Home invasions and adoptions..

About a week and a half ago, our house was broken into and we were robbed of some of our things. I came home after watching my kiddos all day, Jeremy was still at work, and I noticed some doors that lead into the house from the garage were flung wide open. I thought it to be strange, so I called Jerms just to make sure he didn't just forget to shut them when he left for work that morning. He remembered shutting them, and to be safe, he instructed me to keep him on the phone, keep the car running, and for me to get out and poke my head inside to see if the t.v. was still on the wall or not - a sure sign of a burglary. The horror that came over me when I didn't see our t.v. on the wall, still cannot be described. I started freaking out, ran back to my car, and Jerms told me to just start driving. Meanwhile, he called 911 and began making his way back home (a 45 minute drive!). The police were supposed to be on their way, but I had no idea of how long it would take them to arrive, and I had no clue of whether my pups were okay or not. *And let me just plug here that I have some pretty incredible friends, and if you don't have some, I encourage you to get some!* That being said, I called one of my closest friends who happens to live about 5 minutes away, to see if her husband was home and wouldn't mind coming over with a loaded weapon to clear my house. Like the good people they are, her hubby made it over quickly, and entered my house like a Navy Seal! Fortunately, no robbers were there, and my dogs were fine (other than being a little shaken up). My house looked like a scene from a movie - drawers turned over, doors and cabinets flung wide open...just a complete disaster. Soon, the police and my husband arrived home, and thus began a very LONG process that we still are going through. Our things have still not been located, they've arrested a couple of the men involved, and our insurance company is still working on a solution to get our stuff back or replaced.

Aside from the financial craziness of this situation, we also have to deal with the emotional and mental side of it all. Naturally, when something like this happens, you battle feelings of fear. Fear of it happening again, fear of being home alone, fear of the alternatives had one of us been home at the time...and all of it leaves a sick feeling inside. We had many sleepless nights after that. But there came a point when we had to make a choice to rise up and put our foot down. A choice of saying: You know what? This is my house! My home! A place where I refuse to live in a spirit of fear! A place where I refuse to let the devil dwell! This was a place where we began a new life together..a fresh start. We have made this our home, our safe place. And over my dead body will I let a spirit of fear take that away from us!It reminds me of the verse in 2 Timothy most of us learned way back in Sunday school:"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self discipline." And maybe it isn't speaking specifically to home invasions in this verse, but I think it applies! Fear is not of God, and I refuse to live that way! That's not to say that we live incautiously. We have since gotten a security system installed in our house, and it does in fact bring a feeling of security. It's much easier to sleep at night knowing that a very audible alarm is ready to go off the second an intruder opens/breaks any door or window. I pray we never have to experience that, but you know..just in case.

I have to give kudos to my husband, too, because the burglars would not be in jail right now if it were not for his intense awareness of his surroundings! The morning of the robbery, when he was leaving for work, he noticed a very suspicious vehicle parked on our street. I was already gone for the day, but he saw two guys in this car, and they saw him. It was suspicious to Jeremy because a) he had never seen them before in our neighborhood, and b) they had a makeshift plywood trailer hitched to the back of the car. He had a bad feeling in his gut as he left the house, and turned around once he got a ways down the street just to return and get the tag number. The car was still parked when he got back, and there was really no way he could get the tag numbers without looking suspicious himself. So what's a man to do? He left for work. Once we discovered what happened at our house, that car was the first thing that came to mind. He reported it to the deputy that came out, and they said they would be on the look out for that car. So then, fast forward two days later. It's a Sunday morning, it's 7:15 a.m., we're leaving for church, and as we back out of our drive-way, we see the same maroon car and trailer backed into another drive-way a few lots down from us. The house they were parked at was unoccupied and still on the market as far as we knew. So we drove around to check it out. We didn't see anyone inside the vehicle, and that bad gut feeling returned. We called the sheriffs office and they said they would be sending someone out. Jeremy then dropped me off at church and took off to go back home to really get the tag numbers this time. But, by the time he got there, there were 3 deputies with canines chasing after these guys. They had loaded stainless steel appliances from the house they were parked at onto their trailer. Two guys were arrested, and one got loose, but leave it to the genius criminals to rat him out! They still haven't caught him, but they're working on it. However, no one would be caught as of now had my husband not paid such close attention to those things. It used to drive me nuts at how "paranoid" Jeremy could be sometimes. And now, I kick myself for all those times I picked on him about it.

I'll update more on this issue as things evolve in our case. I've rambled enough on that! On a more random, and better note, though, we've been seriously looking into some options to adopt. I don't want to get too much into it right now, but it's looking like it may be a possibility for us, and we are seriously praying about it. It's definitely not a decision that can be made hastily or overnight. It's a serious commitment, and we have devoted ourselves to really seeking God about if this is what He wants for us. He has opened some doors in regards to this possibility, and He has placed the desire on both of our hearts. Please pray with us about it.