Tripp and Christy's Amazing Adventure

Tripp and Christy met in Memphis, Tennessee at Visible Music College in August of 2001. They had a brief conversation at orientation when Tripp commented on Christy's Poor Old Lu t-shirt and Tripp thought to himself, "You know...if it doesn't work out with the other girl that I followed here from the ATL, I could probably marry her.". 

As the year went on a friendship formed which led to love and when school was out Tripp and Christy left Memphis for Texas, where they got engaged and in December of that year, married. They decided that the big city of Houston was not for them and headed for Green Acres... trailer park, that is, just outside of Atlanta where they made a cozy little home. A few months there and it was back to Texas, where they continued to grow restless until a friend said, "Hey, come back to Memphis!".  So they did. They spent a whole year in Memphis, working and making friends until they decided it was time to have babies and Georgia was on their minds. So they packed up and headed back to Georgia. Macon, Georgia, this time.  They established their careers there and bought a house, preparing for the baby that just wouldn't seem to come. A few years of this and they decided that maybe adoption was the plan for them and so they quickly went from 2 to 4 when Michelle and Anna joined their little family.  Their hearts were now full with these two beautiful little girls and you would think the story would end here, or at least slow down and get pretty boring. But, wait! There's more...

After a few years as a family of four, they decided it was time for their family to grow again. Maybe adoption in the future, but for now they wanted to love on those that may be only half orphan... foster children. Babies to be exact. Because Christy had still never had an itty-bitty one and her heart longed to snuggle a squishy new baby. A few short months after they began this new journey, 2 month old little Timothy came along. And oh the waves this little brown boy would make! But, they loved him as their own and decided to adopt him, if they could. Little did they know that something else was brewing. Something very itty-bitty. Something wonderful. A little miracle from their loving Father... they were finally going to have a belly baby!

Now this little adventure was getting kind of scary! Two babies! What would they do with two babies? How would they manage doubling their family in less than 9 months? Oh... but God had this all planned from the beginning. He knew they would eventually come to see this as the most beautiful time in their lives. Two beautiful babies would join Michelle and Anna and their little family of four would become a family of six. Big baby T in March and little baby Audrey in December, born at home (Christy's dream birth) 11 days before their 10 year anniversary.

This is not the end of their story. They have many happy years and adventures to come. Maybe more children or maybe something entirely new.  One thing is fore sure, the first 10 years have been the happiest and the most amazing years of their lives.

It's a ...

From an Empty Nest to a Full Quiver

I was awakened out of a nice deep sleep at 5:30 this morning by a little voice calling "Mommy" from the other room. It turned out that both girls had had wet the bed so I set to work changing sheets and clothes and by the time I was able to lay back in bed I was wide awake. As I laid there, trying my hardest to go back to dreamland, it hit me how blessed I am to have those two little beauties in the other room, the sweet little boy that, as I was thinking about this, started to cry and then drifted back to sleep and the round belly that caused me to have to get up (yet again) and go potty so I didn't have to change my own sheets. I've told the story about how we came by the first two blessings, but I've been so busy and so tired that I haven't made time to stop and tell how we came about the other two. And since I'm already awake and it's on my mind, might as well get up and do it now!

We had always talked about adopting again once the girls were settled. We began talking more seriously about it late last year. In January, I turned in an application to our local adoption agency and then a few weeks later we felt, yet again, that the Lord was leading us back to DFCS (Human Resources, Division of Family and Children Services - foster care). This time we decided (mostly because I really wanted a newborn) that we would foster instead of foster-to-adopt like we did with the girls. By fostering instead of fostering-to-adopt we knew that we would be more likely to get an infant, but also that we would most likely not get to adopt the first baby that we were placed with. We were mentally preparing ourselves for this as well as preparing the girls, as best as we could.

March 8th we got the call we had been waiting almost two months for. They had a 2 month old, African American baby boy. I quickly started making calls and getting things together. Even though we had been planning this, we still didn't have some basic necessities. I went to pick him up at the DFCS office and he immediately took to me. "Uh oh.", I thought, "You cannot get attached to me, little guy, because this is only temporary!".  I brought him home, survived a week of sleepless nights before we finally got to meet with his caseworker. She informed us that it already looked like his case was going to go towards adoption. At this point we really felt like we could adopt him. She was thrilled to hear that we wanted to keep him if he went up for adoption and put our name in big letters on top of her notes. We were completely unaware of what challenges we were about to face.

As the second week of having Timothy went on I was getting more and more exhausted. I had never had a baby this young before, so I thought I was just tired from late night feedings and taking care of him and two very active girls. By the end of the week I was starting to think that maybe it could be something else. My period was now almost two weeks late. I still wasn't thinking that I was pregnant (I had long since given up on that notion), I just thought that maybe something was wrong. By Sunday evening, as Tripp was playing drums at church and I broke down under stress and exhaustion, my friend took all the kids from me and strongly suggested I take some time for myself and even more strongly suggested that I buy a pregnancy test. So I did. It was positive. I couldn't believe it. I showed Tripp when he got home and he DIDN'T believe it. He made me take another one. It was positive. The next day he called me from work and told me to take the last one in the box. It was positive. When he got home he took me to the drugstore to buy another box. They were both positive. We were in shock! After 8 long years were we FINALLY having a baby?

