July 12, 2013
Wow! Never thought I would be pursing adoption… and now that is all my heart longs for! So exciting! It simply amazes me how the Lord works in such mighty ways through grief and trials. James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so you may be mature and complete lacking nothing.” Lacking Nothing! Wow! Our family will lack nothing after the loss of our precious Ryan Adeline. We will be complete. God’s Word says that so clearly.
I remember when I began memorizing the Book of James last summer. A group of precious women and I joined together in the study of James and were challenged by the lovely Miss Beth Moore to memorize the whole book. I remember thinking, “A whole book of the Bible?!! Are you kidding me?!! No thank you.” Well, wasn’t I blown away when the Lord through His amazing power in me, simply had me memorizing the book with a passion? It was like I was on auto-pilot and the book just sunk into my brain and into my spirit as if He knew there was going to be a great need for its truths very soon.
Its funny because as I went through that amazing summer of study and memorization, the part that stood out to me the most was James 1:19. James says, “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Well, anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk! Ugh! Its my greatest strength and my greatest weakness all at the same time. Needless to say, I felt very strongly that my main “nugget of truth” from the book of James was that point about being quick to listen and slow to speak. And of course, yes! That resonated with me very powerfully as I began to realize that the Lord speaks volumes through other people… if I would just listen!! So grateful for that lesson. So grateful for my precious sisters who teach me so much every day. So blessed with His blessing of friendship and love and how He imparts so much to me through such relationships. I digress..
The most interesting part of the book and the process by which I went through in order to memorize it is this… the book starts out in verse 2 saying these powerful words which I spoke of earlier, “Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Because those words are in Chapter 1, verse 1, I repeated them over and over again as I would always start at the beginning when practicing my recitation. Not once as I verbalized those words over and over again did I think about the impact they would have on my mind, spirit and soul. It was not until 7 months later when I experienced the biggest, most excruciating loss of my life. Her heartbeat had stopped…
PayPal Adoption Puzzle Fundraiser- https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=EV8Q8QBF53CXL&lc=US&item_name=Leiviska%20Family%20Adoption%20Fund¤cy_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donate_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
laleivis@yahoo.com Would love to hear from you about adoption! 🙂
Our Adoption Journey 