8 Years and Counting

Your deep beautiful eyes
Your most genuine smile.
Your touch that makes me melt
Your hug that comforts
Your heart made of gold
Your soul - hand picked by God
--Just for me--

How lucky am I?

Today marks the 8 year wedding anniversary for Wife and me. It is also the 12 year and 1 day anniversary of us dating. We are quickly approaching the point where we can say we have lived more of our lives together than apart.

I thank God for the wife He has put on this earth for me. I haven't always been the best at hearing His desires for me, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Wife was made to walk hand in hand with me for eternity. Together, as we continue to grow up together, I learn each day how amazing our Father's love is for me, just by looking at my beautiful Wife.

Happy Anniversary My Love. We've been through so many darkest valleys and highest mountain tops and I can't think of anyone else I would have wanted to be on this journey with. I am by far the most blessed husband. You are a picture of everything God teaches us about a wife.

I Love You and dedicate my life to being the best husband God wants me to be, for Him and you.

Together Forever....right? :)
Randy

A Blessing I Didn't See...Until Now

Ever have a blessing stare you in the face, and you thought you were seeing it, only to have God rip the scales off your eyes to expose His true beauty and grace? The following was sent to me by my friend Tricia.
________________________

Daily Devotional by Max Lucado

"the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks"

June 18th

He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world.

Ephesians 1:4 (NKJV)

Search the faces of the Cap Haitian orphanage for Carinette...The girl with the long nose and bushy hair and a handful of photos...The photos bear the images of her future family. She's been adopted.

Her adoptive parents are friends of mine. They brought her pictures, a teddy bear, granola bars, and cookies. Carinette shared the goodies and asked the director to guard her bear, but she keeps the pictures. They remind her of her home-to-be. Within a month, two at the most, she'll be there. She knows the day is coming....Any day now her father will appear. He came once to claim her. He'll come again to carry her home. Till then she lives with a heart headed home.

Shouldn't we all? Our Father paid us a visit too. Have we not been claimed? Adopted?... God searched you out. Before you knew you needed adopting, he'd already filed the papers and selected the wallpaper for your room.

Come Thirsty

Max Lucado

©2000 - 2007

Courtesy

Oak Hills Church

San Antonio, Texas

and NET-IMS, Inc.
________________________


Tricia has no idea how God used her to open my eyes into deeper truths about the life God has given me. The calling he has put into Wife and my lives to adopt, and I have said it a million times, is such a picture of our relationship with Jesus, as HE has hand picked us all and adopted us into Heaven through his death on the cross.

After reading this, I cried and I felt the love of God pour over me. What an amazing blessing I have been given. Any time now, I too will appear to take Tres, Cinco and Seite home. Their earthly daddy will be there to bring them to the home their Heavenly Daddy has ordained for them here on Earth. God has entrusted the lives of these 3 children to me and Wife to raise in His name and for the purposes only He knows. It's my prayer, that Wmilt and I will raise all of our children according to His will.

It's amazing to me how God just speaks to you, right through all distractions, right when you need it most. I've been struggling with having no father in my life. I have occasional email conversations with my dad, back in Massachusetts, but it isn't real. We never have had that Father/Son relationship every boy wants in life. I never knew my biological dad and my step-dad worked and had issues growing up. For whatever reason, this all has been on my heart and hurting for weeks.

I thank God for the very fact that even thought I can't pick up the phone to talk to a Dad here on earth, HIS phone never goes to voice mail. As a friend of mine says, and I just love it so much, he is my Papa. I have vowed to God, that I will too will live with a "Heart Headed Home".

I thank God for God. He used my friend to speak 2 truths into my life:

1. He has entrusted me to raise His children
   
2. I am His son and He loves me.

...All other ground is sinking sand...

Cowards of the Keyboard

We had our yard sale this past weekend. Friends from work and church were just incredible and donated items for us to sell. We ended up making over 800 bucks towards adoption fees, which is an awesome blessing. Thanks to everyone who helped out or came by and shopped.

In preparation for the yard sale, Wife posted it out on the BuySellTrade Yahoo group, explaining it was to help raise money to bring our kids home from Africa. Who knew it was going to start such a problem? We got roasted something good by people asking who we were and how people could know we weren't trying to scam them?!?!?!?

Here are some snippets of emails we received:

"I'm so sorry, I just remembered that you outright tole me that this adoption didn't go through and how upset and sad you and your husband were about it. I'm not gonna start anything here, but I will end with this, if you are lieing (sp?) to me, how do the rest of the people in this group know weather or not you are even telling the truth about adopting at all? Just something for everyone to think about. I for one DONT believe in lying.

