A New Path for Us

As we walk through life, sometimes paths change.  Sometimes so unexpectedly that you get caught off guard.  Others think you are crazy when you start something and you have to stop in the middle of a great plan and redirect the course.  Sometimes I get it into my head that I will NEVER do one thing or the other. 

I vow that I will never get into certain things.  

I remember about 6 years ago, when I saw all these ladies making up blogs and building a career with it.  They were so good at telling the people all the things they wanted to know about.  Cranking posts out daily and getting more and more readers by the day.  Advertisers would line up to pay them large sums of money to put their ads on their front pages since they had so much traffic.  It was a FULL time job as it seemed to me. 

Back then I vowed I would NEVER have a blog.  I thought I knew my own limitations.  I knew that I would not have time to write every day and tell people what they wanted to know.  I knew that my views were against the grain of this present world we live in.  People would read it and I was sure they would hate me.

BUT, I did it anyway. 

I started that blog and wrote from my heart, and to my surprise, people found it refreshing that I wasn’t out there to say what people wanted to hear about but what the Lord was teaching me through my own embarrassing failures.  I was a RAW and REAL person who stopped caring about ratings or good reviews, comments or shares, nor money from advertisers.  I was never someone that could be bought out.  

I never thought I could sell products that were a part of scary networking things that seemed so scamming to me back then.  All these ladies were posting all over the social media looking like such salespersons.  I was the type to cross my fingers in front of my face as if to ward them all off.  Don’t sell to me was my motto.   

I vowed I never be a network marketing lady. 

But I did it anyway.  The unexpected thing was that it worked to help us with our health.  I didn’t plan on that.  I started down that path, got healthy, and never had to bother people.  I was glad I never had to troll people on the internet.  I never had to technically sell anything.  The people asked me about it.  When I figured people were tired of hearing about how amazing we all felt, I stopped sharing our health victories, just enjoyed them from the comfort of our home.  I found a healthy balance in my life.  I decided not to work to become the xyz LADY that is defined by a business.  I just lived life.  I didn’t get millions and all the awards and shining glory of it all, but I found out my glory was right within my own home, being the QUEEN of my home.

I never got that RICH ITCH, you know, the one that you can never scratch?  Seems like some people, even when they make a lot, they want more, more, and more and more and more and more, so they can be more rich.  What happens when you already feel rich?  That’s me.  I feel rich in all the ways that matter in life.  I make just enough that we need to take care of our expenses in the simple life we live, I don’t want more.  Is that weird? 

I began to live the life that EVERYONE dreams of.  Its like my little heaven on earth.  I love my life.  My dad recently retired and he said he can’t believe how amazing it is to not have pressures on you that the world continually demands.  A world where people own you.  Your business owns you.  People think you owe them because they make you money because they are your customer at your job.  Most women in society work hard away from home just to retire so that they can have what I have now.  They work to get retired and kick back to enjoy the simple things in life.  Long ago they figured that there was freedom in having more money or having a good job that made them feel important.  Maybe the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.  There was a better life OUT THERE, hmmm?  I would wager to say that there is no place like home.  Dorothy said this as she clicked her ruby slippers and it is truth.  There is no place like home!

I have been there and done that.  I used to wonder if there was more out there.  If I would be happier if I worked a job that paid good.  I thought if I could reach a certain level I would have the respect and the admiration that all people wish for.  Well, I found out it didn’t matter in the end.  I looked at life as a big picture.  I saw that at the end of people’s working years, they just want to spend more time with family, doing what I do every day right now. 

About a year ago, God planted a seed in my heart to adopt.  I always wanted to, but this time I felt an urgency to do it.  My children were getting older and I actually worked myself out of a job, which is another major topic I could write about.  I will do that soon.  

