Gratitude Friday: The 38th Year...

Let's just start off here by being totally transparent and say, I've been drastically over thinking this birthday.  

Change is coming.  I feel it.

This December, we will celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary.  We got married in 2000 with a set plan of attack for our little life together.

And we followed said plan....until we couldn't light a few candles, turn on some Marvin Gaye and make a baby.  Like everyone else.  

So we spent the first seven-ish years of our marriage focused on our careers.  We originally thought that pursuit would really only be about Chris, his education and the climb up the band director ladder (admit it.  you didn't even know that was a thing.)  But something strange happened on the way to me being a lost, post-graduate English major with zero marketable skills...

I found a skill.  A career.  A passion.  

Just before our seven year anniversary, we moved down to Texas.  We were well into the process of trying to start a family but it wasn't until we got down here that we faced the reality it might not be that easy for us.  It was here we did the surgery and the IUI that almost killed me and IVF 0.5 - IVF 2.5.  

In the last seven years, God blessed us with the girl and boy we'd been dreaming of since we said "I Do."  And they are as blond haired and blue-eyed and fabulous as we imagined.  Possibly more sassy and strong willed than we imagined too but I chalk that up to having several blind spots about our own personalities.  

Otherwise, we would have totally seen that coming.

Now, though, babies are no longer babies.  Aubrey Kate starts Kindergarten next year.  Rhys will start preschool three days a week.  And at that point, my life will look completely different.  

If for no other reason than I will have 12 hours a week...during the day...without children.

My heart does not long to go back to the corporate world or, honestly, work full-time.  In a way, I find myself feeling more like that lost, post-graduate English major with zero marketable skills.

But with a whole lot of dreams.

Since I'm starting another seven year span now, it feels like a good time...maybe even an ordained time...to put into writing some of my long-held and newly sparked dreams.  

Wanna take a peak with me?

1.  Write 

I love words.  I love narratives.  I love their strength.  In college, writing paper after paper and crafting story after story, I knew I didn't have the endurance for novels.  Nor the imagination.  I don't and never have lived in a world of fantasy.  Too much of a realist.  But I love words.  I love narratives.  I love their strength.  

This little blog though.  It has been a life line.  Not just to my family miles away.  But also to my husband.  And, most certainly, to my Father.  Chris will often tell me this is a collection of letters to God.  A way of processing what He's reveling to me and teaching me.  

I want to shout JESUS from the mountain tops.  Tell the whole world what a life through Him can be.  How He can transform.  And share what He's taught me about living a life of gratitude.  

Not sure what that looks like though.  

Oh, I have a vision.  Change the name of the blog.  Move it to its own site (which we've owned for a couple of years now).  Start posting and sharing and get disciplined about writing more regularly.  

In the past, I've always known God was telling me "No" to all of that.  I'd get super close to making major changes and He would shut.me.down.  Lovingly, of course, but decisively.  

So far, I'm not getting that now.  In fact, thanks to several incidents (?, moments? accidents?) lately, I'm feeling optimistic and excited and...willing.  I want to write what He leads me to and if I do that, I have no doubt those who need to see, will.

2.  Love Orphans

When we first got married, we would jokingly (sort of) tell people if we were unable to have children, we were gonna head on over to China and grab us up a baby girl.  

And God giggled.

Because when we actually couldn't have children of our own, our hearts wanted nothing more than little EVANS'.  

The whole family looks alike.  You can spot them from miles away.  Aubrey Kate looks just like her daddy, who looks just like his daddy, who looks just like his sisters, who look just like Grandmother Evans.  It's amazing really.  In a room full of family for a reunion several years ago, it was scary obvious which ones married in and which ones were blood related.  

Now, I have two Evans'.  Apart from the hair color, it looks like I had nothing to do with them genetically.  

When I close my eyes, I can picture our future family.  Many colors.  Many ages.  Many needs.  But one family serving one God growing with one purpose...to love Him and one another.

I'd scoop up kids from all over the world.  India.  China.  Ethiopia.  Medical needy children.  

But then reality hits me.  

We're old here.  40 is coming quickly and it takes years to adopt oversees.  And that's without even touching the $20,000-$40,000 per kid it can cost to adopt.  Plus the cost of raising them here.  

Band directors just aren't bringing in that kind of cash.  

So adoption might not (I refuse to admit it absolutely is not because GOD IS ABLE) be in our future.  But we can still love orphans.  Through monthly support programs, mission trips I will one day find the courage to take, choosing to buy products that directly provide for families so they can stay together.  

My heart aches for the children AND their communities.  I don't believe God breaks your heart without a purpose.  But for now, we are going to pray, pray and pray more and work, work and work more towards giving whatever we can to simply LOVE.

3.  Start a Business

This is by far the scariest and hardest part for me.  Because I loathe...LOATHE...selling stuff.  It's not in my DNA.  But at the same time, I love...LOVE...creating "special" for others.  The business dream has gone through numerous variations.  But in every one, it is directly connected to two things:  The blog and the creation of a non-profit.

My dream is to have a business focused on handmade items that, simply, help build a home.  I love to create, re-purpose and RE-create.  Living on a tight budget has forced me to become more creative and imaginative.  And I wouldn't trade that for all the money in the world.  At this point, I envision offering so many different things from clothes to bunting to furniture to entire custom made party packs.  

The blog, the company, our life would, in a sense, all be one brand.  

Only a handful of people have been BLESSED (sarcasm font) to hear me go on and on and on and on about this little dream.  But I have so very literally been praying about it for four years.  And with each new variation, I feel the vision getting more and more focused.  The plan becoming more doable.

And the purpose becoming more refined.

Because, ultimately, my DREAM is to financially help infertile couples become parents.  

And in the understatements to end all understatements... I have NO IDEA HOW TO DO THAT.  

But THIS dream...it propels the others.  If I could write, love orphans and help others create their own "nests," then this last piece simply falls into place.  

Maybe it will be a non-profit.  Maybe it won't.  Maybe it will be exactly what it has been all these years.  God sending us one couple at a time to walk alongside their infertility journey.  He's not been flooding my life with infertiles.  Although I would jump with GLEE.  Instead, He's always faithfully sent one person and then another and then another.  It's allowed me to be devoted to their journey and only their journey.  

He's good, y'all.

When I look at the last fourteen years, I see God's hand in every single moment.  In every move.  In every job change.  In every shot and frustration and longing.  

And with all that I see behind, I have every expectation the next seven years will be unbelievable.

"However, as it is written:  What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him."  ~ 1 Corinthians 2:9