Oh my. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week! Ever have weeks like that? They are far and few in between, but when it rains, it pours!

Looking back it’s almost laughable how ‘disastrous’ this week was, and at the same time we went to bed each night saying, ‘it could be SO much worse.’ Here’s a little taste of what our week included:

Monday: dealt with some emotional/grief things and just had a rough day.

Tuesday: grandparent health issues turned into larger problems and required a lot of our help.

Wednesday: had to have the blower fan on our furnace replaced. Repairman noticed our tankless water heater and told me it was a big no-no (previous owners vented it through the chimney). Have to now get that fixed. Wednesday night, 11pm, Greg was already asleep and I was watching TV…all the lights started flickering and when I went in our bedroom the fan would get real slow, then speed up to normal, go slow, speed up. I woke Greg up and was super paranoid our house was going to start on fire due to an electrical problem. We ended up packing our things and going to ‘the farm’ (mom’s house) at midnight to sleep.

Thursday: helped out with the grandparents again. My brother, an electrician, came over to check out our electrical situation and found the problem. Thank goodness!! He was able to fix it and we were able to sleep in peace. We thought our house troubles were over.

Friday: I woke up and went in the bathroom to find this.

What in the world?! I cried. I couldn’t handle ONE more thing! At this point I was ready to burn our house down. Seriously. My dear husband, father-in-law, and step-dad all were quick to help and thankfully it ended up being a ‘small’ issue- some nails weren’t placed correctly in the roof and allowed water to get in. My father-in-law resituated the nails, put some new shingles on, checked the attic, and all is well. But now we have to fix this mess:

We’re letting it dry for a few days and praying we can find the paint in the basement (this is a room that was beautifully finished and we didn’t touch upon moving) so we hopefully don’t have to repaint the entire bathroom.

BUT-there was some good in this week too! We got a call Thursday that our social worker heard my MI clearances were done, Greg’s were in the process and she was driving to Lansing yesterday (Friday) to go pick them up! The state is only working one day a week (don’t get me started) and hence the delay. They are also working hard to get my SD clearances back (these are needed since I lived in SD for 3 years…you need clearances/background checks for every state you’ve lived in). She is hopeful we’ll have our finalized home study this coming week. PRAYING that’s the case!!! At least there is light at the end of the tunnel! Once we have the home study we can send in all our paperwork and go ‘active’! We can also start applying for grants. This will be a HUGE step!

In talking with my counselor this week, she reminded me that the devil is mighty and working. So often I’m quick to blame and question God and forget that Satan is real. Satan loves to thwart our plans, discourage us, and make us doubt. With all that happened this week- I was letting him win! After a good cry and good look at my heart, I realized life could be SO much worse. We are truly blessed and God was so faithful even in the little things this week.

Another thing I struggled with this week is grief. I think that so many people assume we’re happy and fine since we’re adopting, but adoption is not a band-aid to fix all our problems. Adoption is not the cure for a broken heart. We still grieve the babies we lost and the fact that my body is ‘broken’. There’s this tension between being SO excited and knowing that adoption is the perfect plan God has to grow our family, but also grieving the losses we’ve endured. As much as this is the ‘happier’ part of our journey, it’s not a static journey. It doesn’t move from bad to good. This journey has ups and downs and twists and turns and grief creeps in and up and all around. We’re in the mostly happy parts now, but there are still tough days.

I’ve realized it’s good that we struggle with these things. It’s healthy. It’s important. God is writing a beautiful story and the joy ahead will be THAT much more joyful because of the valley’s we’ve walked through.

We also worked on returning more cans this week and added about $300 to our adoption fund! We are so thankful and blessed for such a relatively ‘easy’ way to earn money and we’re so grateful for those of you that have/continue to donate!

We are looking forward to a NEW week with new mercies. Whatever the coming week throws at us, we know that God is leading and already knows what’s coming our way. We rest in Him and His good plans!

Hopefully next week we’ll have more GOOD news to share.

Until then,

Blessings!