lived in a place like this, where there were lots of different colors of skin, and lots of different ways to do life.  I think our adopted children would do better if we lived somewhere that had more black people, more mixed racial genetics.....but this is where we are, for now. When we were at the mall, and out for dinner we got plenty of curious looks.  We are a crazy mix of family.  Old parents.  Blond teen-agers.  Dark-skinned littles....and we just do it.  We are family.  This is the mix we were given.  Adoption is a crazy thing.  It is a glorious and beautiful tragedy.   I love our adopted kiddos so much that I wish their birth parents could have stayed the course and parented them.  I do.  I want them to have had that complete experience of growing up with the people who made them.  Because th

Gospel is defined this way:  1.  The teaching or revelation of Christ.  2.  The record of Jesus life and teaching in the first four books of the New Testament.  My little guy Josiah came walking into the dining room today where Claire and I were sitting at the table.  He said, "mom do you know what gospel means?"   I said, yes.  I do.  But tell me.  What does Gospel mean?  and he said, " it means the bible"......and it was so sweet and innocent and honest.  I asked him to go out and come in and say it again so that I could video tape him saying it.  I wanted to remember him asking me if I knew what gospel means......forever.  We video taped it and while he was repeating it and as he was talking he.....tooted.....we got the giggles....then we kept taping and talking and you can see him drooling while he sucked on his squirty yogurt tube.   I asked him where he learned that word and he said"  preschool". In this family, and in this community....you ge

In the world of adoption, there are many different spokes in the wheels.  There are the obvious things, like the birth family, adoptive family, social worker, child, etc.  But folks.....there are so many more moving parts......like the people who walk alongside families to help finance adoption.  Grant agencies.  Private donations. Fund raising efforts.    These are very real and necessary pieces of adoption.  With both of our adoptions, we did not have a nest egg saved up when we began the process.  We were struggling financially, both times.  It seemed crazy that God would nudge us to step out and do the applications, fill out the forms, prepare for the home study visits.....knowing we did not have the money.  In our community, Katelyn's Fund is a huge funding source, giving grants to dozens of families every year.  This fund comes from church donations, fund-raising, private gifts, pumpkin sales, sweet corn sales in July......you name it, they will try it.  There are other re

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  I remember when we were first married we went to Des Moines and toured the capitol building for some reason.  There were Adoption awareness posters and information stands all over the place....and I was so excited to point them all out to my newlywed husband.  See?  See!  He doesn't use as many words as I do in a day.  If memory serves me, he just nodded and said very little.  I'm sure inside of himself he was saying......"here we go!".  November is Adoption Awareness Month.  We recognize orphans and the need for orphan care on Orphan Sunday in November.  Our local support group, Katelyn's Fund, does a fund-raising auction the first Friday of every November.  Adoptive families post photos of their families and recognize the reality of adoption.  We celebrate the beautiful reality of adoption and how we are growing families through adoption.....and we understand the sacrifices made in the name of adoption.  Birth families