But adoption is expensive.  The agency I contacted would ask for a large sum of money just to get our profile out there and it had no guarantee that we would be matched to a birth mother.  Then there was the fact that the people we would be competing against were sweet couples that never had children.  I remember the day I broke.  I could not take their spot.  I don’t have a womb and I was also infertile but I have 5 children when these other had none.  

Another beautiful couple in our community told me about another PATH.  This was a PATH that I vowed I would NEVER go down.  I mean, I heard tons of horror stories of families ripped apart by this so called PATH.  God leads us on PATHS we NEVER thought we would go down.  

This was the FOSTER CARE PATH.  The one that few even try to journey on.  It took God writing it on the wall before we would take this risk.  Kids are taken from good families sometimes.  Sometimes kids are badly abused.  But the fact is that they are souls that Jesus loves.  They deserve the same chance to feel safe as any child.  I remember when I was a child.  I was abused.  I remember being scared and lonely, depressed, feeling unwanted.  That is how I found Jesus, thank God.  

You’ll want to hear the whole story of my life and I promise that first book will be coming soon.  

After a friend told us NOT to do it, I dropped the idea.  I didn’t want to make a bad decision.  That is why I can rely on my head.  The one God put over me to lead me on the right PATH.  My husband and children did not want to drop that idea.  They said we need to do it. That it was the heart of God. 

There is a catch.   

The catch is that we would do this for Jesus, which means we may never get to adopt.  It means we get our hands dirty in love.  Jesus got really bloody and dirty for love.  It didn’t stop him.  Why should it stop us?  We might get battered down, sad for situations beyond our reach, but we can pull ourselves together each time when life gets hard like we have in the past.   

Maybe we could simply offer love, prayer, a safer place, good home cooked meals, a little more laughter, lots of hugs, and a healthy family life that a child desperately needs to heal.  If that is all we can do for a short time, it is worth it.  There will be opportunities to help the parents achieve their goals so that they can be reunited as a family.  Maybe Mark and I can help teach them how to find Jesus or how to care for their children.  The goal is just that.  It is a way I can MOTHER beyond my own Mothering.  Mother the little children and the parents if they allow us to.  My home will be an extension of God’s heart.  I get to cook, clean, homemake, love, nurture, teach, and admonish in love, more humans for the glory of God. What a PATH, right?!  

We have been taking classes for the past month and have learned so much about abused children.  In fact, I learned a lot about the ways I coped through life.  

Debi Pearl sent me a copy of her new book, Create a Better Brain Through Neuroplasticity.  I started reading the first few chapters and learned a lot about how to help create better PATHS in the brain when a person had harmful, abusive PATHS grooved into their brain.  There is hope!  God created our brain to be renewed.  I am proof of this.  I didn’t have this book, I had the blood of Christ, and His Holy Spirit molding me along my PATHS of life.  It took a long time but I feel like I am fully restored and redeemed and ready to help others find that as well now.  This book helps people know the techniques that could really help.  (For a 25% off and FREE Shipping, Plus a free audio download of ABC Bible Verse Songs, go to www.NoGreaterJoy.org to pre-order this book using the code erin2019).  

For instance, in the book, it talks about the power of healthy touch, like hugging, and cuddling with infants.  They respond to that touch.  It is that skin on skin touch that causes their brain to grow so strong and healthy.  In contrast, babies that are left in a crib crying, or left in a room without much physical touch, they get mental disorders like attachment disorders.  Lots of the children that we will be working with will be taken from Meth houses and when parents are doped up, they tell us, the children are left without care for long periods of time.  They tell us that they might not like to be held because they are not used to people holding them.  They put up a protective exterior to feel safe in their own mind.  By using the techniques from Debi’s book, the things they are teaching in our class, and by my own healing process, I feel that we are going to be able to make a difference.  

So far they approved us for 3 children under 3 years old.  We could get sibling groups, or individual children.  Please pray that the Lord will lead the children and families that He wants into our PATH and our hearts.  This is not an easy PATH, but nothing that is worth living for comes easy but it has eternal value.  

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6