It has been so long since I have written on here, I have almost forgotten how to do it! It doesn't take much for me to forget these days! Life has been good lately...busy, but good. Gracie is now a 20 year old junior at Union University...can you believe she is 20?! She has grown into a beautiful, kind, smart young woman who has very godly standards for her life and we are so proud of her. She seems to have a great grasp on deep Biblical issues and tries to live in a way that is set apart...only by God's grace, of course. She has a double major...English and History. She recently took a J term class on Abraham Lincoln and enjoyed it a lot. She hopes to do something in the future related to publishing or editing...or maybe writing to be published at some point. She is a very gifted writer so who know how God is going to use her talents in the future. We are anticipating seeing how it all plays out! Abigail is a senoir this year and has done an excellent job with very hard classes including pre-calculus and forensic science. We are super excited about her college future! We still don't know how it is all going to work out, but she has been offered a position on Ouachita Baptist University's ladies soccer team and also an academic scholarship. We are waiting now to see how it is all going to work out. She felt like she had a tough tryout last week with them, but they called 2 days later and said "We want you, what will it take?" She was pretty shocked. We are just thankful to God to see how He takes care of us and provides for us! What a blessing! Evie and Jack Henry are going to a wonderful small Christian school this year and they love it! They have adjusted very well from homeschooling to this school. I knew they would! We still love homeschooling and believe it to be a great way to educate children and may still do that again...we will see. But for now, we feel we have made a good decision to allow them a time in school. Evie's 4th grade class has 6 children and Jack Henry's has 7...too good to be true! And their teachers are...PRECIOUS! They love the Lord and see their job as a ministry. They handle their classrooms with love, patience, and integrity...and the have tons of fun, too! They have become friends of mine in the process and I pray for them daily. As for me, I have been involved in teaching a ladies Bible study at our church for the last few years...mostly precept studies on books of the Bible. That has been a blessing for me, but also a challenge. I guess we never think we are qualified enough to teach God's Word, but I just do not see myself as one who should be doing that! There are so many wise women in our church family and I see so many ways I can learn from them. I am not teaching right now, but am just concentrating on being a student of His Word as we study together through Colossians. What an amazing book! If you have not studied it in a while, I want to encourage you to just go through the book of Colossians and write down everything you learn about Christ. It will give you great joy and awe of our Savior! I am constantly amazed at how good God is and has been in my life. I desire to seek Him through His Word and learn to love Him more. I just wanted to write a short update on our lives and just say hello to all of my friends out there! Hopefully soon, I will share more about how God has been teaching me and growing me...and also the times I have seen little growth and been frustrated with my own sin at times...it is a journey we are all on. Thankfully God is the steadfast and faithful One! I also would love to share all of the research I have been doing on healthy living and such. That is still an ongoing "project" of mine! So much to share!!! Does anyone know why my paragraph separations are not showing up and everything is all crammed together?

I have not been blogging much lately,in fact it has been so long that the blogspot format has all changed and I have no idea what I am doing anymore!!! Recently I realized that I missed the whole blogging thing! There is something about being able to "talk" about what is happening in my life and learning through other's experiences as well. I like to be able to just open up and let it all out...not even really knowing who my audience is...but expressing life's important topics from my heart and hoping it encourages someone else along the way. So, I am back! Can't wait to get started!

It is with a heavy heart that I type this and share with you that we have decided, after much prayer and many difficult conversations, to not proceed with our China adoption.

Hopefully I can explain the whys...

First of all, we recieved a call from our agency last week explaining to us what we needed to do to proceed with our adoption. They were contacting us now, because they were needing to let everyone with our log in date know what steps need to be taken because we are getting "closer". This means 8-12 months from a referral. Because the adoption is under new laws and regalations since we began, we would have to redo a lot of the paper work, do a new homestudy, file new fingerprints, and new medical tests. We knew we would have to update some things to continue, but we had no idea the true extent of money that would be needed to do the things we had already paid for to do early in the process.

