perspective

We are midway through the 14th week of waiting at the #1 spot for the referral of our daughter.  As this wait seems to drag on some days, there is such a temptation to selfishly turn inward and wallow in self-pity.  Despite the temptation, I know it would benefit no one to do that, and I also know that no one ever promised this path of adoption to be easy. It is definitely a journey in every since of the word, and I am 100% confident that Troy and I could not endure this journey if we were walking it alone; however, I am so grateful that we serve a Creator that has laid out each step for us and He knows the ultimate destination.   He is our guide, and we must stick ever so close to His leading.  He has also made me acutely aware that we are not the only ones enduring trials, and it truly puts our wait in perspective.  Let me just share with you a few of the things close friends of ours have endured in recent months…

-Some friends of ours that live in Colorado had to evacuate their home last night due to the far reaching fires that have been so difficult to contain

-A friend’s mother was just diagnosed with a terminal illness two weeks ago, and she passed away last night

-Another friend and her husband just had a baby a month and half ago.  Their baby was born with a diagnosis that was undetectable on ultrasound, and he has been in and out of the hospital since birth.  He now has a feeding tube among other things. 

Thankfully, each of these friends and their families know Jesus so I know they have an eternal source to draw strength from.  As I have repeatedly lifted these families up in prayer along with the prayers for our daughter, the Holy Spirit reminded me that we are to consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds.  I have to admit that joy is not the first word that comes to my mind when I think about each of these circumstances; however, I take comfort in knowing this truth “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”   So, today I will choose to persevere because the reward is great.  I will also continue to pray because I have witnessed the power of prayer in tangible ways.  Will you please say a quick prayer for each of the circumstances our friends are facing, and please continue to pray for our daughter.  Thank you in advance!

Finally, I would not call myself an avid fan of the group Big & Rich, but I heard this song today and it reminded me that prayer makes a difference.  I hope you have a blessed week!

Father’s Day 2012

Today is Father’s Day, and I would like to start by giving thanks for the man pictured with Silas below.  This is my dad, and I am so thankful for the role he has played in my life.  Although we haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything, I have never once doubted his unconditional love for me.  He also played a pivotal role in introducing me to my Heavenly Father, and I will forever be grateful for that!

Second, I would like to give thanks for my husband, Troy, who is the best ‘daddy’ I know to our son, Silas.  The thing I admire most in Troy’s role as a father is the fact that he is very intentional with Silas in everything he does.  His number one desire is for Silas to know Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, and Troy does a great job demonstrating what a relationship with Him looks like.  I know he doesn’t get as much quantity time as he would like with Silas, but I can testify that he makes the moments he does have count!  As you can see in the pictures below, Silas likes to be right where his daddy is at, and I pray that his daddy’s prayers for him to be used in mighty ways for God’s kingdom will be answered.

 

 

Finally, I had to include the picture below because it is clearly shows how much our sweet boy admires his daddy.  Silas is wearing Troy’s hat, and he is at the wheel of daddy’s old ‘beater’ truck with his buddy, Kage.  He’s crying because it is time for him to go and he wanted to keep playing.  Happy Father’s Day to all the amazing fathers today.  I hope it was a blessed one!

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

3 Year Gotcha Day Anniversary

It’s hard to believe that today marks 3 years since Troy and I had our lives forever changed for the better.  Three years ago today, we held our son, Silas Abrham Lucht, for the first time and we were in LOVE!  Silas has brought more joy, entertainment, and love to our lives than we could have ever imagined.  I praise God each day that adoption was His Plan A for our family because I can’t imagine anything more perfect!   Below is a short video that I took of Silas at breakfast this morning.  You never know what he is going to say, but I thought his answer to my last question was pretty cute! He has lots of love to go around these days:)

 

Tonight, we got to celebrate Silas’ Gotcha Day anniversary with Lucy Lane and her family.  Lucy Lane and Silas were at Hannah’s Hope together,and they share the same Gotcha Day.  Also, Lucy Lane’s family lives in our area so we love that we are able to get them together relatively often.  I love the bond the two of them have, and I am grateful they will get to grow up together!  I captured a few pictures below from the celebration at Lucy Lane’s house. 

Ready to celebrate

Lucy has lots of fun toys like this one at her house….it is truly kid heaven!

Getting ready to sing “Happy Gotcha Day” to Silas  and Lucy

Kristi(Lucy’s mom) picked up this cute cake for the celebration

This picture cracks me up.  Silas was doing his fake smile for the first piece of cake, and Lucy was not smiling on purpose.

