He Is...

A couple months ago, my dear friend, Amena Brown, came to Newsong and did this spoken word piece for our Sunday services. She is a passionate preacher and a worship leader through spoken word. That day [9+ months into our wait for a referral] I needed to hear that God is so much more than I can wrap my mind around, fill my heart with, or contain in words.

Enjoy! He is...



Amena travels the country doing spoken word. She'd be an amazing woman to have come to your church, event, or gathering. She's the real deal and an artist of true, gigantic proportions!

Adoption and Galatians 5

The past 3 years of life and marriage and trying to have a family have taught me a few things. One of the [many] passages that I've studied, meditated on, leaned into has been Galatians 5.

All along this journey, I've longed for freedom. Freedom from my expectations, pain, time lines, sin, disappointments, and control issues. Galatians 5 has taught me a lot about what God's heart is for us when it comes to freedom and how we find it. In fact, I preached on this chapter at Newsong on July 4th with my friend, Frances.Galatians 5:5 identifies how we find a life of freedom:

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.

I'm no theologian, but I've learned more about the context and meaning of this passage from a few theologians. Here are some bullet point thoughts...

• Faith + Waiting = Righteousness. Righteousness is gained through faith and waiting. I wish it was gained through comfort and instant gratification, but clearly God's ways are not my ways [for good reasons!].
• In the Greek [original language of the New Testament] the word for FAITH is "pistis". Throughout the New Testament, "pistis" is translated into 3 different words: faith, belief, or trust. Read Galatians 5 three times exchanging those words with each other. It gives it much more depth and profundity.
  
• The goal of our faith, belief, and trust is about bring alignment of my will to God's will. Do I trust him? That's where the rubber meets the road. I want to trust him more. Perhaps that's WHAT he's been desiring to do throughout these past 3 years.
  
• Waiting is God-initiated as we trust in him; he will act. Waiting is a catalyst of sorts to deepen our faith, trust, and belief in God. Of course, it can also cultivate disbelief, mistrust, and doubt, but it's through waiting that our character is revealed and developed.
• Righteousness produces hope. There is a good end to waiting! God wants to instill hope for him - not our desired outcome - into the fibers of our soul. I have found my hope transferring more and more over the past few years from a baby to knowing God, finding myself falling in love with him more and more.
  

His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Beautiful. God's so cool like that. How gracious he is to us!

This song has been a comfort and director for my waiting. Enjoy...

Persistent Prayers

I've been pushing my friend, Maria, to get into her prayer closet for us and pray for our referral to come soon. I got an email from her on Saturday morning saying she'd spent time in that closet at 1am praying for us and our babies. God gave her a Scripture that I hadn't spent time in throughout our adoption, but it was SPOT ON. Tears streamed down my face as a I read her email and what God had said to her about us. For now, I'll just share about the Scripture.
May it encourage and push you in whatever is stretching you these days...

Romans 5:1-11, but mostly 3-5

3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

The very next verse starts off with “6: You see, at just the right time”….

From Maria's email: "I feel it is SO close and God is planning it all. But I also felt that there needs to be a sense of “humbleness”. I’m not sure what that means to you, but that word just kept coming. But I kept feeling like God has been humbling you and He wants just a hair more."

I'm so grateful for friends like Maria who've carried us through this process and are waiting with us, showing us more of God and ourselves in the process.