Why now? Here we had this little baby boy that needed us and we were having a baby. I was so tired and eventually felling so sick all the time that I could not imagine taking care of TWO babies plus a 5 year old and a very, very active 3 year old. Add to that the opposition we were getting from a few family members because of Timothy's race and we were just so overwhelmed that we didn't know what to do. During this time Tripp and I were stretched beyond what we thought we could handle. We were worn out physically, spiritually and emotionally.

As to not drag this story out too much, I'll give you a brief overview of the few months between then and where we are now...
God has graciously shown us our own sin and selfishness through this little boy. He has shown us how to give up our own desires for the needs of another, how to love those that are different than us, how to love those who oppose us, how to stand firm on what you believe in, how to persevere through difficult circumstances and much, much more. Timothy's case is still pending, but we already love him as our own. I can't imagine not having him as my son. I would go to the moon and back for him. I will be devastated if we lose him.

God is so good. Who would have thought 8 years ago when we started this journey of trying to have a family that we would be where we are now. Who would have thought that Tripp and I would have 4 children in 3 years time! Who would have thought that Tripp Freeman would actually entertain the thought of having 5 or 6 children? Not me!

One of our good friends encouraged me with a verse when we were in the most difficult time of our infertility struggle. Isaiah is speaking of the barren woman when he says in Isaiah 54:2 "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes." He may not have known at the time that this was prophetic as we have had to do this very thing this year! We have had to make room in our tiny house for all the children that the Lord has blessed us with! Another verse that the same friend encouraged us with as we were struggling over whether or not we were supposed to adopt Timothy is Psalm 127:3-5 "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children are a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate."

Thank you, Jesus, for our full quiver. Or, maybe it's not quite full, yet.  :)

Who has time for this stuff anyway?

So, I am ashamed that this is my first (real) post of 2012.  It's actually the first post in many, many months.  I have been so busy with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), running Michelle to ballet and soccer, chasing Anna (who is running right towards the terrible 3's), getting ready to be a foster parent... whew!  No wonder I haven't had time to write!

I started this blog at first as sort of a way to journal; just to get my thoughts out of my head and send them out into the void.  Then, I realized that I have family all over the US (the world, actually) that wanted updates on our family and this would be a great way to share with them what was going on.  It turned out, instead, to be a way to sort of flesh out my spiritual growth.  I realized after writing a few months that fleshing out my spiritual growth for the world to see is not that easy.  I got kind of embarrassed.  Spiritual growth (from now on I will call it sanctification) means that you are constantly changing and that what you say today may seem so silly tomorrow.  I sat down one day and decided to write about all the things that God was teaching me and how much I had changed over the last 10 years or so.  Thankfully I accidentally hit the wrong key and somehow erased the entire thing right before the autosave.  I was frustrated and had to walk away from the computer and stew over it for a few days.  That's when I realized that some of the things that I was saying might alienate people that I loved, and not necessarily in a godly way.  It was a good thing that didn't get published!  After that I was kind of blog shy.  I love to write, but I just didn't want to anymore.  Then I got busy, like I mentioned  at the beginning.

So, like I said in my most recent "hey, I'm still here" post, I went to the Created for Care retreat and felt kind of ashamed that I hadn't been keeping up with my blog and felt like I needed to come home and update.  But... I came home in the middle of God doing something to challenge me.  I was so ready to write about how I was frustrated about this and frustrated about that and how dare people treat me like that, etc.  I was feeling pretty good about myself and how much I had grown and all the things I was "doing for the Lord".  Then comes Tuesday (my BSF Leadership day) and the new lesson.  We were now in 1 Corinthians.  Paul is calling out the Corinthians for their spiritual pride and God called me out on mine.  It hit me for the first time how I sounded.  "How dare people treat me like an outcast!"  "I'm doing just fine!  I don't need their pity!"  Wow!  I had no idea how bad I sounded.  I was embarrassed that I had actually said all this stuff out loud to my friend, Susan.  Ugh!  And He didn't stop there.  A week later I am having to humbly call a friend and apologize for acting like a fool.

Pride stinks.  Nobody likes to be around a prideful person.  But, I've been avoiding dealing with my pride issue for years!  I was beginning to think that maybe God was just going to let me slide on this one!  I really did not want to deal with it.  It's one of those soft spots that is just to sensitive to deal with and too hard to overcome.  But, here I am, right in the middle of sanctification, and God wants it all.  I think I forgot for a moment that sanctification never ends.  That there will always be something that needs to be purged out.  It sucks sometimes, but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:14 "I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children."  I am God's child and "the Lord Disciplines those He loves" (Proverbs 3:12 and Hebrews 12:6).  The verse that I have been holding onto for the last year is this... Philippians 1:6b "... he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  I am nowhere near done with my battle with pride, but I believe that God is more gracious to me than I am to myself.  I pray that I will begin to see the needs and concerns of other people more important than what I feel like I deserve.

Bueller...Bueller...

So, I realized when I went to Created for Care adoptive mom's retreat this weekend that I have not updated my blog in forever!  I don't even know if anyone really keeps up with this, but if you do, you have probably been wondering where I am!  There is definitely something on my mind from the weekend that I would like to write about.  I promise to make some time to do that soon!