We are really enjoying filling up our Memorial Box with symbols of God’s very real presence in our lives. At devotion time tonight the kids reminded us that today was Monday and they were all anxious to hear another “story”. I have plenty of stories that I have written down, but I haven’t collected symbols for all of them yet. I may not have a MBM post each week, but only because I am still hunting down the perfect symbol to place in our box.
Today’s story goes back to somewhere in 2004. When God first planted in the hearts of Chris and me the idea of pursuing adoption it was with a bit of…..I’m trying to think of the right word, but really the only fitting word is fear. Yes, fear. It was with fear and a huge sense of vulnerability that we began praying and seeking God’s will. Okay, so maybe God’s will was clear, we just had a bit of trouble recognizing it at first!
In all honesty, one of my fears was that with a larger family we would not be able to afford vacations and trips. We never did any fancy traveling, but we did like to see new places and visit friends and family near and far. I knew it would not be practically possible to visit my family in Japan every couple of years as we had in years previous. Yes, this was all terribly selfish, but it’s what was real on our hearts.
Fast forward to the beginning of 2006 when we had been in the adoption process for over a year. Things were not supposed to have taken this long and I was having some emotional ups and downs. I just wanted to get to China and get my baby. I was tired of the long winter months, tired of waiting, tired of pinching pennies. I came up with this crazy idea that we needed to get away somewhere warm and Chris said let’s do it. Within a couple of weeks we were off to the beach in Florida! We stayed with good friends for two nights on the way down and then on the way home we stayed a night with Chris’ aunt and uncle. In between we camped right on the beach at a great little campground. It was SUCH a relaxing and refreshing time and really just what we needed. We were still very careful with what we spent. We only paid for a tent site for a few nights, we took all of our own groceries and cooked our own meals, and thankfully this was before gas prices had skyrocketed. When all was said and done we had spent only $200 for our family of five on a week long vacation.
We felt so convinced that vacation was God’s way of saying, I love you, I care about your desires be they big or small, and I will continue to provide wonderful and memorable family vacation times for you. God is so good to us! When we fail him miserably by being selfish, or by complaining about the “cost” of obedience, or by being impatient with his timing, he still blesses far beyond what we deserve. He wants us to obey and is willing to help us along the way despite our moaning and groaning. He rejoices in giving us good things. What an amazing Father we have!
In our Memorial Box we have placed some shells that Michaela collected on our 2006 trip to Florida. She had collected them along with some sand in a jar and wrote on the lid. The stinky water and sand is now gone, but the lid and shells are a beautiful symbol to us of how amazingly good our loving Father is to us.
