I mean, honestly....

Sometimes I struggle to see God providing. We have watched so many friends adopt and God does something amazing and it makes it clear they are on the right path. I mean, sometimes we have little things but nothing major where it is so clearly the Lord. That was, until last Saturday...

We had our garage sale. I was so tired because Mike had foot surgery Friday and I was doing all the organizing on Friday. I even slept in my car the night before because I didn't want to have to put it all back to just bring it out the next morning. I'm a little lazy. I woke up at 5am, got showered and dressed. Ran to grab coffee and donuts and started working. 6am, our first friends arrive. I mean, 6 am on a Saturday. By 7:30 we had a TON of our amazing friends there to help. Things got rolling and my parents came to help and the yard sale people were out in full swing with pockets full of singles!

Our friend Tricia kept giving us a count update on the cash....our first count after only a few hours was almost $1100.....WHAT?!?!? We could have packed it up and been done I was so happy with that amount. My goal was $800...Mike's was $1250. We were already over mine and almost to his!

At 3pm the amount was well over $2000 and we still had people coming. After wrapping up and having my parents and a few friends load up to drop the rest off at savers, we counted and the amount was also $2400!!! I mean, honestly! I don't even know how that happened! We had a lot of stuff but that amount just seems insane for a garage sale.

But nothing is too big for God!

So what now? We needed $8200 to start getting matched with a birth mom and after the sale and the little bit we have in our bank account, we are almost half way there! And in a couple weeks we should hear from the adoption grant we applied for and are praying that God provides just the right amount for us to move forward with getting matched!

I mean, honestly....God is good and is making it so clear that our pursuit of this adoption is what he wants for us. Praise the Lord for providing friends and family who are willing to help and the generosity of so many to give things to sell. So many to thank.

Am I nervous to adopt again?

Yes. I could sugar coat this but yes I'm nervous. I have so many fears that I will mess up again or that I will let fear grip me in ways in which make it so I can hardly breathe. I'm scared that I will hurt our family or disappoint those watching us do this.

So why are we doing this? And how am I coping and managing the fear?

We are adopting again for so many reasons. We want to grow our family and adoption is the way we do that. We want to follow God's leading, no matter the fear. After what happened last year, I don't want fear to grip me and hold me back from doing the things that He desires for my life and our family. And we feel like pursuing another domestic adoption is where God has us. I have a heart for the birth moms who choose life and choose adoption for their child. This is a selfless act of love that I feel honored to have witnessed firsthand over 5 years ago. Getting to experience this again and to support, love, and respect another amazing woman in this process is moving and such a joy and blessing.

Right now there are verses I am meditating on and my amazing husband is pointing me to Christ so often in those moments. These are huge helps on processing the fear.

Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

1 Peter 5:6-7 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."

James 1:2-4 "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

I mean, I could pick all of James. But these verses stand out to me in James because I believe that God wants to show me that He will work in my life through the good and the bad times. He will draw me closer to Him, giving me all I need. This is a concept I have struggled with pretty much all my life. Trusting Him and he will not only take care of me but he will also draw me closer to him in the process. This used to feel like an unimaginable concept to me. But I'm getting it so much more. Only through God can I put all my fears and he will give me everything I need to continue moving forward.

And lastly, I'm talking about my fears more. I'm being honest with Mike, friends and our amazing grace group. I'm thinking ahead what I might feel as we move forward with a match or a baby being born. And truthfully, my having a heart for birth moms tends to produce some guilt on my part and I'm nervous about that feeling again. When Emsley was born, I felt guilty for taking her away from her birth mom. It affected my immediate attachment. But this time around, I know I might feel that way again but I know what those feelings are and can process them so much better. And if you haven't met Michelle Dettman from Adoption Center of Hope (our coordinator for both Emlsey's adoption and this one!) you will know that this woman loves these birth moms and helps them process well. She knows my heart and walked through life with us all those years ago.

Having a great support system is key this time around. I have friends asking us how we are doing. Pointing us to Christ. Reminding us we aren't alone. This is vital to conquer the fear. God calls us to not only cast our anxieties on him but to also carry each others. I'm seeing how essential this is for my life. To allow others to walk through something that I'm nervous about and let them pray with us and speak God's truth in our lives. I realized I can't just live a life of comfort and do all the easy things. God wants us to be challenged and through those moments is where we learn to lean on Him in the most necessary ways.

So yes, I'm nervous but I trust that God has us in this place for a reason.

To my kindergartner...

Dear Emsley,

In just a couple very short weeks you start a new and exciting journey. It feels like just yesterday we brought you home from the hospital and you needed me to change you, feed you, entertain you, and help you learn about the world. Now you are heading off to kindergarten and you sweet girl, are ready and already do those things all by yourself.

