Heartache I've Never Felt Before

Not too many days ago, I wrote a post about how excited we were about adopting and how everything had fallen into place.  Little did I know, Jenn and I were going to be rocked to the core.

If you know me, you know I have a huge heart and can at times show my emotions well.  That goes for everything, my excitement can sometimes be "over the top."  When I'm coaching this is the most evident.  Anyway, when I fully devote myself to things, my passion is always evident.

Of course, if you read my previous post, you see that I was fully devoted to this little girl who wasn't even born yet.  Jenn and I had chosen a name, received tons of donations and gifts, had the room all setup, and our families had begun to be excited.

I know what you're thinking, "Kalon, you knew the possibility of not receiving this child," and yes I did, but the events leading up to this weekend led us to believe this was about 85% sure.  

Now, let's get to Friday night about 10:30.  Jenn got a phone call from our contact person, our bridge between us and the birth mother.  Her reaction immediately told me that something wasn't right.  Long story short, the birth mother wasn't sure what she wanted to do.  So we waited, then at 1:30 on Saturday afternoon, we got the call that she decided to keep the baby.

We were in our car on the way back from getting sno-balls, in order to distract ourselves from worry as we waited for news.  When Jenn's phone rang, we knew it was news.  She put her dad (who thankfully helped us through the entire process, we are so thankful) on speaker and he informed us that he'd heard from the case worker at the hospital and that the birth mother was going to keep the baby and attempt to raise her.

I pulled into our garage, Jenn got out of the car, and I just sat there.  A thousand emotions running through my brain.  A thousand thoughts racing through my mind.  But no words.  I couldn't say anything.  Strangely, I walked into our bathroom and leaned up against the window and cried.  I came as close to wailing as I've ever gotten.  There's no word to describe the loss I felt at that moment.

Now go back to Friday at lunch.  I usually spend my lunch break listening to music or podcasts.  Friday for some reason, orchestrated by God obviously, I listened to the following podcast.

That is exactly what I needed to hear, however, I didn't know it yet.  

The passage Judah used was Psalm 130. 

Judah speaks about how we see the songwriter at an end.  He's wondering if God is still hearing him.  In just the first verse we see that.  Jenn and I both experienced that Saturday.  I don't think we thought God wasn't listening, our question get more like "God, do you know what you're doing?"  I can remember growing up, I never understood that I could ask questions like that.  It wasn't that I was told not to, but felt as though when something happened, God would be upset if I questioned His ways.  I know now, that it's healthy to wonder what's going on and God is not going to smite me for asking Him a question.  

Moving on, I had spent most of the early morning hours of Saturday reading through the Psalms.  I was kind of scrambling to prepare my mind and my heart.  When we got that call though, for a second, nothing was making me feel any better.  

We cried and cried and cried.  We received texts and calls all day.  Jenn, who hadn't slept Friday night/Saturday morning, went to bed to take a nap.  I am not a napper, so I laid on the couch and watched TV.  

I read the Bible, I looked at quotes, and googled "when the birth mother decides to keep the baby." 

There was a phrase that kept ringing in my head.  Something Judah said in the podcast. 

I knew that God had a plan.  I still have no idea where we are headed next, but I know a few things:

A) God is in complete control of Mine and Jenn's future and any kids he chooses to bless us with

B) There is a child out there for Jenn and I.  There's a child that will need a mother and a father who will love them with all their hearts, and they'll find that in us.  

C) All your support, financial or otherwise, will still go to fund our adoption journey.  I kept telling Jenn throughout Friday night and Saturday, "this isn't over." It's not!  We will still pursue the avenue of adoption, even if we are blessed with our own kid.

D) That little girl and her mother need your prayers too.  Jenn wrote in her blog yesterday that maybe that's what all this was for.  Maybe that little girl and her mother need all these hundreds of people praying for them.  

So yeah, I experienced heartache that I've never felt.  And no, it's not all completely better.  To steal from Jenn, yesterday was better than the day before, and today is better than yesterday, then tomorrow will be better.  

I know He hears me.  I know He's faithful.   I know this pain will not last.  I know I'm not the only one. 

