What if's, why's and acceptance

Disclosure: This is a bit of a ramble! :) Good luck reading!

All of us live with "what if"s and asking "why" when things don't seem to go as one might think they should. I don't think any of us can go through our lives without wondering that, multiple times. I don't believe that it's wrong to wonder that or ask those questions. But I don't think it's healthy to dwell on them. God asks us to trust Him. With EVERYTHING. Not just the little things, but the big things too!

This was my Facebook status today: "Today I am meditating on the promises of God today and especially Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Thinking back 4 years ago this week when we found out we were pregnant with our second child and the joy and thankfulness we felt, even though 4 days later God called our baby home. If we hadn't had to go though that we wouldn't have our Karis! God truly worked all things out for good and His GLORY! It's weird to think that we might have had a 4yr old, 3 yr old and our 17 month old!"
 
Re-reading that, I can feel all the what ifs and whys creep up. What would life have been like if God had allowed us to keep both of our precious babies? What would it be like being the mother of 3 little ones? What would it have been like to experience a full term pregnancy? Immediately I have to push those thoughts aside because they are not profitable one little bit! They don't help me focus on what life is like today. I can't live in the past and still be healthy emotionally.

I think one of my first blogs was on clinging to the promises of God. Deuteronomy 3:16 is one that I cling to daily. In good times and in bad God is ALWAYS with me. When my heart is rejoicing: God is with me. When my heart is breaking and shattering into a million tiny pieces: God is with me. 

Psalm 139 says it beautifully. (I encourage you to look up and read the whole chapter!)

"⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you."

There is NO WHERE that I can go that God isn't. Even if I wanted to run and hide from Him I can't. What comfort that is! No matter how dark things may feel I never have to fear being alone. 

Plans. We all make them. We all know how we'd like life to turn out, what we want our days, weeks, months and years to hold.We heard a sermon from our church back in CA this weekend about making plans. The biblical way to make plans is to turn our plans over to God and preference them with "God willing". How true this is. We can make all the plans we possible can but if it's not God's will it won't come to be. This is something that both Cheyenne and I have always committed to do! So as we make plans, we always say "Deo volente" which is Latin for "God willing".
 
If life had gone according to my plan life would be very different that it looks today. Would it be better? Most likely not! I'd have missed out on so many valuable life lessons God has taught me BECAUSE of trials I had to go through. If life were easy with no pain then what would I learn? Going through these trials that my family has gone through the past few years has grown me and caused me to trust God with ALL aspects of my life. Things that I used to try to hang on to, to control, to try to make happen myself; I've released them to God.

This week I've been watching so many of my friends post pictures of their kids first days at school. It's an exiting time! I always loved the first day of school when I was teaching and seeing all the new students both excited and nervous!  This week it feels a little bitter sweet, and I think this is a little of what spurred on all these different feelings in this post today. Would our first-born be starting pre-k this week? Would our second be starting preschool? What would life be like if...? If what though is what the question really is. If God didn't know what was best for me? I never want to live a life like that! And so I choose to live in the present, where trusting God means allowing trials to come but not to let them take away my faith in my sovereign God.

Romans 8:28 (NIV) ^" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

The acceptance part:
 I've had a few people ask my how I can possibly believe that loosing two of my precious babies could ever be worked for good. That's a great question. I've struggled with that often, but never questioned that God is in control. How can God taking something so painful and turn it into something beautiful?
When we miscarried our first baby I had some friends think that my tears were a display of doubting faith and that I should have bible verses shoved in my face every 5 minutes. Wrong! I never once doubted God's presence in my life through the most painful of moments. But never having gone through loosing a child before I was learning how to do it one day at a time. We had amazing friends from church who wrapped us in prayer and encouragement, brought us meals and cried with us. The second time we miscarried we knew a bit of what to expect, but it was still so painful, but yet again God surrounded us with amazing friends who walked life with us and who have become our best friends.
I don't think I can ever put down on paper for all to read about what those two experience were truly like, but I CAN tell you that God is faithful and that He HAS worked things for good! I've accepted that God knows best. He knows what is best for me, for my family and for my future. I've accepted that He has my life planned out and that I must life in His will. And now 5 and 4 years later we have a beautiful 16 month old! Her birthmother chose us because of what we'd been through and that this baby would make us a family! God took our pain and used an incredible birthmother to give us our hearts desire!! If we had our first 2 babies we wouldn't have our Karis! How merciful is our God! I wouldn't trade Karis for anything in the world! Having her makes all the pain we've been though worth it. So that's how God worked it all out for His Glory! :) Karis is the good, and her story of how she came into our family and her adoption process brings God glory!