When we began the adoption process, the wait was 12-18 months, which was great...then it started to get longer and was 2 years, which we were still fine with...but as the wait grew and grew over the years, we became unsure as to what to do. We looked into special needs, because that type of adoption moves more quickly. And even though there are many "special needs" that are not that severe, we were not sure that this would be God's plan for us. At the time of praying about this, my dad was suffering with Alzheimers and eventually passed away. My mother was his main caretaker and that was a difficult time for our family. We felt somewhat concerned with a special needs child at the time with the things going on that we needed to take care of first. So, we did not switch to special needs like so many other families did.

God gave us a desire to adopt...I am sure of that. Why? I do not know. I have thought through that a lot over the almost 6 years of waiting...maybe it was to encourage another family to adopt...maybe the whole process was to make us trust God more and see Him faithful, even in the face of disappointment....maybe it was to teach us patience...the list could go on and on of my guesses. What I do know and trust is that God is sovereign over every detail of my life. I can rejoice in that!

God is good, even in the face of deep disappointments. God's grace is sufficient for everything I will face in this life.

So, you may be thinking...why, if you are so much closer now, are you not going to go through with it?

It really comes down to the length of the wait and the extra money still needed to proceed.

So many things have changed since we began...we have one daughter in college, another who is a new driver, more expenses involved with both of those things. We have had some pretty major household things that have come up which have been a great costs to us. The idea of coming up with the money still needed would be extremely difficult at this point. Also, I am 43, but Mike is almost nine years older than me. Not that age is a major factor, but it is something to consider when adopting a baby. We have thought through so many different aspects of this. It has been a gradual decision for us and it seems that Mike and I have seen this coming.

It is a sad time for us. Even though I have known this was probably going to be our decision, it seems harder now that it is becoming official. I think about all of the work and excitement that went into completing our dossier...all the excitement over the thought of a new child to love, the excitement and joy of adopting a child from a country that has little knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and seeing how excited and expectant our children were over a new sister to love...it all comes back to me and it makes me sad.

But, I do trust that God had a plan in all of this. I want my dreams to be God's will for me, not just my desires.

God has been so kind to give us contentment in this. I can not explain it in human capabilities...because with as excited as we were to do this in the beginning, I never would have thought that I would or could give up on such a sweet dream of mine. My mind and heart was set on doing this and I could not wait to have my daughter in my arms. God's grace covers all of that---somehow. This is not me, but the Lord working in my heart. In my human selfishness, I would be kicking and screaming...not willing to let go. But, God in His kindness, has given Mike and I both a trust in His sovereignty through our disappointment. Blessed be the name of the Lord---He gives and takes away, still I will bless His name.

I was able, by God's grace, to run the Little Rock half marathon last Sunday with my injury still bothering me...but I finished! Yay! It was just a little slower than what I would like, but there is always next year! I had to run a slower pace because I didn't want to make my hip/muscle injury worse. It was so much fun! I loved being a part of something like that. Hopefully, I can get better and run it again next year...and hopefullly take about 15 minutes off my time! The race was just great! I ran through some streets with some old historic homes that were beautiful, by the State Capitol, by the governor's mansion, through downtown North Little Rock and Little Rock River Market area, and alongside the Arkansas river...it was WONDERFUL!

I went back to the doctor yesterday. The plan now is to rest for the month of March and start physical therapy at the end of the month. I am going to do that for 3-4weeks and see if I am any better. We are still not sure the actual diagnosis, but he thinks it is more than likely a muscle, tendon, or ligament strain from overuse. It feels like a pull/dull achy feeling in the lower abdomen/groin area...it gets better with rest and gets worse when I run. I am so ready to get better, but it is all in God's time. Hopefully after the physical therapy, I can start gradually running short distances again. I am hoping to ride my bike some, if the therapists thinks that will be okay. Mike and I love to ride our road bikes when the weather is nice.

