Our Divided Attention

We wanted to update everyone on the latest happenings in our family...



Rick has been in Texas for one week now. He loves the crew he works with, loves the work, loves the instructors who show him what to do and turn him loose to do it. Knowing he is doing well and enjoying himself makes it easier to want to pack up the house here in Idaho even faster so we can join him as soon as possible. At first I was really not looking forward to going to Texas (I'm sure you couldn't tell that by my previous posts), mostly because we knew no one within a 5-6 hr drive of our new hometown, and the general "unknown" of moving to a new state. God made us to need relationships, and I was dreading going to a place were we knew no one.


But God has seen fit to orchestrate several new friendships (online for the moment) to welcome us to our new hometown. It is so neat to know God has placed multiple other large, homeschooling, and/or adoptive families within a short drive of where ever our new house will be that have welcomed us with open arms already. I am growing more eager to get to Texas so I can meet these families we are becoming friends with. And I'm grateful that God has heard my deepest desires and has already provided the right soil for those new friendships to grow and blossom.


While Rick "goes to prepare a place for us", the children and I do our best to keep our hand to the proverbial plow here. There is so much to do, with no specific timeline, and a lot of questions rattling around inside my brain. I'm an "internalizer", a thinker, a planner, a wonderer. It's always been difficult for me to pack for a move without knowing what the new house will look like. I prefer to have some sort of visual in my mind so I can picture where things will go, or what things I can leave behind because they won't "fit" the new house. This is a growing curve for me. It is stretching me out of my comfort zone! Thankfully I trust my husband completely to find a home we will love and will fit our family's needs well, and I trust God to lead him to just the right home. That calms a lot of my wondering; God's peace that we are moving where He's called us and He's holding our hands as we take each new step in faith. Because of that peace, with each box that gets packed, my stress level goes down.


But my full attention is still divided, which is not my usual way of doing things. Typically, I'm like a dog on a meaty bone. When I get started on something, I tend to prefer to stick to that one "project", and don't like to get distracted by other "projects". I want so badly to work on the fundraising to bring our children home sooner, but I know my attention needs to be focused primarily on preparing this home for cleaning and closure. I'm learning that I must release the fundraising efforts to God and concentrate on the task ahead of me. So you may not see too many new blog posts over the coming weeks, but know that our adoption has certainly not fallen off our radar! With every box I pack, I think about bringing our new children into our new home, in a new city, in a new state. It will be as new and different to us as it will be for them. I wish there was a way to "swing through" Ukra*ne and swoop them up and bring them to Texas with us so we can experience walking through the doors of the new house together. But I know it doesn't work that way. Just as Rick is going to prepare a home for us, once we join him, we can work together to prepare a place for our new children as well.


At this point, our best estimate on moving day will be no less than 4 wks from now, but likely no more than 8 wks. It seems so weird to not know for sure where we will spend Thanksgiving, but we are thankful for all the things God is doing in our family. There are so many factors involved with the "when" part of this move. We're just eager to bring our family back under one roof again, and do what God has been leading us to do in the adoption process. We know moving to Texas is part of this process, but we're looking forward to being able to unpack and settle in to our new home so we can return much more of our attention to the "business" side of adopting. We want to bring our WHOLE family together, not just those members who already share their father's name, but also those precious children who don't yet know they have a father yearning to give them his name and his love. Wow, that sounds just like our Heavenly Father!


~ Michelle