Snickers really doesn't satisfy...

I really had the best intentions of keeping the blog updated as we walked through this journey of adoption, but it is time to face the music... I am just no good at this!  

In the moment, my feelings are all over the place, my words are not sufficient, and my typing ability is even less than that.

So in true Erica form, here is a recap...

My time in the Philippines was rough!

I have done hard things before (Hello, deployments!), but being all alone, without Wade and the kids, in an unfamiliar place, while missing Christmas, taking care of the girls, who were in all truth strangers that I love, was just one thing too many!

I was on their turf, trying to parent the girls, but had control over nothing. 

The girls were happy to finally have their “mom “, but not at all happy to have some stranger telling them what to do, how to behave, and most especially, constantly reminding them to speak English!

Most nights they went to bed quickly, most probably because they were tired of me, and  every night after the girls went to sleep, I wept. 

I would cry a bit, fall asleep, and then wake each morning between 1 and 3 am, and would cry again. 

I would pray, begging God for answers, and text Wade hoping he was near his phone so I would have someone to talk to. Oh, and I would also eat a snicker bar. A full sized snicker bar... every. single. night!!! (Well, technically, I guess it was really early morning)  

That was the drill... Pray, cry, text, and eat Snickers. 

Unlike the commercial... the snickers did NOT satisfy me. 

Oh, but  it was yummy and totally pacified me :)

I would write in my journal ever day, but couldn’t get my feeling down on paper. I would recount the things that had happened that day, write tips or reminders to myself about things I had seen that might help when we got home, and that’s it. I started to feel like those people in the movies, who were stuck on a desert island and write in their journal... “Day 14, I don’t know if I will ever make it back home” :(

I wanted to plead for prayers. I wanted to come home, to see my old kids, to be back in my bed. I wanted to have a second to myself, to hear from God, and to know when in the heck we would ever be flying home!

After about a week of this, I realized that I had been so concerned about me, me , me.

I had not once asked God... “What do you want from me?” 

     “ What are you trying to teach me?”  

              “How can I bring you glory here?”

From that night on, I stopped crying, and complaining, and praying words. I simply made it through the each hard day, and harder night, thinking... “God, give me the strength to do whatever you want me to do today!”, and He did!

The answers did not come faster. As a matter of fact, we ended up buying our tickets on the same day that we flew, and Wade never even made it to the Philippines, but I was able to see blessing after blessing, and for that I am grateful!

Psalm 107:9

 For he satisfies the longing soul,
    and the hungry soul he fills with good things.