I am still alive and well. This has been a strange year for blogging for me. I have had plenty of wonderful things to write about...God has been so kind to continue to teach me and help me with all kinds of things, but finding the time to sit down and actually write about it has been challenging. I think a lot of it has to do with the ages of my younger 2 children. They are at ages that require lots of school time...plus lots of supervising time....lots of arts and crafts time...lots of reading on the couch time...and lots of just loving my kids time. But, I will be back from time to time...

Some of the really important things that God seems to be teaching me from his Word lately are:

Trusting Him with the details of my life is of upmost importance.

I am inadequate in so many ways, but God is completely adequate.

In my weaknesses, God is strong.

When I throw little *Kim* fits to my sweet husband, I am reminded of my selfishness and have to bow the knee and repent.

God's Word is beautiful and never returns void, no matter how bad I mess it up with my own words.

We are vapors...and our bodies are becoming more weak and frail, but God always keeps His promises and our future is in Him.

I can no longer fear trials...I know they will come.

I must not always be looking at my present state, but looking at God's future grace in my life in which He is conforming me to His Son's image...and to my future in heaven.

Relationships are important, but God must be first...and I know my needs will be met in Him alone.

Life changes constantly, but the Lord never changes.

His fingerprints are in flakes of snow and that makes me look at awe at Him.

And...he never has to count anything, He always just knows it! What a great God! That just amazes me!

Those of you that know me can remember my running injury that took place a couple of years ago...I was doing some things that I think could have contributed to becoming injured. This time around, as I am training for a half coming up in March, I am doing a few things differently. To start, I am eating much less restrictively. I was pretty much a vegan back then, with the exception of fish sometimes. I was trying out a very restrictive approach to my eating because first of all, I really love fruits and veggies, and after reading some books, I became convinced that a vegan diet was extremely healthy. I wanted to at least give it a try. During that time I was also running quite a bit....increasing distance, speed, and adding lots of pretty steep hills. It was during a fast 5k that I actully felt the injury happen and when I tried to run a few days later, I realized I couldn't. It was much worse than I orginally thought and I stopped running for about 4 months. I started back super slow with still pain at times. Even today I can still feel it.

Although everything came back great with my blood work, I thought, as well as my doctor, that my calorie intake was just not fueling my body enough for the kind of energy I was using up. Also, I had very little fat in my diet as well. I was stiff, sore, and lacked energy later in the day. I think I could have been deficient in zinc and calcium.

This time I am trying to be smarter and more balanced. My goal is to fuel my body with nutrients, proteins, antioxidants, and fat. I realize now that when I run, my body needs to be replenished and sometimes a red bell pepper and fresh greens are not enough.

So, here are some things I am doing to help me be stronger and injury free this time:

Eating lean red meat once a week
Adding whey protein isolate to my smoothies for extra calories and protein
Adding flax seed meal to yogurt, smoothies, and oatmeal
Eating eggs...and lots of them
Eating some form of protein with every meal and snack
Still eating tons of green veggies and berries
Using real butter and low fat and full fat cheese
Lots of seeds and nuts
Greek yogurt--can't do without this yummy stuff!
Green tea...still a staple
Skim milk
Regular pasta sometimes, but still prefer whole grain
Fortified cereals like Total to give me much needed vitamins since I can't take a supplement

Hopefully, this plan will get me through the training and the run on March 6th!

Our song of the month.....

Brothers, let us come together
Walking in the Spirit, there's much to be done...
We will come reaching, out from our comforts
And they will know us by our love...

Sisters, we were made for kindness
We can pierce the darkness as He shines through us...
We will come reaching, with a song of healing...
And they will know us by our love!

The time is now
Come Church arise...
Love with His hands
See with His eyes...
Bind it around you,
Let it never leave you,
And they will know us by our love...

Children, Listen to our teaching,
Stand firm in the Truth now, set your hearts above
You will be reaching, long after we’re gone,
And they will know you by your love!

Written by Christy Nockels
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