are you ready for this?

Have you ever had those times in your life when you are certain God is speaking and you are full of courage and feel almost like you just jumped into a moving, super fast speed boat and are along for the ride!?
It's for sure, it's exciting, it's scary, it's unknown, but you don't care about those last two because you are so certain it's from God and you know He's already won the victory?
That's where I'm at!

This is long and it's for my own remembrance.  Read if you want, but really, it's just written here as a memorial to God's clear direction in my life.

Last weekend I admitted something that has been stirring in my heart for a long time.
It was hard.  It took a teary and snot filled heart to heart conversation with a friend (she calls them "Come to Jesus" moments), and a revealing question asked by her about my heart and God's voice and the two being in step.

Back up.
I have a heart for the orphan.
My high school youth group, when I was graduating high school, did a spoof skit for all graduating seniors.  The person playing "Holly, 20 years from now" whipped out a wallet and out fell a stream of pictures that reached to the floor...they were pictures of her adopted children.
My blood beats for orphans.  It has since I was very young.
When Jake and I were dating/engaged, I brought it up, and he was on board 100%.
Ok. Good.
We were good.

Fast forward to now.
ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DOING IT!
I mean, so many of my close personal friends and heroes are adopting, have adopted or are fixing to adopt.
It's exciting and it makes me lay awake at night in anticipation for all that's happening in these families and kids lives.
I love it.  I love being a part of their stories in any way possible...
Babysitting for them, working at their fundraisers, buying their crafts to help raise money needed, letting them know I'm excited for them, praying for them, etc....I literally cannot find enough things to do to be a part of these stories.

So, my blood beats for the orphan.
All my friends are doing it.
All the 'logistics' line up for our family. (money, medical, housing, health, etc....)
So....what's left?

Peace.

I have read book after book after book.
Visited information website after information website after information website.
I have picked out kids faces after kids faces after kids faces.
I have asked and prayed and talked myself dry on the subject.

It's not there.

We are not supposed to adopt right now.
Just typing that brings tears to my eyes and a pain to my heart.

Why?
If I don't have peace, then it should be a huge relief, right?

Another sweet friend put it like this, and I couldn't put it better myself:

you're not just surrendering a dream, you are surrendering part of your identity. You have allowed adoption to become part of you. Part of how you see yourself and a part of how others see you. Ever since high school you have carried around this dream to adopt (even in your superlatives you said you were the girl in 10 years who would adopt like 20 kids) and then that dream slowly started becoming part of your identity. And when you said you struggle with not adopting right now because so many of your friends are..well, I think you struggle with that because you think people see you as "Holly, The Girl Who Is Going To Adopt". Not just 'Holly'. But Holly who is labeled. Branded with 'adoption'. And if you surrender this dream, you will also be letting go of something that has etched itself into your identity, and how you think others will see you and think of you if you don't.

We are supposed to adopt.  There is no question about that in my mind or Jake's mind.
But not now and not soon.

It hurts in a really good way.
What!?

This subject has been eating away at me.
I haven't been able to embrace and love my family the way we are right now because I wasn't sure it wasn't who we were supposed to be right now, and yet I was, all at the same time.
I haven't been able to pick up and act on other passions that make my blood move. I've been waiting for God to say, 'Ok, NOW!' and because He's been silent, I felt stuck.
I was worried that it was me, that my heart was hard, that I was being selfish, that I wasn't being 'spiritual' enough, etc....

I was worried, stuck and confused.

But there's nothing confusing about it.

My mama always said, "You either have Peace, or NO Peace.  There's nothing in between"
And peace from my Jesus is unmistakable.
It's clear and loud, loud and clear.

So, when my friend asked me THE question, "How do you know for sure God is speaking to you about your life?" what I heard was, "Are you sure God is asking you to adopt right now, or are YOU just sure you're supposed to adopt right now?"

I went back to my mama.

That was IT.
If I'm not sure, that's 'NO Peace'.
No peace.

