When Live Gives You Anxiety, Turn it into a Wreath

Tomorrow, I open my trench coat to society.  I mean, tomorrow our social worker comes to visit us and tour our home.  No trench coats will be involved. Still, being a perfectionist has its downfalls during adoption.  Hubs looks at our house and sees two people who love each other and who want to parent a child in need, a loving home with plenty of resources and everything necessary.  I pray that's what everyone else sees, too.  What I see sometimes, however (and this is the anxiety part) is a floor that's not perfectly clean, a dryer full of laundry that needs folding, scratches on our leather sofa, and anything else that's 'imperfect.' When our neighbors drive too fast, I worry it will give the wrong impression.  When I can't get every last coffee ground off the stove where they have spilled after this morning's pick-me-up, I fret.  I know.  I know.

1 Pet 5:8 "Cast all your anxieties on Him, for he cares for you."

I get it. In my head.  My heart though, my heart worries.  So, I double-check the ring around the bathtub, scrubbing it meticulously one more time.  I tidy up the spare room one more time, hoping it will be filled soon with the Little One we're desperately preparing for.  I rearrange all the paperwork one more time.

And I know that sometimes, this perfectly represents my faith.  I want to "do" instead of just "be."  The floors of my heart will never be tidy enough for God.  I can take all the toothpaste off my sink, but I can't take the marks of sin off my heart.  Yet, God doesn't see that.  He sees Jesus.  He sees that I have imperfections. I can't fix them.  But oh do I try.  Salvation can never be achieved through actions and yet, I still feel like I have something to prove.  God says, you've either accepted my gift or you haven't.  Stop worrying about trying to prove it to me.  And same goes with our home study.  I know, somehow, the toothpaste won't make the difference between being able to parent our IC and not.  We've done what was asked of us. We now wait, hoping to rest assured in the promise that if you've done what's needed, hoping to learn a lot along the way.  I'll keep you posted.

I didn't mean to get all Jesus-y on you. What I wanted to show you was, in my anxiety, I spruced up my door with a beautiful new wreath.  I am not crafty, by any means, but I saw an adorable wreath on Pinterest, and I decided to recreate it.  So, with the help of my delightful bestie, I found some summery flowers, a wreath, some acrylic paint, and numbers at Hobby Lobby.  I combined these things with scissors, a paintbrush, and a glue gun and VOILA! I am now crafty.  Or I at least have a cool new wreath to make my door pretty and distract me for an hour.  I give you the finished product:

I'm pleased as punch.

If you're wondering where this home study visit is in the general time frame of our adoption, we have one more and then we'll move toward finishing our dossier.  It's still a ways away, though.  A ways.

I'll keep you posted on tomorrow, but if you are the praying type, please pray for tomorrow's home study to be a great experience for us.  And as always, pray for orphans everywhere and for the Ethiopian government to speed up their handiwork to allow their kiddos families in a quicker time frame.

Thanks for your prayers.  They mean more than you'll know