even when it's hard

This is my current Facebook status:

We got a call about two toddler boys last Wednesday and our family was chosen for them that same day. After almost a week of praying, loving them, and being excited/terrified, we met them last night and decided that we are unable to bring them home. They are good boys, but need more than we can give them, given our circumstances. Due to some physical/emotional safety concerns for Jonah, we had to say no. We had been praying for clarity and God gave it to us, just not in the way we anticipated. I am heartbroken and confused. God is good and I know His plan is best, but the refining hurts so much. Will you please pray for these boys? That they go to parents who can love them, give them the structure they need, and most of all, show them Jesus? I love them and it's hard to let go.

I might have even already sorted their clothes and put them away in their dressers. I might have spent the last three days on Etsy looking at dinosaur stuff to decorate their room.

Will y'all pray? My heart is so heavy, and I just feel like I've been run over by a Mac truck. I'm not using nice words with God today, knowing that He can handle my real feelings. He's big enough. He's good. He's there.


Even when it feels like He's not.


I'm STILL believing God.


But the pouty, selfish, human part of me says, "But I'm not happy about it." (I so badly want to put a smiley face beside this to make it seem less harsh than it is.)


Separately from my post, a friend just posted a link to this article.


It was a good reminder today. The best stuff is often the hardest to hear. The molding of the clay involves a lot of crushing, smacking, and splatting. I'm going to be a good looking vase someday.


I'm sure of it.


This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'” - Zechariah 13:9


You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter,“You know nothing”? - Isaiah 29:16

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown himself. - 2 Timothy 2:13