Thank you all for the love and support you have shown Jenn and I over the last five weeks or so.  Please be reminded, this is not the end of our journey...it's only the beginning! 

"Everything's Going to Be O.K."

***Ironically, I started to write this post hours before we got the disappointing news that our adoption had fallen through. Not to mention days before our drive through a tornado! Little did I know I'd find myself wanting to use the old line "Everything will be okay," but my experiences and feelings told me otherwise.***

Do we invest in false hope? When bad things happen do we try to just make ourselves feel better by saying "everything will be okay."  I may be crazy for writing about this, but hopefully by the end it will all make sense.

Jenn and I were watching an episode of the Duggars the other night and they did a flashback to when their youngest daughter, Josie, was born. There were many complications with the birth and the last part of the flashback was Jim leaning down to his wife and saying, "Everything will be okay." 

I had Jenn pause the TV and I asked her if something bad was to happen, is that what she'd want me to say.  I was happy to hear that her response was no.

My biggest argument against using this expression in a time of great distress or problem is that I simply do not know if everything will turn out okay.  

Now, God works all things for our good, that is what we are told in the Bible and that is what we see!  However, as a human, if bad things happen to me, naturally things won't be okay! 

Case in point, this past week has given me two great examples of this common misconception.  

Last Friday, when we got the call that the baby had been born and the mother was having second thoughts, we were completely devastated. Of course, if you're a regular reader, you've seen that story so I will spare the details.  What info want to point out here is that things weren't okay, and they're not okay now.  We hurt!  We cried!  We were at a loss!   Everything was not okay and it wasn't going to be.  Did that change that God had a plan? Not at all! 

Fast forward to Monday evening as Jenn and I drove through an EF-2 tornado!  As we were driving down the road, would it have made either of us feel better to hear that everything would be okay?  No way. In the middle of the situation, everything was not okay! We were in the middle of a tornado! I didn't know if our car would be smashed by a tree or taken up in the funnel!  In the long run, everything was okay and we survived, but in the middle of the event, we couldn't see that.

That's where we differ from God.  He sees the big picture!  He saw the exact events of our first shot at adoption and He knew the outcome, nothing surprises Him.  He knew we'd be leaving Royal Nail Salon at the moment we did and we would be driving through that tornado on East Main.

God knew the impact our experiences would have on us and on the people we come in contact with.  When the worst thing you can imagine happens, God knows the end game.  We know the end game from a universe perspective of we study and read His Word.

The one thing I can truly tell you with all certainty is that all the struggles in life will turn out okay in the end.  

I've totally turned this post on a dime, but there's a method to my madness.  The Bible describes to us the end of time in Revelation.  John tells us of the things that he saw. All these events, lead to the upcoming victory of our Lord.  Here's your short answer version:  God wins. 

It's kind of like when a buddy of mine from college would TiVo live sporting events. I do not practice such a feat, mainly because I know it will be spoiled anyway.  

Basically, we've got the TiVo version of life!  No matter what happens, no matter how much we feel like we are down by, we know that by the time the proverbial buzzer buzzes, we will win!  

Now, this doesn't mean we go through life without putting forth effort!  And, that's where this all ties together.  God doesn't stand us on the sideline and tell us everything's going to work out for our good just for us to sit on the side and chill.   We've still got to live life with a fervor and action-oriented attitude.  

So no, everything won't always be okay.  Your life will go some places that will suck and you'll be hurt and you may cry.  You may even fight the battle of depression. Does that mean everything's okay? Heck no! 

What does mean everything is okay is that God is beside you! He's not going to let you face more than you and Him through you can beat!

  In the end, He wins no matter what the score is right now! 

Adoption: God's Plan

What a wild and crazy few weeks it has been...

Where do I start? 

Well, a few weeks ago, Jenn and I were laying in bed recapping the day and just talking which is our normal routine before going to sleep.  She mentions that she'd been talking to a friend and that this friend knew of a girl who was wanting to put her baby up for adoption.

Now, let me interject here.  I was not and never have been an opponent of adoption, however, I never thought it would be for me.  I had my own plans of how my life would work out. I saw Jenn and I celebrating about 3 years of marriage or so and then getting pregnant with a little boy and then sometime later with a little girl.  

But we all know...

