| Day by Day |
 |
 |
| If you return to the Main Page, we hope that you will sign our guestbook. We hope to share the encouragement and kind words with Maria someday. |
|
 |
|
| 8/9/2006
Isaiah 54:10 ��For the mountains shall depart And the hills be removed, But my kindness shall not depart from you. Nor shall my covenant of peace be removed.� Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.� I have just started going through Beth Moore�s Believing God Bible Study for my quiet time. This verse was one of the verses highlighted today. I thought, �How appropriate is that?� Yesterday was not the best day. I was expecting, believing the �pink� call, and it didn�t happen. Instead, we found out about yet another delay. And for about two hours, I mourned. I also did a little complaining to God. I won�t bore you with all of my �arguments� with Him, but when it was all over, when the world looked its darkest, I fell asleep (afternoon nap). And I had the sweetest dreams of Maria. When I woke up, for just a moment, I thought, �Was I dreaming about this newest delay?� I sincerely hoped I was. But I quickly realized I wasn�t. Yet, the fight within me was gone. I have always believed that our lives are like giant jigsaw puzzles. God only gives us a piece or two at a time. Sometimes I love those pieces. My children�s smiles, holding hands with my husband, a delicious dinner. Other times, I am not sure what the pieces are. They aren�t happy or sad, they are just the everyday pieces of life. I will admit, I was NOT happy with yesterday�s piece. I wanted to chunk it, just throw it out the window. But it is the piece God gave me. I cannot complete my life puzzle without it. I don�t know what that big picture is yet. Only God does. However, I do believe that all of those pieces fit together to make the big picture, which I hope is a picture of our lives glorifying God. Just two days ago I was praising God for His perfect timing with PGN. If I can rejoice in those very happy moments, I need to rejoice in the other times as well. After all, I had just said, �God�s timing is perfect.� And, again, it is. It doesn�t seem perfect to me at this very moment. I sometimes wish that our two �perfect times� would just come together. And they will�when I surrender my idea of the �perfect time�. I am going to have to rely on God for this one. He knows when Maria should come home. He will NOT remove the covenant of peace. I can trust Him on that. I apologize for my little meltdown yesterday. You would think after a year of this, I would have learned a few things. I guess in a way I have. It didn�t take days to recover, it took a couple of hours. Of course, my heart still longs for her and urges God to give us that day to hold her again. (Mark keeps reminding me that two hundred years in a like a second for God�that doesn�t really help�) So we keep on waiting� |
|
| 8/10/2006
First of all, we got new pictures! Look below for one of the newest. We love that the pictures said �Maria Elizabeth Cloud�. We have a daughter. It still doesn�t seem real, particularly since she isn�t here. I also like how it said �the last pictures��we sure hope that is true! Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." I continue to enjoy my Bible Study from Beth Moore about Believing God. However, having a quiet time WITH children in the house is not exactly what I consider a �quiet time�. But I am enjoying being in the word. I would like to ask for prayers though. I am really struggling with faith and prayers. I have been reading how believing God is an active process on my part. Just like the woman with the bleeding disorder, she had to actively seek out God to touch his robe before she was healed. And I have felt like we have done that throughout this process, though some days were harder than others. And today I had a very positive attitude in believing God for pink, only to find out in the latest pictures that she still does not have her new birth certificate. I do believe in God�s timing, though it is hard for me to understand why His timing seems to be working much quicker for everyone else. (We are taking twice as long as most pinks seem to take and we aren�t there yet�) Then I cannot help but question if my prayer is doing any good. I realize that prayer is for me, not for Him. He is God�He doesn�t need my prayers to be all powerful. Yet I feel like we have been praying and praying and sometimes almost feel like we are going backwards. It is a very hard balance for me that I am struggling through. One of the teachers at my school said it very well, �Could they have made it any harder for you if they had really, really tried???� I agree. I do know God is in control, I just am questioning whether my faith, my prayers, my fasting, etc. really fit into this equation. Any Bible scholars out there? Maybe I should give Beth Moore a call� I do want to thank you for the prayers and guestbook entries. We have been lifted up many times from your sweet words. We hope that someday soon we can come back and share the miracle that God has waiting for us� |
|
| 8/11/2006
Psalm 119:69 May my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word. I love watching the numbers on Maria's site that tells me how many visits we have had each day...all through the week the numbers remain pretty high, then Friday comes and they plummet. Very interesting! This will be short and sweet. We received no news of a new birth certificate. They also don't issue pink on Friday even if we HAD a new certificate. And then Tuesday is a holiday in Guatemala...sigh. We keep on crying out to God. |