Blessings and Raindrops

seeking joy in the midst of the ordinary

in the wait.

As we wait here, in our forty-fourth month on this journey to our daughter {based on the date we originally started this adoption journey in October of 2011}, I am weary. So very weary. I ache to hold her again and I pray in desperation for God to protect her heart as she continues to wait.

I often question why. The thing is, this journey was never about us. It has always been about this precious little girl. I can handle this. It’s not fun, it’s exhausting, and I’m sick and tired of it BUT I can manage. It’s this innocent child who has been caught in the middle of this messy process that needs protection and strength. She is the one who can’t understand what is happening and I cannot understand why she has to be in this situation to begin with.

Yes, I know. We live in a fallen, broken world. But, the reality is, that knowledge doesn’t make this waiting even an ounce less painful.

As I prayed this morning through my tears, pleading with the One who has carried me through this waiting, I asked for encouragement. I begged Him to show me that He has not forgotten our family.

I felt led to read through a journal from a recent women’s retreat and I stumbled upon my own words. Words that buoyed my spirit and allowed me to turn my gaze back to Him.

“I don’t understand any of this but I can trust Him. He is always faithful and He is the author and perfecter of my faith. He writes the story and it isn’t over yet. He is asking me to wait in Hope. He is asking me to keep running toward Him and simply doing the work set before me.“

And, the words to a song we sang in worship were written on that same page. Words that I sang as a prayer to my daughter…

Next, I found myself reading a very familiar scripture.

“He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” {Isaiah 40: 29-13; NLT}

Thankful for the reminder, I asked again for strength. I asked that He allow me to persevere because I am so weary and exhausted.

That’s when I noticed them. The verses just before this familiar promise. The ancient words that came to life as they spoke to my questioning heart…

“O Israel, {Insert: O Jenny!} how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles? How can you say God refuses to hear your case? Have you never heard or understood? Don’t you know that the Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depth of his understanding.” {Isaiah 40: 27-28; NLT}

Wow. What an incredible message of Truth for my weary soul today. 

Encouraged and uplifted, I will continue to wait in hopeful anticipation of what is to come. I continue to be grateful for the community of loved ones near and far who join Dave and I on our knees asking the Everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth, the One who sees us in our distress, for the miracle that will finally bring our daughter home. And, we are already praising Him for what comes next. Knowing that He always works every situation for our good and His glory.

farmhouse renovation. {the kitchen}.

Alright guys, it’s time to start these renovation posts already. I’ll kick it off with the kitchen since it is the heart of our home and where we spend the majority of our time. 
I wish I had taken more “before” photos. For some reason, I thought I had taken a few before we moved the house, but I can’t find them anywhere. The oldest photos I have are from February of last year, after the big move…
February 2013. 

These photos were taken after we {I always say “we” when I clearly mean “Dave“} removed two layers of ceiling tiles. There were large acoustic ceiling tiles at 7 feet and then another layer of ceiling tiles were removed a foot below the first. Finding the cool beams and wood underneath was like finding a buried treasure.  Don’t you just look at these photos and think, “Score! Buried Treasure!”? Me neither. Dave kept assuring me that it would look great eventually. He clearly has the ability to see the “vision.” Me? Not so much. I just see a big mess. {That’s probably a life lesson of some sort…}
We also changed the layout of the kitchen, removed all of the cabinets, and added windows in the dining nook. 

September 2013.


A lot of progress had been made at this point. We covered all of the walls in wood wainscot with plans to paint it white. We were able to repurpose a few extra cabinets that Dave had to create a large island.  

These windows were all new and added during the renovation.

The entry way in the back of the house. We kept the siding with plans of painting it white, as well. We also kept the original back door.

These cabinets were added along a hallway wall to create pantry space.

November 2013.


Ben and Dave hard at work…



The entry way received a few old lockers for storage {before paint}.

And, after a coat of paint…

The “pantry” cabinets painted.

Also, we were able to keep the original wood floors after we found them underneath the black and white checkered tiles.

Dave also built this new staircase. The original stairs were a rod iron spiral death-trap.

May 2014 {“After”}.

I absolutely love the open shelving. I was worried I wouldn’t like it and would find it hard to keep clean and organized. In reality, it makes my life easier because we use just one set of dishes {instead of a mismatch of several different sets} and they are within easy reach for use and for clean-up.

And, I am officially obsessed with my farm sink. I have wanted one for as long as I can remember but we have never been able to incorporate it into our other houses because of the placement of cabinets. It was worth the wait. 🙂

The floors turned out so amazingly beautiful. I love all of the nicks and dents that have been created over the past one hundred years. I can only imagine how many pairs of feet have walked on these floors. Pretty cool.

Y’all. We splurged on the coffee maker. And, it was completely worth it. In my book: coffee = joy.

We actually “bought” all of the appliances in this home with reward points from a loyalty program that Dave uses for work so we didn’t feel as guilty when we decided to splurge on the greatest invention of all time: a Bosch built-in coffee machine {built into the cabinet pictured on the lower right}. It makes me smile just looking at it. We used to come out here before the house was finished just to drink coffee. Seriously. It is that good.

