thankful that God has confirmed many things for us lately
/
I know I've been MIA over here until the past week, but I thought I had mentioned our upcoming move before. Maybe I didn't, given the number of questions I've gotten about my mention of it in our last post, so here goes...
Back in May, I shared our plans for adoption with y'all. And at the end, I mentioned that we were planning on staying in our current home forever and ever, amen. Right after I posted that, I told Lee, "You know, now that I've declared this publicly, this means we'll end up moving." That's how it tends to go with us. God is concerned about shaping our hearts in the process, so going through the process of buying a home we thought we'd stay in forever and making renovation plans to add space was beneficial.
But.
He has led us to change those plans. In June, Lee's sister and her husband were looking at homes in the area, and I started helping them. In doing so, Lee and I started finding houses in our price range that were larger and closer to all our frequently visited places (work, church, schools, etc.). We waffled about the idea for a while and, while praying about it, focused our efforts of wrapping up little projects here and there to get our house ready to sell if we did... or to enjoy ourselves if we didn't.
Long story short, we decided that we would move toward selling and wait to begin the adoption process until we're in a new home. A lot of factors weighed in, but one was my health. We actually expected to have the house on the market by October, but my body changed our plans.
In September, my knee gave out, a result of rheumatoid autoimmune disease (which is a term my friend Kelly is advocating for, since it's more accurate than "rheumatoid arthritis").
In October, I had knee surgery.
In November, the breathing problems I've had on and off in the past couple years became much worse.
In December, I was diagnosed with asthma, most likely due to RA lung damage though we won't know that for sure until I see a pulmonologist. (Hi, my name is Shannon, and I'm addicted to specialists.)
Some wonderful news in all this is that the RA damage is not continuing. My IV meds have it under control. The knee and lung issues are the result of RA damage that occurred in the year before I was diagnosed and the year after that when we couldn't start strong treatments because I was pregnant with Robbie and recovering from childbirth.
But isn't it neat how God confirms things for us? You see, one of the reasons for the planned move was that a three-story house for a woman who has a chronic disease that can affect her joints and lungs and heart... well, that's just not the smartest plan. It has become clear to us that we need a home that will work for us, even on my bad days. We had already determined that we wanted our new home to be wheelchair accessible so that we can host all of the families we get to know and love through our church's special needs ministry, and it could turn out that I need that level of accessibility someday too. (Given the success of current treatments, that's not expected, but the prognosis for RA was much bleaker 15 years ago and the meds that work so well for me now have only been out for that long, which means that long-term side effect aren't known. That makes it much more comforting that we worship a God who does know all that this life will hold, doesn't it?)
My recent health issues have confirmed adoption as the right next step for adding to our family too, because another pregnancy would require us to stop my meds. Any prolonged break in treatment makes it more likely for my body to reject the medicine whenever I'm ready to restart it, plus stopping meds means that the damage we've stopped would likely start again.
But the cool thing is that God set adoption on our hearts before we got married. Our premarital counseling surveys are in a box somewhere, but I remember that in response to a question about how many kids we wanted, we both wrote that we hoped to have a couple of biological children and then adopt. For us, adoption was never our plan B. It was and has always been part of plan A for our family. God has just used my health circumstances to confirm that.
So next step, get this house on the market next month. Then, sell it and find another house and buy that one and move. And then get underway with adoption plans.
Please pray for us. In my ideal world, we'll get an acceptable offer the first week our house is on the market and have time before closing to find the perfect-for-us home to buy so that the whole process will be as brief and painless as possible and we can move full speed ahead with the adoption plans. I know that's not the most likely scenario in the current housing market, so you can either pray that everything will go according to my ideal scenario or that God will sustain us through the different scenario He has in store. :)
And also pray for us as we research a tough topic related to our adoption plans. I wish I could share more than that cryptic comment, but I can't yet, except to say that God has drawn us to consider something we hadn't considered before and that we need to be bathed in prayer.
Thanks, y'all.
Back in May, I shared our plans for adoption with y'all. And at the end, I mentioned that we were planning on staying in our current home forever and ever, amen. Right after I posted that, I told Lee, "You know, now that I've declared this publicly, this means we'll end up moving." That's how it tends to go with us. God is concerned about shaping our hearts in the process, so going through the process of buying a home we thought we'd stay in forever and making renovation plans to add space was beneficial.
But.
He has led us to change those plans. In June, Lee's sister and her husband were looking at homes in the area, and I started helping them. In doing so, Lee and I started finding houses in our price range that were larger and closer to all our frequently visited places (work, church, schools, etc.). We waffled about the idea for a while and, while praying about it, focused our efforts of wrapping up little projects here and there to get our house ready to sell if we did... or to enjoy ourselves if we didn't.
Long story short, we decided that we would move toward selling and wait to begin the adoption process until we're in a new home. A lot of factors weighed in, but one was my health. We actually expected to have the house on the market by October, but my body changed our plans.
In September, my knee gave out, a result of rheumatoid autoimmune disease (which is a term my friend Kelly is advocating for, since it's more accurate than "rheumatoid arthritis").
In October, I had knee surgery.
In November, the breathing problems I've had on and off in the past couple years became much worse.
In December, I was diagnosed with asthma, most likely due to RA lung damage though we won't know that for sure until I see a pulmonologist. (Hi, my name is Shannon, and I'm addicted to specialists.)
Some wonderful news in all this is that the RA damage is not continuing. My IV meds have it under control. The knee and lung issues are the result of RA damage that occurred in the year before I was diagnosed and the year after that when we couldn't start strong treatments because I was pregnant with Robbie and recovering from childbirth.
But isn't it neat how God confirms things for us? You see, one of the reasons for the planned move was that a three-story house for a woman who has a chronic disease that can affect her joints and lungs and heart... well, that's just not the smartest plan. It has become clear to us that we need a home that will work for us, even on my bad days. We had already determined that we wanted our new home to be wheelchair accessible so that we can host all of the families we get to know and love through our church's special needs ministry, and it could turn out that I need that level of accessibility someday too. (Given the success of current treatments, that's not expected, but the prognosis for RA was much bleaker 15 years ago and the meds that work so well for me now have only been out for that long, which means that long-term side effect aren't known. That makes it much more comforting that we worship a God who does know all that this life will hold, doesn't it?)
My recent health issues have confirmed adoption as the right next step for adding to our family too, because another pregnancy would require us to stop my meds. Any prolonged break in treatment makes it more likely for my body to reject the medicine whenever I'm ready to restart it, plus stopping meds means that the damage we've stopped would likely start again.
But the cool thing is that God set adoption on our hearts before we got married. Our premarital counseling surveys are in a box somewhere, but I remember that in response to a question about how many kids we wanted, we both wrote that we hoped to have a couple of biological children and then adopt. For us, adoption was never our plan B. It was and has always been part of plan A for our family. God has just used my health circumstances to confirm that.
So next step, get this house on the market next month. Then, sell it and find another house and buy that one and move. And then get underway with adoption plans.
Please pray for us. In my ideal world, we'll get an acceptable offer the first week our house is on the market and have time before closing to find the perfect-for-us home to buy so that the whole process will be as brief and painless as possible and we can move full speed ahead with the adoption plans. I know that's not the most likely scenario in the current housing market, so you can either pray that everything will go according to my ideal scenario or that God will sustain us through the different scenario He has in store. :)
And also pray for us as we research a tough topic related to our adoption plans. I wish I could share more than that cryptic comment, but I can't yet, except to say that God has drawn us to consider something we hadn't considered before and that we need to be bathed in prayer.
Thanks, y'all.