So there's that.  The day before Jenn and I talked I read an article written by former MLB pitcher Kurt Schilling, which shook me.

He wrote of a story he'd heard before. The story was about a man who was caught at home in a flood.  The flood waters were rising and on TV, the man heard messages from the news stations to evacuate now.  The man thought in his mind, "I'll be okay, God will take care of me."  The waters continued to rise and the man moved out onto the roof of his house, because the water was that high. A man passed by in a boat and stopped to help the other man.  He said, "Get in the boat! The water is rising, you're gonna drowned!"  To which the focus of our story said, "God will take care of me, you go ahead."  The water had now risen to his neck and a helicopter hovered above and dropped a rope.  The man hollered up to the helicopter pilot, "God will take care of me, you go ahead!"  The water finally rose above the man's head and he drowned.  When the man arrived in Heaven, he asked God, "Why didn't you help me?" So God answered,"What else did you need? I sent warnings, a boat, and a helicopter!"  

It's a quirky little story, but when Jenn mentioned the adoption, my heart was immediately pierced with the lesson of the story. As I said, I've never seen adoption as being an avenue for me.  From day one, Jenn has wanted to adopt  even beyond having our own kids.  When we started to struggle to get pregnant, Jenn kept mentioning adoption.  I would always just say God had a plan and He would work it out.  Totally attempting to avoid adoption.  

But like I said God had a plan...

In an instant, I knew this was the path God had set out for us at this point in our lives.  In had a great peace about it, and was ready to pursue.  It's amazing how God works.  

My faith tank was full at this point, but I'm human and I would soon run real low, and nearly run out.  

When we set out, I knew nothing about the adoption process.  I needed very much to familiarize myself with the process.  So, I started to research.  I began to notice, adoption is costly, very costly! 

So I lost a little fuel out of my tank.  

We knew we needed a lawyer, at first we had one lined up, but that fell through. We had to find one and I knew lawyers weren't cheap.  

So we start researching fundraising ideas.  We had already set up a GoFundMe.  Then I stumbled upon Booster.  The coolest fundraiser idea ever. 

On Booster, you design a shirt and then you advertise it and sell it, in an attempt to raise money for whatever cause you may have.  So we sit down and design this very simple shirt:

White is the color for adoption.  John 14:18 says "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." Those are red letter words in the Bible, folks!  Jesus said that! So we added the State of Texas, because that's where we are from and we are adopting from Texas, along with the word Love, because that's what we plan to do to this little girl!  

Anyway, I knew that these fundraisers would take a couple of weeks or so, and at first we were told the baby would be here the first week of May.

  Insert my freak out here. 

I immediately start to stress about money, because I knew we needed something to give the lawyer from the beginning.  Also, I forgot to mention, every adoption-related loan, you had to have a completed home study and all that good stuff.  So I knew two things, we wouldn't have time to do a home study and we didn't have enough money to get this done.  

I spent a day at school, stressing and being in a terrible mood and just brooding over this whole thing.  I get home and walk in the house and completely breakdown.  

I'm not going to lie, I cry.  I cried at my wedding, I tear up at emotional points in good movies and TV shows, and when things get completely out of my control I may lose it from time to time.  This is a time I did.  I sat at our dining room table and could not help myself.  I want this to work so bad, not just for me, but for this little girl. One thing in our country that is broken is the way we treat children in the system, but that's another story for another day.  

So, I chill out and go over and sit on the couch, when I get a text message saying to "call me."  I call the person and we talk for a second and they offer to help us get a loan to be able to pay for the legal fees and all that.  God has a plan, I'm telling you! 

So, here we are waiting on baby Austyn Grace to make her grand entrance.  All our family, friends, and coworkers are on pins and needles waiting for her to come!  

We've seen the mighty hand of God outstretched over our journey.  We've had an unbelievable amount of love outpoured on us by our extended network.  We set a goal with Booster for 100 shirts and we ended up selling 110! Our GoFundMe was successful!  We've had a ton of baby clothes and toys and all that given to us by a ton of people.  Needless to say, we are so blessed by all of your generosity! 

So that's where we are, eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby girl!  

Stay tuned, should be an interesting blog starting when I become a daddy!