Victoria"

"I am interested in knowing if you are the person that has been accused of scamming members of buyselltrade in reference to your adoption. My feeling is if you need money to adopt three children then you can't afford them in the first place. I have three adopted children so I know how expensive it can be. But if what you are claiming is not true then the kind and generous people in the Mayberry area need to know. I will help get the word out and I will also help you clear your name if your claims for these children are ligitimate. Please let me know. Eldora

My Reply:
"Here is the deal folks...As the moderator has already mentioned, keep
your personal feelings off this board. While I find it commendable
that Victoria and Eldora feel the need to inquire about 1. the
authenticity of a member on the board and 2. the financial status of
a member, lets remember it's none of your business.

A yard sale is a yard sales folks. Would you rather a family raise
funds to offset some of the costs to give kids a home? Or is it more
acceptable in this "me me me" world to have a yard sale so you can
purchase a new big screen tv?

I find it so amusing that you will question a family for doing the
right thing, behind the privacy of the internet. You know the address
of the yard sale, so stop being cowards, stop on over to the yard
sale and ask your questions face to face.

Moderators: I apologize for posting this, but as the father of these
3 children in Liberia and the 4 children already home, I felt the
need to put a few people in their place. I fully expect this post to
be removed, so please do accept my apologies.

Last note to these keyboard cowards, I think proper etiquette for
questions of such personal nature, is to email the person privately
and not show how ignorant you are to the rest of the community.

Thank you for your time. And I thank those of you who came out to
help us with our adoption, you are true blessings.

Randy ."

Amazing. What kills me is not one of these Cyber Cops showed up to talk to us in person. Unfortunately for them (and me) I loooove arguing :) We got a bunch of emails, some supporting us saying we are doing the right thing, others telling us we are scam artists and too poor to adopt..blah blah blah. Thankfully I know we aren't in the business of making people happy, just our Father.

Make me think about Saul. When he was hunting down the believers, non-believers were cheering and supporting his efforts. As soon as God removed the shales from Saul's eyes and he started preaching the Good News, his supporters wanted him dead as well. I guess today it's ok to raise money for self pleasing reasons, but attempt to do God's work and Satan has full control over people and attacks.

That being said, it was fun going "Boston" on them. I'm still trying to figure out what "Going Boston" means, people at work tell me to "Go Boston" all the time. I tell them after I eat a huge lunch..."That's going Boston"....or when I finish my work..."That's going Boston"...or when I get cranky and grumpy...."That's going Boston". It's fun.

On a totally different note...I bought the Daughtry CD...Yes..Chris Daughtry...from American Idol...and it's awesome. I hate to admit that, because I promised myself to never buy an American Idol CD...and I did. And I may buy Blake Lewis' Cd as well.

What a girl I have become.
--
His lovingkindness is Everlasting

Couldn't Stay Away...

Like a boomerang....I'm back.

I found myself thinking in terms of "that would be a great blog post" or "That's funny, I should post that". That and I have been "tagged" which I guess in the blogging world is like those goofy emails where you need to tell something about yourself and mail it everyone you know. The emails that irritate the junk out of everyone, yet everyone still reads them and does them (even if you don't email it out, you know you have thought about your answers to the questions in them....favorite ice cream, what's under your bed, chocolate or vanilla....)

So here, and I'm not proud to continue this tagging game along, but here are my 7 things you may not have known about me.

1. I used to have hair...and a lot of it. When I met Wife, I had a full head of hair and it was long enough to reach my chin.

2. Growing up, I had a dog named Buttons. Buttons was a mutt, but awesome. The last few years of her life, she had this weird fetish where she would rub her back on our coffee table and in the process removed all the hair from half way down her back to the end of tail.

3. In the 7th or 8th grade, I finally managed up the nerve to ask a girl out, in typical middle school fashion, via a long 3 page note, given to her by a friend. She promptly wrote me back a note which stated: "Randy, No. Janine". Not bad - 3 pages given for 3 words received.

4. I used to rush home from school so I could watch Santa Barbara. If you don't know who Eden and Cruz are, you are no friend of mine.

5. It was (and still kind of is) a dream of mine to be on Saturday Night Live. Up until about 3 years ago, I would practice writing stand up bits in hopes of someday having the nerve to do stand up comedy, just so I could be the next Dana Carvey or Mike Myers.

6. ESPN and the NFL Network aside - HGTV has quickly become my favorite channel on TV. I'm secure enough in my manhood to admit that...really I am.

7. When I was somewhere between 10 and 12, an eye doctor told me I needed glasses. I wanted nothing to do with them, so I asked them give me clear rimmed glasses, because I thought they would look invisible to people. They were the most gynormous and obvious things I have ever seen. I wore them for about 8 seconds and never wore them again. I also have pretty good eyes, so I think that doctor was a quack.

I guess this is where I "tag" someone else. Melissa....You Are It.
--
His lovingkindness is everlasting