Pickles For Dinner

There is a place in my mind that writes blog entries and stores them for later use...but the place never seems to re-surface :O)
To my friends and family who have been looking at the blog this last year only to see the last entry of "smells" to still be sitting there...I apologize. Really.
I came to bed last week and Dave had the computer out and said "look hun, I started up the blog again" I froze....oh the pressure.

The journey we are on is BIG, the size of God's heart is BIGGER...so I will take a moment each Sunday night to update the journey so others can see the GOD size picture too.

PICKLES FOR DINNER!
Dave had pulled up a blog a few weeks back about a family who really blessed our hearts as we read about how their family had a HUGE family size heart to have the whole family engaged in the awareness of the plight of the orphan. They had really great ideas on how to change things within their family to give God room to fund raise.

They gave us the idea to put out a pickle jar and collect change as we could find it, also as a visual for everyone coming into the house to see it and call it to mind that we are praying for our new son.

All we had was a full pickle jar...so for dinner the kids GLADLY each ate ALOT of pickles to empty the jar. (notice I said kids...ohhh yuck!)

One of the things Dave felt God saying for this adoption, this time around was to "not shuffle money around" meaning, don't pull insurance money to pay for adoption costs that we would re-place.......but to not move forward until the funds for each step were in at the time each step payment were due.
Ohhh my panic mommy heart....reality hit the wall....was I willing to hear Dave, was I willing to trust that money would come in...more than that...was I willing to set that time frame in COMPLETE control of God.
Oh the power of a sinful heart. (kinda ugly )
After a few pouts, tears, and silent stares at Dave (with him running his hands through his hair in patient waiting for my heart to line up) I let go of the grip I had on any expectation I wrongly held....and Cleaned the jar....put a verse and a picture of our son on the jar!

The jar was out, small family meeting was held. We told the kids our filing fee was going to be $910, and told them about what Daddy felt God saying about the money....in a few scurry mins the kids were dashing OFF and were BACK with their wallets and change and were dumping money into it.

Day 2...a check comes in the mail $100, also i posted homeshcool curriculum for sale and made a $95 sale in the first 30 mins it was posted, at Ashlies work, someone leaves a $100 donation on her desk, end of day two......almost $300 was in!

*****I WAS ONE ON MY FACE HUMBLED LADY*****
It was as if God was actually reaching out and LOVING me through people!
He really was just waiting for me to let go of my ideas and let Him move!

By Day 7....we had filled and emptied our jar 2 times! (went to a friends house on day 5 and she said " follow me, I have something for you" We went into her bed room and she picked up a HUGE jar of change..."here we want you to have this for your jar" WOW! When we got home, John loaded the change into the pickle jar saying over and over...."oh my brother is coming home, oh my brother is going to like that this money is here for him, oh yeah"
$79.00 was in that change jar alone! End of day 7....we had ALL $910!
HOW?

Pickles for dinner.................thats how!

The willingness of a husband to HEAR
The unwillingness of a wife....turned willing
The willingness of OTHERS to POUR into our lives for the cause of our son!
The WILLINESS of GOD to love us to obedience....He can even use PICKLES!