The Trust Test

Have you ever had to trust God totally and completely? I am not talking about sort of, kind of, maybe... I am talking 100% God you are all I have trust. I am doing that, going through that, experiencing that...call it what you want. It has been the hardest thing I have ever done. See, when you are a control freak like myself, turning everything over to God is hard! Yes, even us faithful Jesus followers have our moments.
I know of so many ways I could take over and fix things, but this time I can't, I won't. I have to, I need to trust God totally and completely. Make no mistake, it has not made my life easier. As a matter of fact the last couple of weeks have been down right miserable! I know so far what I would like to happen, hasn't. But here is the deal...in the past when I have taken control of a situation the fix was temporary, so basically the situation was never fixed because it is still here! The times I have let God take over, the result wasn't always what I wanted or expected but the end result was always at the perfect time and the perfect result.
This time it is tough because there is no other answer but to trust God.
I will keep you posted on this journey... until then,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path. Proverbs 3:5-6

Gods Beautiful Art

I love my nieghborhood. It is older and has some beautiful trees around. The ice storm a couple of years ago damaged a lot of them, but there are still a few around that are so beautiful in the fall. I don't understand why the builders or planners, whoever it is that makes the decision to plow down all the trees when they are building a new neighborhood. It makes no sense. We had a gorgeous sunset on Saturday. Today it is cloudy but the trees bring color to a very gray day.
When I look at these trees or a beautiful sunset it reminds me that this is Gods art and you can't put a price on it!

Simply Fancy!

I love photograpy and writing. I would love to combine them somehow and use them to make a difference. I have a couple of ideas and have been doing some research. I am going to need a few things to make this happen so I sat and made a wish list: lens for my camera..Or..... A new camera with a lense and 12 mega pixels! Might as well dream big! Lots of prayer.
Fall is one of my favorite seasons. Today was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, sort of windy, 72 degrees. I decided to take Cameron and Kennedy out in the yard and take pictures. Jordan hasn't been feeling well so she didnt feel like joining us. We had a few laughs and giggles, they are silly girls. Afterwards we came in and I made dinner. It is usually just the girls and myself for dinner because of Mikes schedule. While I was cooking they were doing their homework. I set the table with some fancy glasses and Kennedy came in just grinning from ear to ear yelling "Oh mommy cool glasses!" We sat down and Kennedy said a prayer and I made a toast to the Bayer girls. Of course Kennedys tea sloshed all over the table. We sat there talking,laughing, enjoying our simple dinner and drinking out of our fancy glasses.
I have decided that I like simple in my life. It is a very good thing.

The Giants

Kennedy eating her first Oreo in Vietnam.I posted this picture because it reminds me of a passion that I don't want the giants to squash.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you pray, hope, keep the faith and persevere you have moments where you come to a point of doubt and possible defeat. I am not saying you succumb to these feelings but they are real and they are standing in front of you, blocking your way, consuming your every thought, these giants in your life. You feel at times so alone and that God has abandoned you. But see, that is what giants do, they make you feel alone, they make you doubt your passion, they attempt to squash your spirit, they try to take away everything you believe in.
I am a very passionate person. I am passionate about God, my family, friends, adoption, orphans. I am passionate about my country, our freedom and standing up for what is right. My gifts are mercies & exhortations. I can remember starting in the first grade I always stood by the kid who everyone picked on. You picked on them, you dealt with me and to be quite honest I am still that way. I will be the voice for those who can't defend themselves. I wanted to adopt a little girl I was taking care of when I was 17, if you hurt I want to fix it, if you need help I want to help you, if you want to adopt I want to encourage you, if you feel you can't go on I want to walk beside you and tell you that you will go on. If I see a wrong I am not going to sit and hope someone else says something I will.
So I don't like it when the giants are trying to make me feel that these passions, these gifts, these dreams, my beliefs that God gave me are pointless and not worth fighting for. The giants try and make you believe everything you have overcome in your life has been for nothing. How do you fight these giants? What can you possibly do to make them go away? Well I believe God allows these giants to come into our life once in a while so we will learn to trust Him and give Him the glory. Saying you trust God is easy but leaning on that trust and putting it into action...well it should be easy but we make it so hard. So first you pray and ask God for wisdom and strength then you stand up and face the giants.
You take the prayers, faith, perseverance, hope, passion and all the gifts God gave you and you face your giants! They may never totally leave you alone but what they don't understand is that each time they try to take you down you are going to come back stronger.
Some may ask "why are you sharing this?" I believe whoever reads this and sees that Christians lives are not perfect, that we make mistakes and we still deal with "stuff" and some days just stink and life isn't always a sweet ride, then someone may read this that is having problems and realize that they are not alone.
So as I set off to face my giants remember that you are not alone and that God is ready to help you face your giants.


Trust in the Lord and do good. Psalm 37:3

The Crew!

We had our crew over the other night and had a good time.It dawned on me that I didn't have a picture of just the kids so I grabbed my camera much to the dismay of the crew!
These are six very different people with six very unique personalities, so having them all together is always very interesting and you can always count on a great time!

The picture says it all!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mike and Kennedy. My sister Kelley took this I believe the day after Kennedy came home. When I look at this picture it reminds that with God anything is possible!
God had laid adoption on my heart again in 2004. For the next two years I tried to explain to Mike this wasn't me it was God. When I first went to him it was a flat NO!!! After that he would just look at me and say "God has not put this on my heart." I didn't understand any of this. Not only did I know without a doubt that God had placed adoption on my heart again, He had given me a vision of a little toddler girl in all places a exercise class I was taking at my church! I was getting older and growing tired of asking Mike. Then one day I heard God speak audibly to me. He said "go to Mike and tell him that you are my messenger and he will listen." I was like "great he is going to think I have lost my mind." So I went up to Mike told Him what God said and he looked at me and said "OK." I about fell over! I was excited but I was also a little bit perturbed! I thought "that's it? Over 2 years of begging, pleading, asking and that was all I had to say?"
It didn't take me long to realize that was Gods plan along. His timing is perfect and if Mike had said yes the first time I asked him we would not have blessed with our Kennedy or this precious picture of a daddy with his new baby girl and as you can tell by his face totally in love!