In this case 'NO Peace' means surrendering what I thought adoption looked like for us.  For me.
It means not being in the cool crowd.  Yes, I know.  We are not in Jr. High....and yet.
It means there's something else.
Something new and unknown and unknowns are scary.
So, now I'm uncool and scared.
Awesome, that's exactly what I was hoping for.
NOT.

So then what?
How did I jump from the loss of a dream, that brought painful peace, to the speed boat?

For starters, this was the verse that popped up every time I turned around this week:
(and I have four little kids under my feet, I turn around a lot!)

Joshua 1:9 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

And then, God began to place HUMONGOUS, OBVIOUS directions in my path.

"GO THIS WAY HOLLY!" (geez, I love it when He does that. LOVE. IT.)

I'm crying again.

Back up.
Again.
Since we've been here (in Virginia) I've been offered:
1.  to head up the women's outreach ministry for an entire church
2.  to head up an entire (large) home school co-op
3.  been asked to be on two praise teams (dude. I'm not even sure they'd ever heard me sing!?)

Opportunities that a few years ago I would have JUMPED on.  I mean JU.MP.ED.
I've dreamed about those type of offers before....not even kidding.

Oh the 'power' the 'prestige' the 'position' the 'people who would know me'.
Instant all of that.  But, I said 'no' to all of them.  Almost immediately.

There was something else out there.  Something (and I was 'sure' it was adoption) that was going to require large amounts of time and if I committed to those other things, something would suffer (like my girls or husband).  Not that I exactly have large amounts of time right now anyway.  That whole 'homeschooling my four children' thing is kinda time consuming!  Who knew?

Anyway.
Every. single. time. I was presented with one of those opportunities and said 'no thanks', God provided affirmation almost immediately.
Affirmations like: a conversation with an unbelieving friend about their faith journey the day after I said no, clear direction about where we were supposed to go to church the day after I said no, they were big, they were small, they were all so clearly Him affirming my 'no's'.  (I'm needy, I need lots 'o affirmation)

And this week blew them all out of the water.
I needed to be blown out of the water after laying down my adoption ideas.

THE NEXT DAY I was rehashing the subject with friend #2 (quoted above) and she tells me about THIS conference on Human Trafficking and the church's response.  The conference is 3 hrs away, and oh by the way, she has another friend already going who'd she'd like me to meet anyway and oh by the way, the conference is free!?  Say what!?

Ok. That's great, but I don't know.
I'm not going alone (heavy subject), so I email friend #1 (who asked 'the' question) to see if she can get off work to go with me because I know this to be close to her heart as well.

Um...within a matter of 12 hrs we had four people, most of whom are strangers, with similar heart beats, committed to sharing a hotel room together, for sure that they don't just want to go but that God was clearly saying it was a NEED TO GO situation, two of them get to count it as work and don't even have to take leave to go, one of them is a missionary, so this IS her work and then there's me...
Put me wherever, BUT I'M GOIN'!

I'm going!?
I'm blown away.

At the timing, at the speed, at the easy.....at the PEACE.

Peace.

I can't say I've ever experienced painful peace.  This is new.
It's the good pain, the 'I just had surgery and now I'm recovering' pain and recovery is always peaceful, deep down.

So.
No adoption right now....we'll just set it on simmer and wait for God to touch that knob.
And I'll do my best to put my own Jr. High insecurities aside.  Because I'm sure they will surface their ugly pimply heads again and again.  (Jr. High, pimple, I don't know, they just went together?)

But, conference...Human Trafficking something.....(AND one other thing God has stirring but it's not sealed yet so I don't want to write about it yet...but it's HUGE.  If it happens anyway....if not, I'm sure there'll be something else HUGE but I really really hope this one is for real...it's HUGE.)  
Relationships with those who don't know my Savior, my family, the way it is RIGHT NOW,

I'm IN.

I'm here Lord.  In YOUR will, not mine.

And this is one cool speed boat!