I have considered blogging about this for quite some time, and I have a semi-free morning, so I am taking the opportunity to do so now. The shadow box pictured above is our personal spiritual markers or memorials. Several years ago, Andy and I took a Growing Kids God's Way class, and we learned lots of great, common sense parenting tips. However, my favorite part of the class was an extra video we watched toward the end. The Ezzos (authors of the series) talked about the shadow box they kept in their home containing the spiritual markers of their family. It was a few years after that class before we started our own shadow box, but that seed was firmly planted during that class.
All through the Bible, God instructed His people to build memorials. He knows very well how forgetful we are. He taught them to use the memorials to instruct the next generation. Do not forget the great things God has done. Even now when we take communion, we are using one of the memorials God gave us so many generations ago.
How easy it would be to forget. We have this displayed in our home in hopes of encouraging our children that God is alive and active in our lives. Those who lived during Biblical times are not the only ones who have seen God at work. This box was a huge encouragement to me along the difficult adoption trail to Wyatt. I would pause at it from time to time and remember that my God is faithful, and He has done great things for us.
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What is in the box???
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a picture of our first house --- This is the story of our first home. We were ready to start a family and decided it was time for a house. We found one just down the street from our apartment that would suit our needs. It was in need of a lot of cosmetic work, but the price was right. However, the bank we chose drug their feet on the loan. It went on for three months, and we decided to give up our good faith deposit and move on. It was a frustrating time. We decided that we would wait indefinitely before looking for a house again. During the following spring, I found myself expecting our first child. Andy called from work (he worked nights) one night and told me that I needed to make the bathroom my bedroom for the night because tornado warnings were in the area especially around our home. As I made a bed on the floor of that tiny bathroom, I prayed that one day we would have a house with a basement bedroom so that I could sleep in a bed during tornado warnings - silly, I know. People all over the world sleep on the floor every night of their lives. Why should I be entitled to a bed? Anyway, a week or two later, I decided to look at houses for fun one Sunday afternoon. I found an open house in the paper and went with my mom to look at it. I loved the house. It was a three bedroom home with a huge kitchen and a basement that was partially finished. Yes, the basement had a bedroom. Andy and I made an appointment to see the house later in the week. He loved it as well. However, we still weren't sure this was right for us. I prayed that God would give me a sign. That very afternoon, our realtor (who we hadn't heard from in months) called to see if we were still interested in buying a house. I told him about the house we had found, and he helped us with the loan, inspection and all the details of closing. Before we knew it, we were living in a great house. We loved it there and would probably still be there, but our family outgrew it.
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a swimming pool ----- When Zachary was 2 and a half years old, we joined my parents and siblings on a vacation in South Carolina. We stayed in a cabin in a forest area where watching the little kids was high priority. There was a lake right outside the back door of the cabin, and it was home to alligators. Rattlesnakes had once claimed the life of a young child in the wooded area that surrounded the cabins. There was a swimming pool, and we had a child who was not a bit afraid of water. One morning I woke to nurse Savannah. My sister walked in the room and asked where Zachary was. I replied that he was asleep on the cot next to me. She stated that he was not. I thought she was kidding and that she had been playing with him in the kitchen, but she did not know where he was. We searched the cabin to find that he was gone. Andy headed out to look for him and met some maintenance workers coming down the path with him. Zachary had been in the pool. They thought he was with another family, but the family got up to leave, and he stayed. He led them to our cabin. I tried later in the day to get Zachary to lead us to the cabin, but he could not do it. I was convinced that God led him back to us safely and protected him from the dangerous woods and the lake. I always thought that God saved Zachary for greatness, but it was years later while listening to the testimony of another lady during a Bible study, that I thought maybe Zachary was saved for Julia (this was before Wyatt was a thought for us). It was while this woman shared about an attack against her dad. He was okay, but had he not been okay, she may not have been able to go into the mission field which is her life work. I thought about the swimming pool incident with Zachary and how if things had not turned out okay, I never would have had the confidence to parent again, and certainly never would have adopted. Maybe that was Satan's thwarted plan - take a child from us, so that we would raise fewer children for the glory of God.
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poison ivy ----yes, that is real poison ivy that I laminated ---Now, I will tell you why this family can thank God for poison ivy. A few years ago, my dad got into poison ivy while working in his yard. He was covered in it. My mom, who is a nurse, did her homework and admonished him to see a doctor as it covered so much of his body that it was dangerous. My dad (remember that he is a man) refused. Of course the weekend arrived, and the doctor's office was closed. He decided that he could no longer stand it. He was going to the emergency room. As he prepared to go, he felt short of breath, something he mentioned to the doctor in the E.R. The doctor was concerned about the poison ivy but also wanted to investigate the shortness of breath. As it turned out, Dad had a blood clot in his lung and blood clots in both legs. Had he not gone to the E.R., he would have died within days. God put a whole string of events together on this one...the poison ivy, the wait until the weekend for treatment, the shortness of breath, the deligent doctor (who turned out to be a friend of Andy's and mine).
