I really am loving these Anybody stories and I’m sad that in just a little more than a month they will stop 🙁  I’ve loved getting to hear peoples stories, and that won’t change.  But instead of being sad, I’ll just soak in these last few amazing stories.  Like Cara’s!  Cara is a fellow Noonday ambassador and although we have not met “in real life” we get an amazing opportunity to early in 2014….she has a precious heart and transforming story.  If you feel like God has ever pressed the “pause” button on your life, you might want to sit down and read her story.

Anybody can change the world, I’m just a girl who exchanged her “I cannot’s” for “I will’s” 

Hey there. I’m Cara. I live in the beautiful Ozark Mountains in North central Arkansas with my 2 babies Whitten and Ford and hubby Brad.

You can find me ramblings on about His goodness on my blog, The Front Porch Ramblings. My little corner of the internet has given me an opportunity to share ways to support missions, encourage others, and to challenge readers to get uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel.

 

My story began a few years ago when the Lord totally wrecked me. But you know..in a good way. And honestly, it just happened by reading His word. The living, breathing, Word of God that I really had never applied to my life as a believer.

 

Through all that wreckage the Lord put a deep burden for the orphan and oppressed in my heart. To be honest, I felt that He had blessed the mess out of us and we were just prancing around blessing the blessed with it. So ridiculous right?!

 

After a year of praying about adoption, we decided as a couple that it was something we wanted to do. We both felt very certain that we wanted to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. We announced it to family and friends. We sent in paper work. We had a home study. I ordered adoption t-shirts from Etsy. (priorities) And then it happened. We went from giddy and happy to “wait..are we totally, 100%, this is what we are called to do, certain about this?”.

 

You see..we don’t live in the most culturally diverse area. By culturally diverse I mean there is none. Like there is only one race. And it’s not the race our little girl would be.

 

The home study was good for us because it made us think deeper about things we had not thought of as a couple and as a trans-racial family living in a non-culturally diverse area. It brought up topics that I didn’t want to talk about but were quite unavoidable and required when one makes a decision of this magnitude.

 

Not to mention that all family members were not completely supportive of our decision. Yeah…that was a rough one.

 

In my mind it was a no brainer. Of course everyone would be excited and supportive of our decision! In our mind it was no different than announcing a pregnancy but this was much bigger.  But that wasn’t the case.  I could see what I had prayed for for so long slipping further and further away as we talked about our plans less and less.

 

I don’t think I have ever felt a deeper sadness yet a closer embrace by God.  He knew it would happen and yet he held us the whole time.  

 

We accepted that God had pressed the “pause “ button on our plans.

 

I know that he didn’t just give us this crazy passion to advocate for the orphan for no reason. So what did we do during the “pause”?

What we didn’t do was stop caring and speaking up for the fatherless. If anything it opened out eyes to the many ways we as a family could still support the cause. We  learned over the course of this year that maybe it just looks different for us. Maybe it’s in family preservation?  Orphan prevention? Foster care support? Our role will probably look different. But it took me a long time to see and accept that.

 

So where are we now?

After realizing that adoption probably wasn’t going to be part of our story we planned to take a trip to Ethiopia anyways. It seems as though God has pointed our compass in that direction.

 

As we travel to Ethiopia in February we are praying for God to push the “play” button. To give us open hearts and minds as we walk the streets of Addis and Awassa. The Lord gave us these hands to use and serve and bless. We are praying that he will show us how he plans for us to get those hands dirty.

 

So my challenge to you would be to accept and embrace the “pauses” in the middle of your dreams.  The “pause” was a gift to us, as we learned to trust Him even more with the unknown that He has planned.

 

We get to participate in our stories but ultimately we are not the sovereign authors of our story. The Lord gives us our passions for His people and only He knows what role he wants to play.

 

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 130:5 NIV

You can contact Cara on her blog, facebook, twitter – @caradcoleman or email- caradcoleman@gmail.com