I heard a quote from Wrestling With an Angel: A Story of Love, Disablity and the Lessons of Grace. It went something like this, “I often hear people saying that God will never give me more than I can handle. But, this is not true. God often gives us more than we can handle. Alone. He will allow trials of all kinds in order to draw us to depend on Him.” It occurs to me too that trying times by definition are difficult by the mere fact that our strength and abilities come up short. We are brought to our knees. We are forced to rest at His feet and cry out that we are totally unable to handle this…alone. Only by His strength and the Truths we rest on and in will we be made strong enough to handle the curves of life.

I am standing today as a living testimony to this truth. After falling into the deep dark pit in which I found myself after our children came home, completely overwhelmed and overcome by the circumstances, I had no personal strength to draw from. There was nothing there. Even my reserves were tapped, and it was weeks, months of prayer and pleading (wrestling with an Angel) before I began the process of standing upright and strong in Him. I”ve said it before, and you know it”s true, just as I did, but adoption is hard work, harder than I ever thought it would be.

It”s also true that His mercies are new every morning and His strength is a renewing one. It”s more than a little scary to say but, in a way, in a singular way, I can honestly say that I”ve arrived. It took a year before I was the mother I thought my children would come home to, and it”s been another 5 months before I can say that I am standing strong and I really love those kids. It”s not that I didn”t love them before, for I can honestly say that I did love them. I loved them before I knew them. I loved them the moment I met them. I chose to continue loving them, over and over I chose, when things were really tough. But, truly, I think I wasn”t capable of really loving them until now. It”s visceral now. Not just a decision or something I knew in my head. My heart is now in the game, and it”s good. Really good.

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California native transplanted to Texas and loving it. Married to the man of my dreams for 18 years. Together, we have two homemade children fondly known as Big Fish 14 and Tuck Tuck 12 and three Ethiopian made: Lady-Bug and Twinkles, both 8 1/2 and Scout 7. Our adoption journey is miraculous. Our children came home to us in June of 2009, and, although the road has been bumpy, we wouldn”t change a thing and we are growing more and more in love everyday! You can follow their story here.

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