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airplane -777 --- That is a 777 in our box, and this is the story of Julia. Adoption was placed in my heart long before we started the process to Julia. There are many markers in her story, but I will try to stick to the plane. All along the process I needed constant affirmation from God that we were doing His will. No one in my family had ever adopted. We had no reason to believe that we could not have more biological children. It was expensive. We are still paying off her adoption. On April 18th 2005, I checked our personal page on our agency's website and found that we had a group number. This would be our travel group, and this was confirmation that a phone call would come the next day to let us know about our child. Our travel group number was 777. As more details unfolded we learned that we would fly to China both ways on a 777 and that we would meet our daughter on June 7th. When I talked with our nursery director about all those 7s. She got excited and pointed out that 7 is God's perfect number of completion. I saw it as a gift from God. He put that 7 all over the place in the final weeks of her adoption and it brought me great comfort. I also wondered at the time if God might be giving us a clue that someday we would be a family of 7. We will see about that one.
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our current house---- This is the story of our current home. We brought Julia home, and suddenly our perfect little house seemed far too small. Gas prices were going up, up, up, and we were across town from school for the kids and our church, a place we visited about five times a week. We also knew at that time that we wanted to adopt again, and there was no place for another child. Therefore, we started the hunt for a new home. We put an offer on a house that we loved, but the backyard was not really suitable for us. Our home did not have any offers on the table, and we were hoping for a buyer. We knew that my brother wanted to buy our house, but he was not ready, and we wanted to move during the summer. We lost the house we loved on my birthday. Bummer. We rode out our contract with the realtor on our house and decided to wait until spring to try again. In December, our realtor called to say that there were two houses up for sale in the neighborhood we really liked. We looked at them and really loved one of them but decided to wait. A week or two later, she called again about a house in the same neighborhood. We took a look and loved the house. My brother was ready to buy our old house and we moved in February. We did not realize at the time how necessary our move was. Our children have attended the same Christian school since kindergarten, but they move to a different location for middle school. Had we not moved, getting Zachary to middle school would have been impossible.
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not pictured - an armoire---During our move, we tossed our old desk. It had been Andy's in high school, and it was falling apart. It was an eyesore. We did not have the money to replace it, so we sat our computer on a child's desk and held the keyboard in our laps when we were using the computer-- pitiful, but we couldn't afford to do anything about it. Finally, we had enough and decided to take money out of our adoption fund and buy a desk. We found a computer armoire that we loved and purchased it. Upon our return after that purchase, we opened a letter from our mortgage company that had been sitting in a mail stack for about three days. It was a refund from our previous mortgage, and you guessed it, it was about the same amount as the armoire we had just purchased. We took that as a go-ahead from God to get the adoption ball rolling. We bought a miniature armoire to put in the shadow box, but it did not fit, so we are on the hunt for a tiny, doll furniture armoire to add to the shadow box.
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not pictured --the logo from Zach's football helmet - This isn't really locked into the shadow box, but the logo is the symbol for the Christian school our kids attend. We have sent children to this school for eight years now. It has involved sacrifices for our family, but God has been faithful to provide, and I pray often that He will provide for them to see it all the way through as long as the school continues to teach from a biblical world view and encourages students on their personal journey with Christ.
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God's fingerprints on Wyatt's adoption--- I shared some of Julia's story. Now I will share a little of Wyatt's. We chose the name Wyatt for a son before Savannah was born. When the idea of that son being Chinese became a possible reality, I wasn't sure that Wyatt worked. I think of Wyatt's as blondes. However, when we got Wyatt's information and learned the meaning of his Chinese name, it was almost identical to the meaning of Wyatt. Jun (Wyatt's middle name in China) means brave or soldier. Wyatt means brave, little guy, or warrior. The little guy part of his name fits as well because Wyatt is in the 25th percentile for height and weight. Now that is on the American chart which should be different from the Chinese chart, but even his orphanage noted that he was small for his age.
I prayed throughout the process that Wyatt would be able to sing (thanks Jen for sharing a prayer you said over your son that inspired this). I specifically prayed that he would be able to use his voice to draw people to God and that he would be gifted like Steven Curtis Chapman or another singer (who shall remain nameless) who I think is very gifted. Initially, Wyatt sang all the time when he joined us. On the only feedback we got from his music teacher this year, she noted that he has perfect pitch. hmm - we will wait and see what God does with this.
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Is God cool or what!??
Savannah's first birthday. I remember that my grandmother said that she had never seen a 1 year old have so much fun on her birthday. She was right. Savannah had a ball!
This is probably my favorite picture of Savannah as a two year old. Her birthday pictures that year were all blurred because the camera was broken, and I did not know it.