Living a Life of Excellence

When I am going through a hard time or things are not going my way, it is very easy for me to take a dip into my pity pool! Poor me, poor poor me. Nothing is going right,I try so hard, WHY ME???? WAH!!!!!Isn't that pathetic? Good grief. It is during these times that I need to remember how blessed I am. Why is it so easy for us to focus on what is going wrong in our lives instead of what is going right? I have no idea but I don't believe hanging out in the pity pool is what God had in mind for our lives.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some changes. I am changing the way I react to certain things. Like with my husband, when I know I am right and he is wrong but he thinks he is right, I let him keep thinking he is right! ;) How I react to my fears, my insecurities, parents who decide to stop their car, dress their kids and feed them breakfast in the drive thru drop off at school, drivers who pull out in front of me like they are going to miss happy hour at Sonic and then come to a crawl and there is not a single car behind me and everything else that drives me nuts. Some of these things may seem silly, but if little eyes are watching and little ears are listening then it is a very big deal!
I decided to live a life of excellence. Of course the moment I made that decision is when satan decided to throw me a curve ball every time I went to bat. I would be lying if I didn't fess up and say that more than once I felt like giving up. But giving up is not an option. God never said it would be easy but He did say to trust Him in everything.
God has been very good to me during this change. When I felt like giving up He kept me going. When I wanted to argue with Mike about something He helped me keep my mouth closed (that one was hard!) When I am fearful of certain things going on in my life right now, He calms me down. After a couple of weeks I realized doing all of this was becoming easier.
Now for those of you who see me often please don't think I am walking around with a halo over my head and that my little horns are not going to pop up once in a while! I have a very long way to go but I have come a very long way and the point is I am making a conscious effort to change. Like today when the mom parked her car got out and talked to her kids in the drive thru drop off, not once did I roll my eyes or think a bad thought! Baby steps I tell you!
When I go to heaven and I see God face to face I hope He will smile at me, reach out His arms and give me a hug and say "I knew you could do it." Oh that would be so amazing!

The Old-er Mom

I walked up to the school today to pick up Kennedy. She usually walks home with Cameron, but sissy was sick today. As I walked up to the school I saw all these moms standing around. I am guessing they were in their 20's & 30's. They stood around in their little group talking about their day while the kids where at school and how they can't wait until their kids are a little older and they can do this and that by themselves. I just stood their waiting for Kennedy and thinking to myself "are you kidding? They grow up way to fast! They don't stay little long enough."
The door flew open and the kindergarten class flew out along with the two teachers who are both friends and have taught all my older children except for my oldest. I am sure they wonder if this is it.
Kennedy came running to me with a huge smile on her face yelling "mommy!" Whatever worries I may have go away when I see her face. She sees I have her princess umbrella and even though only two drops have fallen she is so excited and opens up her umbrella all the time grinning and talking a mile a minute. She puts her tiny hand in mine and we walk home.
Tonight I thought of those young moms and their conversation. I remember when my boys were younger there were days, that I had those same thoughts of wishing they were a little older and could do more for themselves. True, those thoughts usually came out of exhaustion but they also came from being young, naive and a tad bit selfish.
Being an older mom has made me want time to slow down, actually I want to have some of it back. I want to know then what I know now. That time goes way to fast. We go way to fast. Most of us are over committed and don't realize it until one day your youngest son is getting off a bus after serving in Iraq and your youngest daughter who came into your life at two and half years old is now in kindergarten and so happy that you brought her princess umbrella to her.
Being a mom is a honor no matter how old you are. We should treasure every cry, laugh, lost tooth, boo boo, snotty nose, the 1,000 pictures they bring home from school with the glue or paint still wet, staring you awake when your in a dead sleep, every hug, every kiss and every I love you. God has blessed my life in so many ways but the greatest blessing is being a "momma." They give me hope for the future, Faith that I can get up every day and be the best mom I can be and they make my heart feel a love that is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I am the older mom but my six blessings keep my heart young!

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13

Older Waiting Children in China

I am hoping to help these wonderful children in China find a home before they age out. If you have ever considered adopting please consider an older child. They have so much potential, they just need a loving family. Please pray that these children find their forever family. For more information on these children please contact Marci at marcisk@asiadopt.org

George desperately wants a family. He is a sweet boy who has seen his friends get adopted and he enjoys practicing his English. he has quite a lovely idea of what a home and family might be like. Let's help him find a family of his own.


Sherry is a shy girl with a sweet smile and demeanor. This may be her last chance to have a family due to her age.


Julia is intelligent, cute, polite and enthusiastic. She was born in 1996, so will age out of the system if she doesn't find a family to work quickly for her.


Skyler is quite the artist, He's talented, speaks English, is 13 and is anxious to have a family. He is eager to succeed in life and with the right family he will.


Gina is a sweet and independent girl who is interested in learning. She is bright and a good student and likes to read, ride bikes and play sports. We have video of her reciting the ABC's in English.


Please help us find homes for these precious children! Even in tough economic times, children still need families. If each of you who views this blog tells 10 people about these children, the word will spread far and wide and perhaps we can find the right families. Thanks for all that you do! Marci