I love watching you learn new things and teaching yourself how to ride a two wheeler, tie your shoes, snap, whistle, and even swim. You are so determined and focused in all you put your mind to. It is such a joy to watch your sweet personality bloom and yet sad to see all the ways in which you don't need me to help you. When did you grow up to be such a big girl? This new chapter of your life seems like a huge step. School will now be a part of your life till you are a grown up. Learning and developing friendships in school will now just be part of your normal.

I'm going to miss so many things about the last 5 years we have had together. I'm going to miss waking up in the morning and just sitting together eating breakfast and having no where to be but with each other. I'm going to miss reading to you the same favorite books over and over again. I'm going to miss the days when we have no plans and end up running errands or drive around on a special adventure together. You are my favorite person to be with and do lots and do nothing with. But these things aren't completely gone. We can still have these special times together after school. We can still have special mommy/Emsley afternoons just being together.

But as sad as I may feel to let you grow up, oh Emsley, you are so ready. I want to be strong for you so you go into that first day with confidence and no fear. That you walk in and show what an amazingly strong, beautiful, kind, and intelligent little girl you are. I will hold so many tears back, as I'm doing right now just typing this out. But know that I am so happy for you and for the wonderful things you will learn and memories you will make.

There will be days baby that will be hard. Kids might be mean to you and you will hear and learn things that I wish I could shelter you from forever. But I don't want to hide you from the world but let you learn about it on your own and then come home and talk to me about it. And if school is hard, ask for help and try your best. Your daddy and I are here to help you as much as we can. And never forget that in your life, we will always be cheering you on for success. Don't let the struggles in school bring you down but let it light a fire in you to try harder and to strive for greatness.

I want you to walk into that class at your new school and show the sweet and amazingly huge heart you have. I have loved seeing you care for others and hate when bad things happen to you or your friends. Keep that big heart girl. Go to school each day finding ways to love others well. Show them the love that Jesus has shown you. Be the light in a dark world. When others tear down, find ways to build others up. This won't be easy but trust that this is how the Lord desires your heart to be.

Each day when you come home, know that home is safe and a hug and a cookie are waiting for you. So here we go Emsley Bee. Off to this big adventure. My girl is going to be great and I am so blessed to be able to watch you as you jump head first.

I love you with all my heart sweetheart.

Love, Mommy

You and daddy walking around Stanford. Maybe in 13 years we will be dropping you off there for college. Oh man.

Baby steps

I feel like this is the only way to describe how our family will be growing...in baby steps. We have some great friends who wanted to get together with us to talk about our family. We went over one night and they asked the hard questions: do we BOTH want more kids? do we BOTH want to adopt a baby or do foster care? And then some....but it was so good for us to be thinking these things through. And what came of that time was that Mike just wants at least one more kid (or 20 if he has his say!) and I want the process to be as close to what we would have experienced if we got pregnant. The process is important for me and the growth is important to Mike. That is something we never realized. I mean, I think having gone through infertility it has definitely made me sad that we didn't get to grow our family organically. We didn't get to get pregnant, wait 9 months, meet our baby, then wait a couple years and start the process over. Our process just isn't that easy. We have to save us for adoption fees, fill out a terrible amount of paperwork, get poked and prodded, scanned and tested, then make a profile book, hope a birth mom chooses us, then after a possibly awkward meeting with birth mom, we might get matched and wait till baby is born. Then there is more waiting to see if birth mom doesn't change her mind, then more meetings, and paperwork while we wait for a finalization court date. I mean, I'm tired just typing that out!

So my desire to at least imitate parts of the natural process is important. Even with the money, paperwork, and waiting, the baby part is something I love. I miss Emsley being a baby. Every once in a while I will look at my almost 5 year old girl and feel sad that time is going so fast. She is going to be in Kindergarten soon and yet it feels like just yesterday she was dancing in her diapers with me!

I want to have at least one more kid, to give Emsley a little brother or sister. I can't think beyond one more. It is too much for me! But I love when I see Emsley with babies and loves them so much. She will be a wonderful big sister. So right now, the Wises are filling out paperwork and finishing up our profile book to get our home study going. We have no money but a lot of faith that God provides. And he does and already has! Someone left us a large anonymous check at our house one day and it just reminded us that God is here. This process could take a while, and it doesn't help that we are both working, have a sweet girl who needs and wants our attention, and a life of house stuff, colds, friends to spend time with, and church things going on. But we will get it done and hopefully have more updates.

I still get nervous of whether I can love more than just Emsley but those fears are not of the Lord. I know unconditional love from no one else but Him and plan to show that to my daughter and any other children God decides to bring into our family.

So for now, pray for us that we get our butts in gear and for the birth mom that could be pregnant right now with our child. That God would minister to her heart in a big way and prepare us to love her as well. This is the part of adoption I love. The relationship that God allows to happen with this woman who will forever be in our hearts.

Our year.

I don't even know where to begin in writing this post. So much has happened to our family over the last year. 

