Reflection

"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you." Psalm 37:4-5 (NIV)

Tonight I am thankful for my life experiences whether good or bad. I sometimes seem to get so caught up in my daily trials and tribulations that all of the blessings in my life are overshadowed. While I have been going through this adoption process, I have had to write down several feelings and memories from my past and had to do a profile of my life and what kind of life Sean and I could provide for a child. After doing all of this and looking at the finished products of all of my documenting and my profile, I have had two very strong feelings...guilt and joy. Guilt for the fact that I could ever complain about anything! I am so very blessed with the most wonderful family, friends, spouse and opportunities and yet so many times, all of those things are overshadowed by the "problems" I have with my life. I also feel joy that I have been given this opportunity to adopt, and within it have also been able to appreciate my life more now than ever by being forced to reflect on it and document all of the wonderful times and struggles I have had. In documenting my life, I found myself being able to go on and on about all of the joys I have had and found it hard to come up with many struggles in my life. I know that I will have many struggles to come, but I am so very thankful that I have the Lord to turn to in those times. A very wise woman tells me often, "something good always comes from something bad", and she is so right. She also says, "you may not always see the good that's coming from that bad at the time, but some day you will". It was so hard to see that there could be any good that would come from Sean and I not being able to have a biological child, but it has turned out to be a HUGE blessing! So many good things have come of this that I could go on and on. I have grown so much as a Christian by realizing now, more than ever, that I AM NOT IN CONTROL, and things will happen in His time, not mine! I have been given the opportunity to reflect on my life in a way that I don't know that I ever would have without having had this opportunity, and in doing this reflection, I have come to appreciate EVERYTHING and EVERYONE more than I ever knew possible. I know that there will be countless more blessings to come of this whole adoption process as we continue our journey through it and eventually have our precious baby in our arms. I never would have imagined during those days when all I wanted was to get pregant that one day I would find good in the fact that it wasn't happening. I know God has a plan for me and I know He is not done with me yet...I have so much more to learn and I am ready to "trust in Him" and his plan for me. I have learned that I need to fully "delight myself in Him" and let Him fill that God-sized hole in my heart that I thought was child-sized.