Perseverance and Praise in the Waiting

Mabuhay (welcome/hello)!

We pray that everyone is staying safe and healthy in these uncertain times. What a time we are living in right now. Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers go out to each of you and your families.

In the Lee's Summit Seidel home, we've continued to be blessed by our gracious Father throughout the pandemic. We've stayed quite busy – yet been able to fill out time with enjoyment – the last several months, which is part of why I didn't get a blog written last month. I wanted to take a few minutes to highlight some of the blessings God has given us in these weeks.

• Our business, Igniting Business, has remained strong. We are encouraged to see a lot of our clients staying busy themselves and continuing to request services. We even had a few new clients sign on-board! Praise God!
• We even moved our office location in April – man, that was quite the feat! I strongly discourage moving the middle of a pandemic. 😊 As you can guess, the photos above are of our new office. God has blessed us so much with this newest office. We're so excited to see how God uses our business and this office in the years to come. Much thanks and gratitude to our family for so graciously helping us move…again. We hope that will be the last office move for quite some time…maybe ever.
• As I mentioned in March, we've been working from home. On Monday, we will be officially reopening our office (but still doing meetings with clients remotely).
• I have to say we've loved the flexibility of working from home as it relates to being able to stop, pause, and enjoy the here and now. We've been doing SO many fun things outside, as we've had beautiful weather here since March (you just never know what to expect in Missouri). We've gotten out and done all the following – many of these on a regular basis and on workdays. 😊
  • Badminton – For Christmas, I gave Ben a badminton set (his request) and man, this is becoming one of our favorite pastimes. We can just set the net up in the backyard and play 5+ games straight.
  • Grilling – In particular, Ben's converted me to enjoying grilled tilapia...mmm!
  • Eating lunch on the deck
  • Reading and working outside
  • Basketball
  • Front porch sitting – Yes, that's a thing in our house.
  • Backyard fires – Great conversation included, of course.
  • Taking Walks
• At the beginning of 2020, we made a commitment to read the Bible together in a year. We've continued this throughout the pandemic. As in all things, God has His timing in this decision. The daily Bible reading continues to keep us grounded and focused on Him whom we serve.

Man, as I write and read the above – I am yet again reminded how very blessed we are. God is great. Always. Even in these times, God is showing us His faithfulness.

That's not to say these times haven't been difficult. I've had my share of sleepless nights stressing about the pandemic, our office move, and our adoption. Honestly, I've spent more time worrying than I care to admit to.

On the adoption front – yes, I promise I'll always get to this part…even if you have to read a novel before and after it – we haven't made much progress. We were encouraged late last month to be informed that ICAB deciding board is now meeting virtually to continue making progress on matches. Unfortunately, the Manila lockdown has been extended until the end of May for now, but we're so excited to hear ICAB continues to make efforts. Just this week, we even received the monthly email of kiddos who are available for adoption, but unfortunately were not matched. This email was on-hold in April, so it was extremely exciting to see it this month.

While progress is being made, it is admittedly slow. That's difficult on us – as Ben and I aren't much for waiting or patience. We're already more than a year into this process. In fact, this past week we "celebrated" our second year of "pre-Mother's Day" as I called it. While I recognize I'm not really a mom yet, it's now been two Mother's Days since we began taking active steps towards meeting our kiddos. As I've mentioned before, even though we don't know their names, age, gender, hobbies, fears, etc. – love has already begun to form. So, waiting to learn all those things about them and to begin forming relationships with each of our kiddos – well, it's certainly a trial of patience.

But I find comfort in one of my favorite Scriptures.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

• James 1: 2-6

This passage has always given me much strength and encouragement in my life. Just last week, our pastor preached on the first half of the passage. As God so often and graciously does, He spoke wisdom and comfort into these times through this passage and through our pastor. (Again, isn't He so great?) It reminds me that these trials…COVID-19, business changes, adoption waiting…all of them, are developing perseverance and growing me.

But I also love the second half of this Scripture as well. When it's hard for me to fully understand God's timing, God's choices, God's will, I can ask Him for His wisdom – and He gives it! God gives us permission to ask Him for wisdom and He delivers on it! All we have to do is believe Him. And oh, how we do! We trust His timing is so much better than ours. We trust His wisdom is so much better than our humanly wisdom. We trust that He is revealing His wisdom to us. We know we'll look back on these times with tender fondness and a depth of understanding that we don't always have in the midst of the trials. He has been so, so good to us. God is great. Always.

So, as I wrap up this novel, I'll summarize by saying these past few months of experiencing a pandemic (that continues into the coming months) has been such a blessing for us individually, as a married couple, and even as future parents. God is developing perseverance in us, so that we continue to mature. We will praise him for that. We'll continue to ask Him for His wisdom, so when our human understanding and feelings bring discouragement, we can discern strength through His Godly wisdom.

Our prayer requests this month – Pray for God's wisdom for both Ben and me. While we've been praying for His wisdom – we can use all the prayers we can get. 😊 Pray for our kiddos in the midst of this pandemic. Pray for a safe home, a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, clothing on their backs, loving people in their lives. Pray they are staying healthy. But, even if they can't have all those things right now, above all, pray they know their Heavenly Father loves them. One more selfish prayer request - Pray that God's timing gets here quickly. 😊

Until next time – all of our love!