Wow.

I am exhausted.

This weekend was amazing- we didn't have a set goal of how much we wanted to raise, and thanks to everyone who donated their carloads of things to us, we were able to add $671 to our Adoption Account! Praise God!

(and thats not even all of it)

I am still in awe at how generous people were. A couple of extra dollars here and there and the stories of adoption they shared really encouraged me. The first person that came on Friday returned with a truckload of "man stuff" for lack of a better term- everything in this picture except for the bow and the camping grill, as well as some other nice things that aren't pictured. And that was after he bought a couple of armloads of stuff.

Then there was a woman this morning who bought two of my zucchini breads just because she wanted to help out and told me about how she had 7 kids and adopted 5 more and she was so nice to share her feelings about that. It was really encouraging.

And later , when I started to feel a little disappointed that not many people were coming, and I was kinda throwing a little pity party in my mind, and I was hot and tired, and I was maybe just a little bit thinking, "Is that all God? Is no one going to come today?" and generally being a selfish little brat deep down inside...

I heard that song on the radio,

"Every time I'm down the Lord lifts me up..."

And so what could I do? I prayed for encouragement and that the Lord would show us that we were on the right track and I thought in my generally selfish mood that, you know, someone would come and either buy alot of stuff, or just give a donation.

I hate to even admit that, but its the truth and I want to be honest because He is so good and aren't His ways mysterious?

And wouldn't you know...

the very next car that stopped was a lady named Monica. She didn't even look at anything. She was in a hurry for something, I could tell.

She said, "I know you are going to think this is crazy, but we just had a yard sale and it started to rain so we just packed everything up and put it in our garage, and something just told me to come here and see if you wanted it all. Its in our garage and you can come get it whenever you want."

And Jeremiah had to talk to her, because at that point I couldn't even say anything because I was trying to look like I wasn't crying behind my sunglasses.

That was it. That was the encouragement I needed at that moment. (And the humility too I guess.)

I thought it would be a couple of boxes at the most.

She left her number and just walked away, and Jeremiah went this afternoon and got a truckload.

A truckload.

And then he had to go back to get the rest of it.

(the first load)

Incredible.

What makes it even more awesome is that last night and this morning my prayer was that God would do something amazing today, that we would be able to see the greatness of Him in even the triviality of a yard sale.

I thought it would be for the benefit of other people. How prideful is that? Sorry to burst your bubble but see- I'm not perfect after all. Just perfectly honest....ha ha ha...

But I'm learning that this is how He works- He shows me myself. And she ain't so pretty sometimes. But through this whole thing I'm learning my own heart and seeing firsthand how He's changing it to be more like His.

So um, back to the original thought track here...

All that stuff is enough for a whole other yard sale. So in a couple of weeks, we will have another one, at my mom's this time.

Thank you to everyone again for helping, contributing, organizing, cleaning,baby-sitting and bringing lunch. We couldn't have done it without you!

To God be the Glory!

***

A couple weeks has now passed and I am linking this post back to Linny's at A Place Called Simplicity for Memorial Box Monday!