Minismith

Matthew captured Lucy practicing her rusty eating skills yesterday. 7 months already. Gah, time flies.

Lucy at 7 months from Matthew & Amy Smith on Vimeo.

Remember B doing the same 6 years ago?!

February 2006 from Matthew & Amy Smith on Vimeo.

A friend of mine recently posted this song on Path. I’m not a big Shane & Shane fan, but these lyrics struck a chord with my weary soul this morning.

Lies versus truth. The words permanently engraved on one of my dear friends arms. A beautiful daily reminder. Truth is ours to be had and if we simply claim it and cling to it.

The father of lies Coming to steal
Kill and destroy
All my hopes of being good enough
I hear him saying cursed are the ones
Who can’t abide
He’s right
Alleluia he’s right!

The devil is preaching
The song of the redeemed
That I am cursed and gone astray
I cannot gain salvation
Embracing accusation

Could the father of lies
Be telling the truth
Of God to me tonight?
If the penalty of sin is death
Then death is mine
I hear him saying cursed are the ones
Who can’t abide
He’s right
Alleluia he’s right!

Oh the devil’s singing over me
An age old song
That I am cursed and gone astray
Singing the first verse so conveniently
He’s forgotten the refrain
Jesus saves!

He redeemed us from the curse of the law.
He redeemed us from the curse of the law.

Give it a listen: Embracing Accusations

She may not be sleeping, but she’s definitely growing! Up from 7lb 4oz at birth, to 9lb 11oz at 6 weeks.

I don’t have much time or energy to write these days, but I love reading Sara’s blog. Particularly, this one from last week that I happened across this morning. I needed this reminder. Maybe you do as well this morning.

I Choose Love

I will love you, O Lord, my strength. Psalm 18:1**

I choose love, because, today, love is a choice for me. It doesn’t come naturally. In fact all of life’s inertia seems to be pushing me towards a calcified version of me. Inward-gazing looks appealing until its sting overwhelms my thinking and penetrates the heart level.

But You, God, offer another way. Love. Worship. Adoration.

The most unlikely time to look up is the perfect time. When confronted with loss, all that feels empty about me and about life, is when You offer Yourself as an exchange.

I choose love. I choose You. I choose the God who is always breathing life and hope and promise against the fumes of death that I’ve inadvertently inhaled in my person. You are the God of the yes when my life says no. You are always working a win when I feel crushed by my latest loss.

God of strength, I choose You as my strength.

Yes, I will love. Even now, knees weak and eyes searching for solution. I will love out of loss.

I will adore. I will call You what You are. Beauty, love, life. Drops of dew against my drought, the strength that one Word of Yours embodies is accessible to me when I worship. The most unlikely moments of despair are won to hope when I speak out about Your love and lift my arms up.

I love You, oh God my strength. I will love You, oh God my strength. I declare it to You, to me, to the enemy awaiting every opportunity to steal, kill and destroy beauty. You are Love and because of You in me, I can choose Love. I can choose active participation in the battle of my life.

And its there that I gain strength.

I love You, God of all that is strength inside of me. I worship You, God who is warring against all my weakness with all that You are. I adore you Father who overshadows my loss with Your gain.

Oh God, You offer a heavenly, holy way out: Your love.

So I declare back to me with my words before my body is even ready to walk it out: I will love. Because You made words to matter and my adoration allows activation of You in me and me wrapped inside of You. Strength.

“The love of God is never idle, though our weak flesh often believes that He has forgotten us. We think the proof of His abandonment is that He allows unlovely things to happen to us. This is not so. But we misunderstand the way His love works.

God’s purpose is to so enkindle us in love that we are full of life, and full of delight. But first, in order to penetrate into our souls, it is necessary for love to wound…

God must reveal to us that nothing in this life is truly good, for it is not lasting. And our soul, which is eternal, must stop trying to find its resting place and security in earthly loves and worldly joys. Nothing in the life can offer the secure hope, the limitless love our soul needs – for the earth and all that is in it is passing away, but our soul is eternal…

Therefore, I say, renew your mind so that you come to see every wound that comes to you as coming from the playful hand of God. It is because he loves you that He refuses to let your rest your soul in this corrupt, dying world.

So I say – and now you will not think it is strange – that God would wound you deeply. For in this way, He continues to open all the inner chambers of your soul. And the devil cannot enter there. And your own worldly senses, which would betray your Heavenly Love, cannot enter there.

In all this He is opening the way to the central chamber of your soul. There He plans to set before you a feast. This, I tell you, is the banquet place of the Holy Spirit.”

