Sweet Celebrations!

"When you're waiting on the Lord, it doesn't mean nothing is happening, because when you're waiting on the Lord, He's always moving in your life." Stormie O'Martian


I promised I would share the story of how Ava Faith came to be our little girl and how God found me in the simple dipping of ice cream. I want this story to honor Him and the people He used to speak to me, and I will try my best to tell it just as it happened.

It was just another ordinary day, another day into the now two-year waiting for Maia Grace from China, another day of eight years of waiting for a family. One thing I've discovered is that while you're waiting on the Lord, life moves and happens, and sometimes, it's on just another ordinary day that the Lord's plan begins to unfold and takes you by complete surprise. This is my story.

I remember the day well. It was springtime and sunny as I drove the short distance to Sweet Celebrations bakery where I had started working in February '08. I decided to take a part-time position to help me pass the time while waiting for Maia Grace. I had spent seven years of my life as a sixth grade math teacher but had recently resigned my position when Ben and I thought we were going to get our referral for Maia. This was a gut-wrenching decision that I had to make based on what facts we were being given about the referral wait times in China. When the referrals dramatically slowed down and the wait became longer and longer, I began to wonder if there was something that the Lord wanted me to "do." Teaching wasn't very feasible because I honestly didn't know when we would get that call to come and get Maia, and I didn't want to leave my class midway through the year. While at home, I was content to take care of Ben, but there was something inside me that wanted to spend time with the public again. I SO missed my teaching career and the children and colleagues I was around everyday, and to be honest, I was lonely. So, I decided to open the doors to whatever God wanted me to do.

After taking ou dog, Bear, to the vet, I inquired about a position helping out there. The answer came back as "no." I then interviewed for a third grade position in the fall and put my all into preparing. Was this what God wanted me to do? The answer soon came as, "No." So, I waited and continued to trust that God would lead me. If I was supposed to stay home, ok, but if He wanted me somewhere else, I would be willing to do that, too.

A new bakery, Sweet Celebrations, had just opened in the fall of '07, and a good friend of mine from church was one of the wedding cake bakers/decorators there. She happened to be sitting in front of me at the movies one night while we were watching 27 Dresses , and she approached me about working part-time. I decided to come in for an interview with the owners. I already knew them after having their daughter in sixth grade back in '99/'00. I came in sometime in mid-February for an interview and was hired to work part-time throughout the week.

I began to talk to God about where I was in life many times and why I was dipping ice cream. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that. I just felt funny after having been a math teacher. I think it was a pride thing when people came in and said, "What are you doing? I thought you were a teacher." Daily, I had to remind myself that it was not between me and everyone else to guess why I was suddenly saying regular cone or sugar cone; it was between me and the Lord. Me and Jesus. Dipping ice cream. Ok.

While I was happy to be interacting with the public again and seeing MANY familiar faces, there was something inside of me that continued to ask, "Why am I here in this place, Lord? More importantly, why I am still in the waiting?" I really enjoyed the people I worked with at the bakery and I loved the public, but these thoughts were with me every day.

It was on one ordinary springtime sunny day in late April that I met Patty, who I am convinced that God used to speak to me and fulfill His plan for our family. Patty is one of owner's sisters and just happened to be at the bakery that day with her little girl, Jennifer. We struck up a casual conversation, and she asked if I had children. I told her we were still waiting for our referral for our little girl in China after a long battle with infertility and miscarriages. One thing led to another, and our conversation became very intimate about our similar struggle to have a family. As I put my apron on and went to work, the wheels started turning in Patty's head, and she approached me about a daughter of a friend of hers from Atlanta who was possibly looking for an adoptive family. I wasn't immediately excited about this plan as I had grown to be VERY protective of our adoption from China. I told her I would go home and talk to Ben about it and let her know something the next week.

This was on a Friday. I then went home and boarded the "fear and what if" train. Maybe you're familiar with that train! It makes daily runs to pick up passengers. Well, I was a passenger on that train all weekend and came back to work on Tuesday and told her, "no." Later that week, I relayed the story to the women in my weekly bible study. They spoke some hard truth to me that day and said that I was maybe making the China adoption an idol and protecting it so much that I wasn't being open to what God maybe had prepared for me. Ouch.

Later in that same week, I got a message from Patty on my home answering machine saying that she felt like the Lord wanted her to call me back. She felt this strongly and decided to act on it, even though I had said,"no." Ben and I had serious discussion that night, and the next day, we decided to take a GIANT leap of blind faith and go for it, knowing that it may or may not work out.

To be completely honest, I also feared the "not working out" after enduring several miscarriages, one baby in 2002 and twin girls in the winter of 2007. Over the years, I had built a protective wall around my heart that was inpenetrable. Saying yes to move forward with this domestic adoption made a crack in that wall that would later tumble down completely!

So, after we said yes, my words to friends and family were these. "We're walking through doors as they open until the Lord closes them." I described going through these doors and being in a dark room. I couldn't see anything - completely blind. There were no easy answers, a billboard or positive affirmation that this was going to happen - just walking through doors as they opened and groping around in the dark.

So, here I am right now eating a corndog with mustard and listening to Ava breathe as she sleeps.

The Lord was with me in the questions of dipping ice cream, and I firmly believe Patty entered my life as a divine appointment. She'll always be my very special sister in Christ. We both learned a lot about blind faith I think, and we'll never be the same.

I'm also learning (noticed I didn't say I have learned!) to let that fear train keep on rolling down the tracks as I journey on. I'm learning to look for new form of transportation these days.

My Heavenly Father carrying me.

Patty and her husband, Brian, and daughter, Jennifer, are pictured above. The top two pictures are from my last days working at Sweet Celebrations Bakery.