The Waring's Journey: July 2010

Saturday, July 17, 2010

I Can Do All Things Through Christ Who Strenghtens Me

Hello Everyone,

I’ve been gone for a while but now have a few minutes to update what’s been going on with our family.

On the 5th of July, my husband Richard climbed a ladder to fix a leak in our roof. As soon as he stepped onto the roof, he slipped, fell backwards, and landed very hard on our deck. We are praising Jesus that the deck helped to cushion his fall because things could have been much worse. As it was though, Richard hit his head pretty hard and suffered a seizure. Everything was pretty scary for our family and loved ones as they watched the Life Star helicopter take off and fly him to the hospital that best deals with head traumas. Every day we see improvements with him and he is now walking with a cane and regaining his balance and motor skills and working towards a general feeling of himself.

I have cried buckets of tears and walked through some of my deepest fears only to find that the Lord has Never …Not even for a moment, left my side. I feel like this experience is taking me through a boot-camp training to trust the Lord in and for EVERYTHING! Through this, I am being humbled, stripped of hidden pride, and strengthened in areas I had no idea needed changing. I am finding too that I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME even when I don’t want to. And… That He’s making of me a stronger person then I ever thought possible.

We have been blessed by the many prayers and kindnesses shown our family and I can’t even express how deep many of these acts have touched us.

Someone fixed our leaks on the roof

Many have brought meals and groceries to feed our family
Stood by my side and waited, prayed, cried, supported, and cared for me at the hospital

People have loved and cared for my children and helped keep a sense of peace and normalcy in their daily lives..as we've worked through this

A person has built a beautiful porch railing to assure Richard will not get hurt if he gets off balance going in the front door

Others have cleaned, done laundry, tackled my dirty kitchen, allowed me to take naps, and filled my gas tank

A couple bought plants and planted our garden, taken down our dog run, cleaned up the yard of weeds, unwanted shrubbery, fixed our stairs door to always spring shut assuring safety

And…others have stayed with my household and allowed me time alone to do shopping, run errands, and helped me fill out the endless amounts of paperwork , and even fixed my vacuum and weed eater
There was even a wonderfully kind person who twice fixed my computer when it crashed with a nasty virus while we were at the hospital

Oh… and yes, there are others who have touched my heart and sent funds to help cover the unpaid bills as Richard is not able to work during his recovery

For all of these things… and so much more, our family would like to thank you. With each of your acts of kindness, love and thoughtfulness, we have truly been touched and have seen Jesus working through you.

Lord Jesus,

thank You for All You have brought us through, thank You for protecting our Daddy from being hurt worse and thank You, so much, for the continued recovery he’s having. Thank You for never leaving me and keeping me strong when I felt so weak and scared. Thank You for giving me my best friend back a little more each day and showing me that NOTHING is outside of Your hands. You truly are an AMAZING God and although my flesh wars against the things You are walking me through, I trust You with my life and family and welcome the change You are bringing about in our lives.

We love You, Lord Jesus…

With Everything!

Our Hope To Adopt Embryos

Hi, my name is Tracy and here is our story,

My husband, Richard, and I have been happily married for 21 years. Early on in our marriage, we were diagnosed with complete male factor infertility. We have been blessed with three beautiful children through separate open adoptions. Bailey, now 17, was born during the time of our lives when my husband and I were grieving the loss of our only pregnancy from donor insemination. She was born when our baby would have been. Her birth was like a healing salve to our hurting hearts. Once we discovered that the Lord could fill our aching arms with such delight through adoption, we began to pray for the Lord to bring us another child.

We hoped and prayed for 6 years when Addison was born. She is now 11. In the time of waiting until the Lord brought our second child into our lives, He did an amazing work upon our heart towards opening our relationship up with Bailey's birthmother. We started out slow and before we knew it, she was a full active part of our family. Today, she is my best friend and we share many of our life experiences together. When Addison came into our lives, her birthparents were already friends that we had known for some time and loved dearly. Keeping the doors of our relationship open throughout her adoption was easy and our hearts today love them with even a greater love than ever before.

Levi is 3 and we just had his birthday party with many friends, our family and his birthmother and her family also. Reiko, his birthmother feels like a daughter to us and her presence in our family is wonderful. She has recently birthed another son named Heidern (pronounced Heiden), that we consider our grandson even though he is Levi's 1/2 brother.

We love all of our birth families very much and have contact with them on a regular basis. We have five birth families for our three children. Keeping everyone up to date with all that goes on in our family is much easier done with updates on our family blog.

For me, the road to motherhood for the past 21 years seemed only possible through domestic adoption. Now that the Lord has opened my eyes to embryo adoption, the longing to birth is again revived and stirred within me. The thought that there might be a way to hold a child of mine without traveling through the pain of another person, is something I look forward to. I love my children so dearly but I also know that their birth parents felt deep sorrow during my greatest time of joy (their birth). That realization is so hard on my heart because of the love I hold for them.

As a profession, I am a labor doula. I watch families birth without sorrow and it is so different than what I've witnessed with the births of my children. I pray that the Lord will allow me to experience this side of motherhood and to have joy without sorrow as our sweet new baby/babies come into our lives. We are praying that the gift of someone's embryos would be this for us.

We are so excited to meet and get to know the family of the embryos and make them a part of our family. We promise to love and cherish the children that come from them and the door to our hearts and home will always be open for you to get to know the children born. Honestly, there is nothing more precious to us than the lives of our children and the hope of the children to come.

We will continue to pray for this dream to come true and place our hope and trust upon the Lord to continue to build our family. We know that in His perfect timing He will bring us our precious little embryos, and bond us to (hopefully) you , a beautiful genetic family.

I have a life verse that has encouraged me throughout our journey.

1 Peter 5:10

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

Waiting for the joy set before us,

Richard and Tracy Waring.