You can see from my previous post that on April 8, Kellen was taken from us. We were devastated and were not sure how to continue living a normal life. We tried to hide our grief the best we could, mostly because we were tired of everyone feeling sorry for us and we sort of felt like a burden to everyone we know. As the weeks passed, it got easier but was immensely painful. The emotional pain manifested itself to physical pain that I could only manage by working out with a personal trainer. Little did I know what was in store.
K was returned to us on May 17th. Long story short - the birth dad didn't show up to 3 of 4 hearings and even though the DNA test was positive, he didn't establish paternity with the court. Once Kellen was returned to us the birth dad had 30 days to appeal, and he did not. We finalized our adoption on June 17!
Kellen is FOREVER ours!
I have been putting off updating my blog until the adoption was final. Once it was final I had a desire to update but wasn't sure what I wanted to start with. The conclusion I have come to is, first and foremost, I need to give credit to the God I believe in, and immeasurable thanks to those who prayed for, thought about and lifted us up during the most difficult time of our entire lives.
Two years ago I had a conversation with a dear friend & mentor of mine - this is a woman who I want to be like as a mother, a professional and a wife. The conversation was about having a testimony and how I began to pray for a testimony.
I have been a Christian my entire life. I believe in God, I believe in the trinity, and I believe in Jesus - as the savior. I have always believed because I have had personal experiences & circumstances throughout my entire life in which God has revealed himself to me. Over the years I have heard people just say I am spoiled or I am lucky because things just work out for me. Trust me - I am not lucky if you knew the circumstances in which I grew up and the things I endured as a child, you would never say I am lucky. What I do have though are many years of hand written journals that prove this - there is not a single prayer I have prayed that has not been answered. Those answered prayers are great for me - but those prayers never really had a profound impact on others. I prayed for wisdom to make better decisions and to have knowledge to be successful. I have prayed for circumstances in our friends, families and co-workers lives over the years and all those prayers have been answered so far. But - I still felt like something was missing and I could never put my finger on it.
One day I had a revelation: I was missing that thing that made my life itself a testimony worthy of such an amazing God. I have seen many people completely transformed by God - Hellions turned to Saints - working to show people the love of Christ, when all they used to do in the past was hurt people and commit crimes. These people had the "it" thing I was missing. Their conversion to Christianity profoundly changed them and they became a living example of what Christ can do. I just never felt like my life had a profound effect on others.
Kellen is my testimony. Kellen is Matt's testimony. Kellen is a miracle. There is no other explanation for how I made it through the last two years. I spent hours in the Bible, hours praying for strength, hours praying for patience, hours praying for clarity of mind, hours praying for my office and the people I work with, hours praying for my husband, hours praying for my unborn child, hours praying for God to cover our finances and keep us from harm, I devoted time to trying to learn the things I needed to change about me, I walked this valley with every possible weight on my shoulders that I could think of and there were times I just knew I couldn't go on any longer. I busted out the worship music, stomped on the devil's head and low and behold God held me up and I kept on going. I stumbled and I fell, God picked me up and we repeated this cycle many many times (sometimes it was God putting the right people in my life at the right times) but I never stopped believing something was going to happen and this would all end. When it did, God's glory would be revealed to a lot of people.
Once Kellen was taken from us, I didn't think we would get him back, but I thought something else would happen that would eventually lead to a bigger reveal. My left brain and right brain were fighting constantly - I was exhausted and was in a deep dark place that I believe may have lead to insanity. One day I felt like God spoke to my heart - just stop. Stop it all; stop trying, stop praying, stop reading your bible, stop journal-ing and try to just hear me. I quit cold turkey! It was hard because this went against everything I knew. Guess what - three days later, we got the call the Kellen was coming home. I continued this practice of stopping, which seems strange right?! Stop praying? Who does that, well - ME.
God was trying to tell me my relationship was not supposed to be based on working so hard. I should just have faith. I had all the knowledge a person needs to apply biblical principles to their life. What I lacked, just pure unadulterated faith. My faith was small - it just didn't seem Kellen would be returned, after every thing we went through it just did not seem like it was ever going to work out. Oh ye of little faith - that was me. But - the bible says in Mathew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." the only stipulation is - YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO HAVE FAITH IN GOD. Many people pray and say God "prove to me you exist by doing...(insert prayer here)." God is saying, "I don't have to prove to you I exist, I just do - let me answer your prayers - just believe that I can & will." Once I finally learned this...I reached my Gilgal, and God worked his miracle.
This is not a "how to get what you want from God instruction post" - it is just a testimony that God is there and when you believe him he does what he says he will do.
While I believe God made this happen, like I said earlier, I cannot thank everyone who prayed for us the numbers are far to large.
I do want to thank Milah for sending me a mothers day card - of all days this day was horrible for me. For years, the one thing I wanted more than anything was to be a mom and experience mothers day. Her card, probably saved my life. It may seem like lip service to say that, but the loss I felt was excruciating and as terrible as this is to admit, thoughts of taking my life occurred on more than one occasion. Until now, I felt too ashamed to admit it. But what I have learned is, with all things in life, someone, somewhere is experiencing their own difficulties but just maybe I can help that someone by telling my story.