The “pantry.”

At one point when we first moved in, this was all organized and neat and photo-worthy. That lasted 2.5 seconds. Now it’s messy but I can close the cabinet doors and pretend it’s not. Except that I just shared a photo of the mess…  

I love the natural light in this space. We had considered getting shutters for the windows in here but decided to go with cellular blinds that can be pushed up to let in all of this gorgeous light.

This chalkboard has hung in our laundry room for several years. This verse has been the first thing I’ve seen as I walked in the door for the past two years, ever since Beth Moore read this exact verse after I had been guided to these words in a desperate search for God’s hand in our journey.

The laundry room back entry. {Notice Nathan’s artwork displayed so nicely? He is slightly obsessed with duct tape and hangs random pictures all over the house}. 

That’s it! I wish you all could just come on over for a hot cup of coffee and a chat. Thanks for coming on a little tour. More to come soon. 🙂

You can read more about this old farmhouse HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Paint Colors:
Kitchen cabinets and walls: Benjamin Moore’s White Dove
Kitchen Island: Sherwin Williams Riverway
Staircase railing: Sherwin Williams Porpoise 7047

the farmhouse. {two months in}.

These farmhouse restoration posts have been few and far between. Life just keeps getting in the way. 🙂 Yet, I thought it was time to write down some thoughts on where we are in this new season of life {as we prepare for even more change and fast approaching new seasons}.

So, let’s see. We’ve been in the farmhouse for exactly two months today. Theses past couple of months have been full. {Packing and moving and preparing for a new baby while starting a non-profit and fighting for justice for your daughter stuck on the other side of the world will fill up the hours in a day before you know it}.

Time. 

Our days are a beautiful mix of busy and slow. Busy days of running around {the downside of this move- I feel like I drive a LOT more now that we are no longer right in the heart of our little downtown area} and slow days of staying home and enjoying the extra space. Mornings spent savoring a hot cup of coffee and reading the Word with the boys. Shrieks of joy when the boys run out in the morning to find a warm egg {or two or three} waiting in the henhouse. Evenings spent outside enjoying the gorgeous glow of country sunsets {the sunsets out here are incredible} and slow evenings spent laughing and sharing dinner with a table full of friends.

I absolutely love it when this table is full…and it has been so many times over these past months.
I wish I had photos but I was busy enjoying the moments and didn’t even pick up my camera.

The boys absolutely love it out here. If we are home, there is a 99% chance that they are outside playing. I am so grateful that they are using their imaginations and creating memories together outside. They aren’t stuck in front of a screen indoors. It really has been a breath of fresh air for our family.

Simplicity. 

One thing we had to do when we moved was simplify. ‘Organizing’ and ‘living with less’ are distinct and different tasks. I love THIS post about the powerful difference between organizing and decluttering.

“Living with less trumps organizing because it truly begets freedom. Freedom to live with more clarity, freedom to pursue work and hobbies we truly love, freedom to spend more time with people instead of taking care of our things.
It’s risky, yes. It’s often scary making that first run to the donation station. But you’ll get braver and braver, and nine times out of ten, you’ll never regret parting with those things you stopped loving or finding useful.”  – Tsh Oxenreider

We are in a smaller space now and we made this change deliberately. God has stirred our hearts over the past couple of years in new ways. We have been challenged and convicted about where our treasures lie. Truly, where we invest our time and our resources reflects the state of our heart. Our desire to live with intentionality and freedom from ‘things’ was the catalyst for our move to this home.

Now, please don’t read this and think that we have it all figured out. We don’t. We are fumbling our way through this life just like everyone else. We are simply making a concentrated effort to live in a way that honors the call to live with less in order to have more freedom to give. To give away money and resources and, most importantly, time. We don’t want to be so tied up in the trappings of this life that our time is wasted seeking anything less than God’s best for our little family.

Prayer. 

I have walked through this home many, many times praying for the Holy Spirit to fill this space. For our home to reflect His heart. For His love and peace to be alive within these walls. I’ve prayed over our children’s rooms and prayed my heart out in our daughters’ room, asking the Lord to fill both of their little beds. I’ve prayed scripture over each space in this home and I firmly believe that the serene joy we fill inside of these walls {for the most part – we do have two crazy, rambunctious boys} is credited to the prayers offered up to our Father.

If you’re in the process of moving or painting or restoring a home, I highly recommend spending a day in prayer in each room before you move into the space. Writing scripture on the walls and the floors and the doorways underneath the paint. This will be a precious time with God that you will never regret.

Our prayer for our S. Written above where her bed is now. 

All in all, this move has been so very good for our family. We are incredibly grateful for the good things that we have been blessed with.

Now, don’t me wrong.  There is still so much that needs to be done. Sometimes the never-ending “to-do” list feels daunting. Poor Dave has a list a mile long of projects. And, we haven’t even started to tackle the outdoors. We have big plans for landscaping and outdoor space, yet, it is all a work in progress. We know that it can’t all be done right now and we are constantly seeking to find beauty in the process. My nesting instincts are making that extremely hard to do but I really am trying {Dave may disagree}.