They each got a turn blowing out the #3 candle.

Lucy testing out the icing,and Silas smiling for more cake.

 

Finally,Troy managed to capture a sweet picture of the two them playing together.  I can’t wait to see what God has planned for each of their lives. We were so blessed to celebrate this day with great friends and fellowship, and we are so thankful God chose us to be the parents of our son.  Happy Gotcha Day Silas!  We love you more than you will ever know!

He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—Ephesians 1:5

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was a fun day at our house because Silas and I got to celebrate a birthday with the favorite guy in our house..DADDY! 

We had to make a birthday cake with two of daddy’s favorite things….chocolate and peanut butter!

The finished product!  It only got one candle because frozen cakes aren’t very accommodating to having candles put in them:)

The birthday guy blowing out his candle after a yummy birthday dinner at Red Robin.  I am pretty sure his wish had something to do with a precious baby girl in Ethiopia!

We are so glad that God allowed us to celebrate another year with you Troy!  You are a true blessing to our family!

May Number

We received an email today with our waitlist number for May.  It was no surprise that we are number:

 

 

Tomorrow will be 10 weeks at number one.  This has definitely been the most difficult part of our journey so far, but we are so grateful for the many prayers that have been lifted up on our behalf.  This past week, I read the book, Heaven is for Real, which is a little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back.  God knew I needed to read this book because it was so encouraging to me as we wait for our referral.  It reminded me once again that God has a master plan, and He is working out every single detail of our lives according to that plan.  He is not phased one bit by this long wait for our daughter because He knows the end of this story.  I am so grateful that we serve a God whose ways and thoughts are far better than my own! 

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace”

May We Never Forget

I love this picture for so many reasons.  It is my brother at the Operation Iraqi Freedom Welcome Home Ceremony in Honor of the 101st Airborne Division(Air Assault) in February 2004.  He is hugging his niece, Kennedy, for the first time after being away for a year.  This picture is a simple reminder of the numerous sacrifices that were and continue to be made so that I can enjoy the many freedoms I have here in America. I pray that I will never take it for granted, and I pray I can instill this same gratitude towards our soldiers(and their families) past and present, in our children.  Please take time to lift up a prayer for all of those fighting on our behalf today. 

“The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten."
   - Calvin Coolidge

3 years ago today…

We passed court in Ethiopia, and Silas Abrham Lucht officially became our son!  In honor of this boy we love so much, I thought I would share a few things about him at this fun age of 3.5 years old:

1. He will randomly and unprompted tell Troy & I he loves us at least one time a day

2. He loves to sit and hear stories about people.  He especially enjoys hearing about the various adventures Pappaw had as a railroad engineer

3. We always have to test out at least 2 or 3 lawnmowers every time we visit Lowes.  He wants to know every detail about the mowers(where you turn the blades on, etc…).  Unfortunately, daddy does all the mowing at our house so I am not very helpful with answering his questions if daddy isn’t there

4.  Caillou is still his favorite cartoon

5. He still loves being outdoors, and he is really enjoying a swing set that some friends recently gave us

6. He loves going to the library every week, and Troy or I will often get a sore throat before he tires of us reading to him:)

7. He transitioned smoothly into the preschool class at church at the beginning of this year, and he is cruising along like a champ.  I love the fact that his little class at our small church has at least 3 or 4 adopted children in it.  He doesn’t realize it yet, but what a unique bond he’ll have with these kiddos!

8. He frequently talks about his sister, prays for her, and informs us of all the things he is going to teach her when she gets home

I could go on and on, but I will stop here.  Troy and I love this boy to pieces, and I am forever grateful God’s plan was for Silas to be our son.  We are blessed!

Mother’s Day Tradition

This year marks the 4th in a row that my sister and I have decided to give my mom a Mother’s Day ‘weekend’ in lieu of a traditional gift.  It has developed into a tradition,and my mom now looks forward to it every year. Since my sister and mom live in a separate state, we usually pick a place to meet in the middle.  We rent a furnished cabin or condominium, cook lots of unhealthy foods, visit the local (cheap) tourist attractions, and laugh A LOT!  This weekend is only for the girls in the family, and this year my sister brought along their exchange student, Tatjana, from Switzerland.  We thought it would be good to let her experience a little bit of our craziness:) 

This is a pretty good representation of what our meals look like….rich foods that often contain chocolate!  My sister made these chocolate waffles with strawberries for breakfast one morning.