- St. John of the Cross

Hold tight & hug those you love this holiday season. Sweet, gracious gifts from our loving Father.

We just received the phone call that no adoptive family is ever prepared for…regardless of how much you think you’ve prepared for it.

Our adoption agency has been unable to contact our birthmother for over a week now. She was supposed to have flown to Utah last week for her induction next Tuesday. They are assuming that most likely this placement will not happen and have advised us to remove our family from the file. But since they won’t be officially closing the file until her actual due date of Dec. 25th, Matthew and I have decided to stay on until that time.

Please pray for us as we wrestle with deep sadness. We’ve been aware of the risks all along, but it never prepares you for the reality when it comes. We would love your prayers over the next week and a half as we wait. Knowing that most likely we have lost this baby, but still waiting for the official closing of the file. We want to ache and mourn, but keep our eyes fixed on our Faithful Father leading us through this exhausting process of adoption. We also want to have joy and fun with our boys through the rest of the holiday season even as we re-picture it without, what we had thought was, our daughter, who would have been joining us.

This picture/verse below showed up in my inbox yesterday, which would be more fitting than I knew at the time:

I just wrote some friends asking for prayer for these coming two weeks, but wanted to share our needs with everyone since we could use as much prayer support as possible!

This has been a busier holiday season than usual in the Smith household as we prepare to welcome home our daughter next week. The induction date was set for next Tuesday, Dec. 21st, so Matthew and I will be flying to Utah on the 20th to meet D, our birthmom, and hopefully be at the hospital for the birth on the 21st. At this point, we’ve heard we’ll be able to return on the 24th, but that has to be held pretty loosely as adoption is know for throwing a few twists and turns into the mix.

Both Matthew and I are feeling a little worn thin with how emotionally draining this whole process has been and these last two months, in particular, have been pretty gruesome. The general lack of communication from everyone has been frustrating and continually brings up feelings of being alone & defenseless in this less-than-perfect system. Would you partner with us in praying for the follow?

1. An implicit trust & rest in our Father, who leading this process – regardless of all the bumps and turns we’ll take over the next two weeks. All we CAN do is trust Him as inevitable changes to “our plans” happen, but we’re praying for a deep rest in His goodness as we’re faced with changes. This could include changes to our travel plans, how long they make us stay in Utah, the health of our daughter when she arrives, the decision of her birthmom to place her with us, the length of her hospital stay, etc…

2. For a healthy delivery & birth of the baby – please join us in praying, even now, for her health. And for D, her birthmom, as she goes through the laboring experience on Dec. 21st. She’ll be induced that morning.

3. For D, the birthmom, on Dec. 21st in particular – as she labors/delivers and waits the 24hrs before signing over placement of the baby to us. As you all know, adoption has it’s fair amount of risks and until she officially signs those papers 24hrs after the baby’s birth, we do not have any guarantees that she will officially place her baby with us. We will all need prayers the 21st-22nd as we wait.

4. For our boys, for us, and for my parents as we’re apart – with not having a absolutely settled, known date of our return, it’s much harder on everyone. The boys, us, and my parents who will be watching them. Praying for peace for all of us and reliance on Jesus for strength we don’t feel like we have – physically for my parents taking care of the boys with all their other kids at home for the holidays & emotionally for me as I’m away from the boys and keep learning to entrust them to Jesus.

5. Practicing the very real presence of our LIVING God – it’s so easy in this pressure-cooker of a situation to FREAK OUT…especially for some like myself who is newly learning how little control I actually have in life :) Every time I can’t get through to our adoption agency, or get mixed messages from different social workers, or think about level of flexibility demanded of me over the next few weeks, I tend to get wide-eyed and feel myself trying to find something, anything to control. The kids moods, their health (or lack of, lately!), the cleanliness of our house, the amount of sleep I can stockpile before getting a newborn. All of which leaves me more tired and irritable than before. This past weekend I have forced myself to stop, to turn on some kind of restful music and just picture the reality of resting with Jesus. Remembering that He is actually alive and moving and in charge of even the tiniest details of what’s going on in our lives right now. Matthew and I want to be able to keep going to that place of belief, that his very real presence is near us through this. The hassles of flying cross-country, staying in an unfamiliar town, the unknowns of if this adoption will actually carry through, dealing with bureaucracy in the hospital, waiting on paperwork. All perfect opportunities to feel alone, orphaned and not taken care of by our Loving Father. We want to believe that He is going to give us just the grace we need to be tethered lightly to plans and instead bound to His heart that is for us, that is for our daughter, and that is for adoption.