More restoration photos to come soon. 🙂

another lesson in waiting.

This has been an eventful week for our little fam.

1: We *hopefully* sold our house {we have a signed contract but the buyers haven’t actually seen the house in person, they are buying it based on a FaceTime tour with their realtor. Needless to say, Dave and I have both decided to wait until closing at the end of this month before rejoicing}…

So many emotions swirl as we prepare to leave this house for good. The one that rises above all is gratitude. Thankful for beautiful memories in this home and an exciting new season of our lives in a new place. A long overdue update to come soon.


2: Nathan announced that I will be his high-school prom date {I’m perfectly happy with this decision. He made this prophetic statement when we were watching all of the high school kids take photos before prom at a park near our old house. Nathan asked why all the girls were wearing pretty dresses. Aunt Katie responded with, “someday, you’ll go to prom with a pretty girl wearing a pretty dress.” Nathan, in all of his 3-year-old brilliance, said, “mommy’s a pretty girl. I’ll go with her.” Well, then. It’s decided}…

3: Ben has officially moved out of nighttime pull-ups- hurray! {No more diapers/pull-ups! Oh, wait.}…

This was his amped-up sugar face from Easter morning. He has a very similar smile on dry mornings. I just don’t have a photo. Just trust me here.

4: and, lastly, I’ve been in what my doctor has called “latent labor” since Sunday.

The really strong contractions started on Sunday at Dave’s parents’ church. We were there for our niece’s first communion. I have heard that my exit during the Lord’s prayer quickly became the talk of the {for the most part, 80-and-above} crowd. I really thought this was “it”… we even had that movie-scene where Dave sped to the hospital. He nearly gave me a heart-attack with his driving.

After several hours of contractions and no progress with dilation, we were sent home. I was perfectly happy to keep her snug for another couple of weeks but my competitive side did kick in when I was told that I wasn’t progressing and I got really frustrated. I don’t know why I was wanting to get a move on. I really do want her to stay and grow for as long as possible. She is already ‘cooking’ for four weeks longer than the boys did and that is a huge relief.

After coming home from the hospital…happy to be home with Charlotte still “in the oven.”

I went back in on Tuesday because the contractions were getting worse and I had a couple of other “labor” signs {WebMD doesn’t lie, y’all…}. The doc on call sent me to Labor & Delivery at the hospital because I had a previous c-section and am attempting a VBAC and I’m high-risk {the vbac is possibility…nothing is set in stone. Well, except for drugs. That is not optional. I am still traumatized by the boys’ birth experience and will not even consider missing out on the epidural. The only person I vividly remember from the 48 hour nightmare of the boy’s birth was Neil, my anesthesiologist. Oh, Neil. You rock}.

After eight hours in a super comfy {I jest} hospital bed, I was sent back home.  I kept apologizing profusely to the hospital staff for being “that girl.” I know they were all talking about the fake-labor-chick in room 537 and placing bets on how many times I’ll be back in before the babe is actually born.

This morning was my weekly check-in with my OB and he was visibly sorry to tell me that I hadn’t progressed any further. He knew I was in pain and told me that, unfortuantely, there is not a walking-epidural option at this time. I asked to see Neil to verify this claim.

{I also told Dr. D about my vivid dream from last night – the one where Charlotte actually popped out and I didn’t even realize it. I showed up at my appointment and the nurse was freaked out by the fact that I had delivered a baby and didn’t know it. I asked if he thought that could happen. He just laughed and I suspect he wrote something in my chart. He thinks I’m a whacko}.

He explained that Charlotte’s head is very low {he stressed this several times… which only adds to my fear that she will fall out at any moment} and that is causing the contractions to be more painful. But, I could stay in this “latent labor” stage before progressing into “active labor” for several more hours or several more weeks. Hurray. That sounds fun.

So, we wait.

I’ve become fairly accustomed to waiting these past few years. It goes against my natural tendencies and drives me fairly crazy. I’m a Type-A planning machine. I like to know exactly when and where things will happen. I like to have a clear timeline so that I can mentally prepare for the days ahead.

A-hem.

Clearly, God has been working on that little detail of my personality. One would think I would have learned my lesson by now. Nope. I’m still hopelessly impatient.

So we will keep right on waiting anxiously to meet our newest love and I’ll keep you all posted. But not as often as I do in the group texts to my mom and sisters. We have an ongoing conversation about this labor process that has reached new proportions of hilarity. {Yet another reason I’m excited for S and C to have one another. There is nothing in this world like a sister. Nothing}.

In all honesty, I really love being pregnant and am going to soak up these final hours/days/weeks with her right here snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug. I love feeling her movements and marveling at the way God created our bodies to do such miraculous things. The fact that there is a little human being growing inside of me right now is truly unbelievable. I am also going to enjoy these last moments as a family of four. My sweet boys are about to have their world’s rocked and I’m just going to hold them close and let them be momma’s babies for a while longer.

Blessings to you all!