Last night I had trouble falling asleep.  If you ask my husband, he will tell you that this is really rare.  I am blessed to be one of those people who falls asleep quite literally within moments of laying my head down.  Now, staying asleep throughout the night is another story, but I will talk about that challenge in another post.

So, as I was laying there awake, I was thinking about a recent trip to Target. I went to get a birthday present, but found myself browsing every other department before leaving. Almost every girl I know looks forward to a Target trip (especially a kid free Target trip!) I remember chatting with a friend last year and she told me that she had walked into Target just to buy shampoo, but came out 2 hours later with a cart completely full of things. I could relate- how many times have I walked in there for a specific reason, but wandered towards the Clearance clothes for ‘just a minute’ and next thing you know I spent $50 more dollars and lost about an hour of my day. “DARN YOU TARGET!”

As you know- we are in a season of saving. In my opinion, we were pretty frugal to begin with, so saving for the adoption has pushed us to another level of frugality that can almost be humorous sometimes (almost.) Watch the clip below to see what a typical conversation looks like in our home lately..

So, as I was laying there randomly thinking about saving money, my Target temptations, and Flight of the Conchords, I was actually reminded of Galatians 6:7-9:

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. ⁸ Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. ⁹ So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

Thanks  for reminding me, God. My sinful nature longs to please and serve myself all of the time, but I am created for Him and for His glory, and to do His work.  He has asked me (us) to do a specific work right now, which requires some “dying to self.”  He’s pretty amazing at clearing it up for me when I loose sight of what I’m doing.

The blessing of a new child is such an exciting, joyful blessing at the end of this sacrificial journey. I look forward to re-reading this in 12-15 months when he is home.

I hope that my random thoughts from last night at 1am can encourage and challenge you on your own journey. We are all trudging through this life together 🙂

My brother encouraged me to read this book by David Platt last year and it was so challenging, but so good. I think I will re-read it again, because I will be reading it with new eyes. Here’s an excerpt:

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy… It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.”

Please pray for us-

Pray that we would be more obedient and less selfish.

Pray that we would not get discouraged with the wait. Anxiousness has been rearing it’s ugly head.

Pray for our little guy as he waits for his forever family- us! 🙂

Love,

Mary