In case you’re one of those who love the details, here are our tentative travel plans:

12/20 – M & A fly out of GSP at 6am for Salt Lake City. Dinner with D, the birthmom, that night. First time we meet her!
12/21 – D is induced

12/22 – D signs placement papers and hopefully Maisy will officially be ours!

12/23 – Maisy is hopefully discharged from the hospital and comes to spend the night with us at our hotel

12/24 – We hopefully fly back home to GSP, arriving at 5pm! 

Stay tuned for the latest on the arrival of minismith #3!!

After being stunned by the outpouring of donated goods and services for our online auction, we have finally pulled ourselves together and organized the first ever Minismith Online Auction!

The auction will begin this coming Monday, November 22nd at 8pm EST and will last through the week, ending on Monday, November 29th at 8pm EST.

Feel free to go take a look around and peruse all the beautiful goods and amazing services we have generously been given here:

Minismith Online Auction

As a note, if you plan on bidding on items, you will need to create a login at the site.

There are lots of great Christmas gift ideas. Hope you find something you like :) We’re getting closer to begin able to bring home our baby girl in a month!

God is so good and faithful to his children.

We are beyond thrilled to announce that minismith #3 will be in our arms before 2010 draws to a close. As of Thursday, we have been officially matched with a birthmom due on December 25th with a full African-American baby GIRL!

A girl, a daughter. We can barely believe it. We are in shock. We are giddy. Our daughter is already here, on this earth, and in less than two months we’ll see her little face for the first time.

We covet your prayers over the coming weeks. For us and our birthmom, D. As we attempt to build a relationship over the phone under such a painful and emotionally difficult circumstance. For us to follow Jesus in loving D. and supporting her during this time. For the health and safe arrival of our little girl. For the Spirit to be with her in the womb, singing His delight and desire over her. For our boys, as we’ll be away from them for a week to 10 days around Christmas (and yeh, for me in that department as well :). And for our family, as we prepare to become FIVE!

Thank you all for the many prayers you have prayed for our family over this wild year, for your constant support, and generous encouragement. This truly has been a community endeavor from the beginning. We have felt held up through your prayers and faithfulness to walk through this process with us.

We are still in need of raising about $5,000 to cover travel costs, living out-of-state for 1-2 weeks, and finalization fees. Please consider partnering with us financially to bring this little girl home. There is a button located in the upper right-hand corner of this site. We’ll also be hosting an online auction with some beautiful items and amazing services on our Adoption Page in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for details. 

Social media.

I’m not a full-on hater, but for me personally…I needed a big time break. (Thank you, Mom, for helping me get there :) I need a season to remember who I am apart from witty one-liner tweets. Apart from advertising all the cool spots I hit around town through Gowalla. Apart from a world that I’m not immediately, directly involved in.

And in all honesty, I need more moms in my life. More women trudging through the beauty and pain of raising little wild souls. More women who can encourage me to be right where I am and find joy in the mundane. Rest, in lounging on the floor with a stack of board games and puzzles that will only be halfway completed before the next one is started. Satisfaction, in toddler jokes over pb&j’s and dance parties in the den. Awe, in the tender, sweet little prayers Levi whispers before diving into his meal.

I love all the amazing people I have met through the beauty of social media, but for now, I need some more real life interactions. More conversations that occur in more that 160 characters. More people willing to jump into the real muck of life with me and press me on and into Jesus and allow me the gift to do the same with them.

So goodbye Facebook account. You are officially deleted and stripped of the temptation to “just check in”. Goodbye Gowalla. No one really cares how many times I went to Publix anyhow. Goodbye massive slew of tweeters. Hopefully my cozy new list of 30 will keep me entertained just enough to also allow for me to engage in my own life during the day instead of sitting around reading about what everyone else is doing.

I want to pick up the Canon and take more shots of the boys. I want to get out the sewing machine and enjoy being creative. I want to wade through that stack of books next to my bed…and the couch…and my desk. I want to sit by the fire with Matthew at night and talk about our dreams. I want to have my friends over more and laugh as the house is quickly destroyed by a troop of super heros and princesses.

This may seem drastic to some, but I want to enjoy being a mom, a wife and a friend. And with an all-or-nothing personality like mine, sometimes it takes a drastic “nothing” step to for me to gain some realignment and deep soul rest. Particularly with the possibility of a new little minismith arriving in a few short months! More to come on that soon. Stay tuned…