One year ago we were finishing up some upgrades to our house in hopes of getting a referral from our foster care agency. I didn't think too much about it all and was pretty happy with our family but this was the path we were on so I was going to trudge along with it. In April we got a referral for a sibling set of 3 kids, ages 4, 6, and 10. They looked like sweet kids and we said yes. No praying about it, we did talk about it and how great it would be to have older kids and not having to start over. Nothing huge and nothing built on the foundation of Christ. Of course, I didn't see it that way in the midst of it. Most of what I learned from that time was after the fact. Wait, let me get back to our referral...

In early May we met the kids at the park. We played with them and had a good time. We left that hour and went home with Emsley. Mike felt sad to have had to say goodbye. I felt relieved. Playing and interacting with 4 kids was overwhelming, especially since they were strangers and the two older were ages I didn't know how to be around (as a mom). But I pushed those feelings down and didn't take them to the Lord. In my life, when I feel scared or alone I knew I could always count on....ME. Boy did I learn how wrong that was.

5 days later the youngest boy came to live with us. It was a tough transition but it was only 1 more kid and even though I didn't attach quick, him being there was good. Emsley had someone to play with and he was a sweet guy. Not even 2 days after that, we picked up the older two and had a weekend visit at our house. The second we got back to our house I was overwhelmed. That might be under exaggerating how I felt. Mike was so happy to have a full house (he is used to chaos of 4 kids!) and I was crying in the bathroom, garage, backyard, my car, anywhere I could find privacy. I missed Emsley. I missed Mike. And the ME that I talked about being all I needed to count on, quickly wasn't cutting it.

The day the kids left from that weekend was mother's day. It was a HARD day but them leaving was relieving. Then I spent the next week dreading the next weekend long visit. I mean, I lost 8 pounds in just a week and wasn't eating or sleeping. I also wasn't praying. I mean, that should have been my indicator. Mike and I weren't doing well. He was hurt at how I was feeling and I was hurt that he couldn't see me slipping away.

The next weekend visit came and went and more anxiety, weight loss, and depression followed. Friends saw how I was affected and got involved because they were concerned. Mike and I spent a few days not talking, more for space to think and pray than to just not talk. I felt scared that we were going to divorce if I stopped this and scared that I would never recover if we went through with it. I was between a rock and a hard place. Notice, that I only went to God when I needed something specific. Not just needing to be with my God. Through the good and bad. 

After time to think and pray, we (somewhat reluctantly) decided to not move forward with placement. The little guy would move back with his foster mom that he had lived with for the last 18 months. The other kids would be told that we would not be moving forward. Everything was a mess. I hated myself and what I did to these kids, to Emsley, Mike, myself, the Lord. I mean, I thought he was calling us to do this and yet he didn't help me. And now I would have to go to church every Sunday and our adoption ministry one time a month and face our friends knowing what a failure I have become. I failed everyone. I tell people they should adopt but then can't even do it myself. I tell people to trust God in the hard times yet here I was not doing it.

The next 6 months were spent feeling distant to my own life. I felt distant from some friends because surely they hated me for what I did. For giving up on these kids. I felt distant from Mike. For so many reasons but this is a man who has a passion for the fatherless and I failed him in every way possible. But he still loved me and some days I just didn't know why. Why would anyone like me now? Why would they want to be my friend? Why would anyone ever support us if we decided to adopt again? Wouldn't we just hurt more kids? Oh and I still think most of these things, but something key has changed in my thinking.

I need God. I need him with every breath I take. I need him when times are happy and we are doing well, I need him when I feel myself falling apart and living in fear, doubt, guilt, and pain. But more importantly, he needs me to trust him. Kim Wise is not going to be able to support Kim Wise. I can only do that by trusting God to provide for us, lead us, sustain us, and love us. That may mean that I walk into hard situations. That may mean that I doubt again and struggle against my very sinful nature. But now something deep within my soul, there is an ache for Christ. There is a need to learn more about him, lean on him, pour my heart out to him, praise his name, and sit quietly before him.

So where are the Wise's now? Mike and I have forgiven each other in the ways we failed each other and asked forgiveness for God first in those areas. We have taken our desires, fears, dreams, and struggles before him and rested. We still have work to do but we are communicating better in all things and loving each other in that truth.

I know that people will still not understand how we could have done what we did. But please love us still. We are all so sinful and make bad decisions but Christ calls us to love each other and carry one another's burdens. We have learned so much in this time and I will spend my life reflecting back on May of 2015 wondering what went wrong and what I could have done better.  I came across a blogpost by a momma who had something similar happen to her when fostering. And a line really stuck with me. She said, "A scar that is there because I didn't know my limits, and I didn't ask for help when I should have." I will have a scar from that time that will live with me always and so will those 3 sweet kiddos who I am happy to say have been matched with another family ( whom I pray for regularly). But Christ can use those scars to teach us and remind us of his goodness, forgiveness, and grace. I'm not going to let this experience make me forget that I am washed white as snow by the one who loves me as the horrible, sinful, woman that I am. His mercies are new every morning and for that, I can look forward with joy in my heart and a little bit of healing each day.