This is where we stayed this year.  It is a very old cabin that is actually on the National Register of Historic Places.  Let me just say that there were bad storms Friday night.  A really old cabin with a metal roof is not my ideal place to be when there are tornado warnings.  Thankfully, God protected us all!

I love these ladies!  From left to right is my mom, niece, sister, and Tatjana

Then it was my turn to jump in for a quick picture.

We did a walking and boat tour of a local cave.  This was taken in front of the gift shop and visitor’s center.

The bridge to the start of the walking tour

This is the entrance to the cave.  It is kind of hard to see because of the trees, but it is one of the biggest entrances to a cave in the world.  They actually have a beautiful area where they hold weddings and proms. 

The weather was perfect, especially in the shade!

I love my sister.  We are so different in so many ways, but yet we get along amazingly well!

We stumbled upon this cute little place on the way back to our cabin.  They had antiques, produce, and anything you could need for your garden.  The best part was that it was all on a farm setting in the middle of the country.  You just don’t see that every day!

They had lots of these old radio flyer wagons.  It brought back great childhood memories!

Tatjana decided to test out the tree swing!

Tatjana leaves to go back to Switzerland at the end of this month so this was the last time I would see her.  I have only spent a short amount of time with her, and she is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet.  She is also very talented.  She plays the piano amazingly well,and she speaks 7 different languages! I know my sister’s family,and especially my niece, will miss her greatly!

One final picture before we head home.  Apparently I missed the memo on what color to wear!

So that sums up my weekend.  I love my family, and I hope we can continue this tradition for many years to come.  We are all in agreement that we would much rather have the quality time together than anything money could ever buy!  My sister prayed for our daughter at each meal over the course of the weekend, and we are all hoping she will be able to join us for our Mother’s Day Weekend next year! 

Spring Happenings at Our House

May is just around the corner which means Spring will soon be coming to an end. Despite the long wait for our daughter's referral, we have  enjoyed this time of year where all of God's creation comes back to life. I thought I would share what has been going on around our house lately.

We planted some flowers.  I do like to plant a few flowers each year, but I sure am thankful that God made perennials!

We enjoyed lots of vegetables from our very first garden last year so we decided to plant another one this year.  We are trying a few new vegetables this year so we will see what happens!

It never gets old to look out our back window and sees scenes like this one!  I love that Troy is such a good and patient daddy with Silas!

Silas has enjoyed the benefits of Sonic’s happy hour.  Mama has too because all drinks are 1/2 price!

We got to have the two cuties above on the left over for an evening as part of some date night bartering with their parents.

 

I am so glad Silas has lots of fellow adoptee friends. 

This is Brodie, a.k.a. Mr. Personality!  I love his sweet little s’more face:)

The picture is a bit blurry, but this is sweet, soft spoken Bates.  He is only 2 months younger than Silas.

You know this kid.  He was thrilled to have hot dogs and s’mores with his buddies!

One last picture of this adorable trio!  Thanks for letting us babysit Nick & Mary Leigh!

Yes, we are still trying to get rid of those Easter Peeps.  This is a Peeps s’more gone wrong.  Oh well, it did not deter Silas from eating it!

Finally, I wanted to thank everyone for your encouraging notes, kind words, and prayers as we wait for our daughter’s referral.  It has meant so much to know how many people care!  We continue to trust God and His timing, and we know without a doubt that our daughter is worth the wait. I hope and pray the month of May brings more than spring flowers this year! 

Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14

better late than never, right?…Silas’ Gotcha Day Video

During the past couple of months, Silas has frequently requested to watch this Gotcha Day Video.  Common sense would make you guess that it was his video, right?  Unfortunately, his mama and daddy weren’t on the ball, but thankfully his good friend, Lucy Lane’s, mama was on it and had her video done shortly after Lucy Lane came home.  As Silas watched Lucy’s video, he always wanted to see the parts where he is in it.  This begin to make Troy and I feel just a teensy bit guilty that our son didn’t have his own video; therefore, we have dedicated one night a week over the past couple of months towards getting his video done.  I have to admit that Troy spent quite a bit more time on the video than I did since my computer skills are quite limited.  Nonetheless, we have it finished and we wanted to share this wonderful time in our lives with you.  As you will see, the video is directed specifically towards Silas so that he can enjoy it as he grows.  We hope that you will be blessed by it as well!