God is stirring...

So i just finished reading Kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com. Started backwards in 2007 and worked my way to present. (I highly reccommend you do the same, or just go to amazon.com and pre-order her book, it comes out Oct 4., seriously, just do it now.)What a challenging, heart wrenching, beautiful picture of the Gospel with hands and feet.  It has challenged me in ways I never have felt before, it has made me frustrated, made me rejoice, and God has used it to breathe a new breath into my heart.  Alongside of that I have been digging into scripture, Isaiah, Psalms, Job, John. And i started the book radical by david platt. Wow. I have been inundated with what following Jesus can really be like if we grab hold of it in the way God intended.  This has been an awesome month and a half of God emptying me of self and filling me up again.  I have never felt so close, communed with, spoken to, affirmed, directed, and fulfilled. What a picture of abiding he has given me. Man, what a perspective change when i am fully focused on him.  "things"of life just fade away without effort of trying to "put them away". This past 6 months has been the process of God answering 3 major prayers in my life over the last 2 years.
Prayer #1- What is our family mission? How will this guide our giving strategy? What are 3 areas we want to focus in on giving and do it well with kingdom impact in mind?
Prayer #2- What is the next step in the story you want to write for us God? We don't want to miss it and settle in the mundane.
Prayer #3- Is our family complete? If not, put a desire so deep in our souls we know it is you, and fill our capacity, take away our selfishness, and multiply our wisdom.

Prayer #3 was answered with a resounding clarity back in May. Prayer # 2 was answered partly while answering #3, yet this has taken on a much bigger answer. Part of that answer was answered in adoption, but I still feel like there is something bigger God is bringing into our story or asking of us. I am not sure what it is, but i know it is big and I am excited and terrified (in a good way) of it. Prayer #1 has been being answered since Christmas. We know our family is about these areas, and we will all (kids included) sacrificially give to it.
1. The unreached. We have a heart (thank you God for exposing us to it in ministry together with Cafe 1040) for those who have little access to the gospel, live in areas hostile to the Gospel, or have no way of knowing of Jesus. This is God's biggest heartbeat. To save the lost, and we believe he wants us on board with that.
2. College/Young marrieds- this one is still developing and morphing. We know we want to pour into young adults the perspective God has developed in us of how to have a healthy marriage, fight for it, and stay committed to it.
3. Orphans- God asks us all over the Bibles to care for the orphans. There are currently about 147 million of them. There are currently 2.1 billion people professing Christ. Look at the odds here, we could totally fulfill God's heart to love and care for the orphan if less than 10% of us heeded these verses. I used to use the cop out of "well we are all called to different things, that just may not be something I am called to". I have now learned that was Satan keeping me from answering the Lords call on all of us! (*Not only to adopt the orphan, but more so just to care for them in some way- financial, physical, etc) I think God was not picking and choosing followers which would follow this command. See James 1:27, Deuteronomy 24:17-21, Psalm 82:3-4, Psalm 68:5-6, Exodus 22:22-23, Psalm 10:14,17-18, Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 18:5, Matthew 25:40, Job 29:12, Psalm 146:9, John 14:15-21, Hosea 14:3, Jeremiah 49:11, Malachi 3:5, Jeremiah 22:3, Jeremiah 7:6, Jeremiah 5:28, Isaiah 1:23, Psalm 94:6, Job 31:16-18, Job 24:9, Job 22:9, Deuteronomy 14:288-29, Isaiah 10:2, Ezekiel 16:49. I was shocked at how many times the Lord commands it or says he despises when the orphans are oppressed or have injustice. We are also called to love our neighbor as ourselves. This doesn't mean our next door neighbor. This means the children God created in his image. I love a way that I read about this, God did not accidentally create too many children, too many orphans. We just have a calling that we are ignoring... I think too often we see images and hear statistics and are numb to them. Satan wants us to be numb, for it not to affect us. He wants us to see that image of the malnourished orphan on TV or the internet and not think of her as our own daughter. He doesn't want us to feel for her as if it was our "neighbor". Satan has won for far too long.

This is not a rant and rave intended for you, just the intensity in my heart of what God is showing me and what I am finally responding to after years of trying to turn it down in my heart and being blind to it.
Thank you God that you are a God who answers prayers, draws close, and is patient when I do not understand what your heart beats for.