Friday, March 20, 2009

"MY JERUSALEM"

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led, yet loving and knowing the ONE who is leading." (My Utmost for His Highest March 19th). How do we live never knowing where we are going to end up? What does it mean to be so intimate with God that you need not ask Him to show you His will because you ARE His will? Making decisions based on the Holy Spirit revealing what is on the heart of the Father is the only way to walk intimately with HIM. I have been desperately seeking the heart of the Father for 3 weeks as to how to explain what is going on. The reality is this. I don't really understand where we are at, other than a place of surrender.
Out of respect for others involved, we don't want to go into a lot of details. Basically, we have withdrawn our petition for adoption in El Salvador and no longer are clients of Homecoming Adoptions. We have requested our original dossier to be returned and are doing what we can to recover some of the money. Recently it was brought to our attention that our home study and some other documents were rejected by OPA due to the fact that our agency was not Hague Accredited. In addition, we were informed that our adoption, whether a young child or older, would not be completed for another 2-5 years. There have been several incidents that have caused us to question our trust with the system. We have extended grace and stayed the course; however, at this time we do not feel we can continue this process in El Salvador.
Having said all this, I know you are all curious as to what are we going to do? So am I. The only thing I can tell you is that we did hear from God about adoption, He is who he says He is, and we are desperately seeking Him. One thing I know I (Patricia) am hearing is that I have to let it go. I could easily go to another agency, get a few things changed in our paperwork, and pick another country. However that is not where God is leading me. For a while now God has been speaking to us as church at Pike Road through the passage in Ezekiel 37, The Valley of Dry Bones. It appears this is about death when ultimately it is about LIFE, His LIFE. During this past year, the Lord has been speaking to me, and I have been expressing what I have been hearing by writing it down. I am leaving you with the following that the Lord gave me last year. I really didn't know how it applied to me personally until now. Please continue to pray for our family as we continue to be led by the ONE we love.

With all my strength I have tried to follow you
My heart is ready to do Your will
My soul is longing for more of You still
But there's a path that I must take
Where my vision is at stake
I am on my way to my Jerusalem

Unless is falls to the ground it will never die
Until it dies it will never live
I'm holding on to a dream that I'm never going to see come true
Until I let it go to YOU.