Your Cross

A friend sent me the following. It deeply correlates to the wisdom of my spiritual director. I thought I'd share it too!!

“Your Cross” 
By St. Francis De Sales

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His Divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

Our decision

Family and friends, we write with heavy, but peaceful hearts that we have decided not to continue the pursuit of adopting Isaiah. Two days after the consent that named us his parents, a conflict arose that would cause us to go to court to fight for his custody. We feel we would be entering a losing battle that would also cause Isaiah to change hands several times over the next few months. We are limiting details here, but perhaps in the upcoming weeks we can share more via email.

We have peace in this decision, though we miss Isaiah greatly, and it breaks our hearts to lose this sweet child of God. We know that we had the beautiful opportunity to help him grow strong in his first three weeks of life. We would never take that gift away from him. Of course he is a gift to us.

We know we could not possibly be as strong as we are without your prayers. We are grateful.

I know many people are handling this differently, we just pray that if you are sad, that you are not angry. We pray that you can recognize God's presence even if it doesn't make sense. Nathan and I are closely united to the cross, and we know God is with us, and so we must continue to glorify him and praise him as best we can.

There are several things I would like to post that have struck me over these past several trying days...perhaps I can post them as we process. For now, I leave you with the words of my spiritual director. Words we all can apply to this circumstance and towards all the difficult circumstances in ours lives.

"The Lord is behind all of this even if it is hard to know what in the world He is doing!

It is in times when things get harder or more mysterious where we either lose the Faith or grow in a tremendous way. You are on the cross. It is not a pleasant place to be. Yet it is the place where God manifests himself. Indeed it is an incredible place to be, to gain perspective on God's way to do and to see things. Do not try to understand it all. It is too hard. Just remember he is there with you. He is crying as you are. He is in pain as you are. In Gethsemane he calls out for God to make it stop. This is what I mean when I say he is there. Jesus will help you to receive and accept the will of the Father waiting for his complete manifestation."

Our Lady Untier of Knots,

Pray for us.

P.S. Isaiah's name proves to be very fitting:

Isaiah 55:8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Update

Unfortunately we just heard tonight that our court date has been postponed. We do not yet know what the future holds. Hopefully we will learn more tomorrow. We humbly ask for your continued prayers in this time of waiting.

Tomorrow!

Friends and family,

We cannot thank you enough for your prayers and thoughts. We didn't know how we would ever make it to tomorrow, but here we are the night before. Of course we are anxious, but we have hope! We will keep you posted tomorrow via the blog! We have been saying prayers for you too in return, in this time of waiting!

With great love and hope,
Lauren, Nathan, and Isaiah

Our Lady Untier of Knots, pray for us!

Prayers for Thursday

Family and friends, if this post is a bit confusing, please see the post prior. We just ask for your prayers. The conflict we are facing will need to be resolved in court on Thursday. Please pray for God's will and for all involved to honor the preference of the birth parents which is to place Isaiah into our family.

If anything of significance should unfold before Thursday we will let you know. Later tonight  we will hopefully post more pics for your viewing pleasure.

An Invitation to Pray!!!

Family and friends, we write a little shocked ourselves but there has been a development that may interfere with our adoption plans. Unfortunately this came about after we were named the parents of Isaiah. We are not going to go into great detail at this time, in order to protect all involved, but we ask that you pray for God's will. Of course this is unsettling to us, but right now we have hope this adoption will continue as planned. This is also the desire of the birth parents as well and the conflict is not regarding their consent. We hope and pray you too can find peace and hope, and not feel angry or anxious. We know for sure that God's Will will prevail. And we have great hope Isaiah will come home with us.

No matter what, we are his parents right now and we will love him, serve him, and pray for him in these days of waiting. God is truly showing us that He is in control, and boy is it a wild ride! :)

Our Lady Untier of Knots

We also know that over these past few months Our Lady Untier of Knots has done amazing things in our lives and for those whom we have asked her intercession. So we invite you to pray this novena for our intentions with Isaiah and for your own intentions. The novena is below. Thanks for your continued prayers and support, we are forever indebted to you!

You can pray this shorter version for nine days, or you can pray with the longer novena linked below. When we were first introduced to the longer version, it was suggested a decade of the rosary was prayed with the prayers, but the longer version invites you to pray a 5 decade rosary. If you want to join in, pray the way that is best for you. This is Pope Francis' favorite Marian devotion!

Shorter version:

Pope Francis's Prayer to Our Lady Untier of Knots
Jorge Bergoglio brought this devotion to Argentina and composed this prayer.

Holy Mary, full of God's presence during the days of your life,
you accepted with full humility the Father's will,
and the Devil was never capable to tie you around with his confusion
Once with your son you interceded for our difficulties,
and, full of kindness and patience you gave us example of how to untie the knots of our life.
And by remaining forever Our Mother,
you put in order, and make more clear the ties that link us to the Lord.
Holy Mother, Mother of God, and our Mother,
to you, who untie with motherly heart the knots of our life, we pray to you to receive in your hands (the name of person),
and to free him/her of the knots and confusion with which our enemy attacks.
Through your grace, your intercession, and your example,
deliver us from all evil, Our Lady, and untie the knots that prevent us from being united with God,
so that we, free from sin and error, may find Him in all things, may have our hearts placed in Him, and may serve Him always in our brothers and sisters. Amen 

The longer version:

http://www.theholyrosary.org/maryundoerknots

Desiring God's Will

Here is a beautiful meditation found in today's Magnificat.

"We should not be satisfied with desiring what God wills, but must desire it how he wishes it when he wishes it and for the reason and purpose he wishes it..."

(Click image to enlarge)