The Lord Provides

Provisions from God as of today for our new baby:
~A job for me
~Money for the homestudy, as we've needed it
~Medical insurance, which is necessary to adopt, and the means to pay for it
~A $1000 check in the mail
~Side jobs for Cory that will be able to go directly into the adoption fund
~Many donations from friends for our garage sale - 2 and a half van loads today!
~A crib mattress
~Excitement and support from our friends and family
~Unity in our home

Can't wait to see what comes next!

You Already Are

We were watching the newest movie in the Chronicles of Narnia the other night, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I was reminded how much I LOVE the ending (if you haven't watched it or read the book and don't want anything given away, you may want to skip this part). At the end, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Reepicheep, and Prince Caspian are on the shores of Aslan's Country (I just love the picture that gives us of Heaven). At one point, Caspian asks Aslan if his father is in His Country and is given the choice to find out for himself. But if he chooses to go into Aslan's country, he can never come back to his world. Caspian decides to stay in his world, saying that he spent too much time looking for what was missing instead of ruling well with what he was given. He tells Aslan that he will be a better king. Then Aslan says, "You already are."

"You already are."

That doesn't seem possible to us. Once our heart changes and we see the areas we need to change, improve, or give over to the Lord in a greater way, we expect that we'll have to prove it. We need to live it out before the Lord trusts us with it again.  But God says to us:

"You already are."

That's the way He sees us. There's no striving, only grace. My head knows this, but my heart has been struggling to grasp it lately. Yes, we need to make those changes and follow through on what the Lord shows us. But we don't need to hold our hearts back. He sees us as we really are - in Him.

I've been taken back by how this process of adoption has made me re-evaluate my parenting. I have seen so many areas that need changing and things I want to do better. In many ways, I've questioned if I'm deserving of someone choosing me to be the mommy to their baby.

I too easily forget that God has already chosen me - not only to be mommy to this new little one, but to 3 precious girls already. Not because of who I am, but because of who He's made me. And I'm beginning to open my ears and try to listen to God speaking these words over me: "You already are."

Emotions

We had our second homestudy visit this week, which went really well, and our third and final one is scheduled for the end of May. It's exciting, but we're still only in the beginning stages of this journey!

To prepare for this visit, we had to begin to answer some pretty big questions which mostly revolve around what type of relationship we're open to having with the baby's birth family. As you can imagine, that produced many deep conversations and emotions.

And in the midst of this, God has been trying to draw me out - out of my protective shell. I tend to keep myself detached emotionally when I see a chance of getting really hurt. As I think about the birth mother and family, I really want to have a love for them. I don't want to be detached from them. This is incredibly scary for me!

I've also had many people ask me if I'm excited. Perfectly good and natural question. I'm not sure my response is so natural. My answer has been that I haven't really gone there yet. I think I've been so focused on the process - the things that need to be done - that I've kept my emotions out of it. Yet again, protecting my heart.

Then the other day a friend of mine said she knows someone who's looking to get rid of her baby stuff and as she was thinking of people she knows who are having babies, she thought of us. After all, she said, "You're having a baby!" It dawned on me that I hadn't gone there yet, either.  I think it has to do with the fact that we just don't know anything. We don't have a due date. We don't even have any natural guarantee that this will happen with in the next year!

But I think God is telling me it's time. It's time to open my heart and choose to let myself get emotionally involved. Oh boy does this scare me. I sure am grateful that I can trust God with my heart. Now I just have to live it.

Pure Joy

I was privileged to witness a miracle this week. Some friends have been trying to adopt from Liberia for over two years, and just three months ago it looked completely impossible. But - nothing is too hard for the Lord. That little boy and little girl are in their forever family - snug and warm in their beds with a mom, dad, brother, and sister who love them. Amazing. How do you put it into words - watching that happen? It was pure joy. God is amazing! Simply amazing.

"Is anything too hard for the LORD?" Genesis 18:14

As God would have it, I began a Bible study about the same time as we started this whole adoption process. It's a study on the Patriarchs - or the fathers of our faith - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who would think that a study on 3 men and their journey with God would have any applications for going through an adoption! Like I said, God is amazing. :) It has been chalk full of them!

A huge part of the study is based on God's promises. He promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, that his descendents would be too numerous to count. But Abraham and Sarah had no children, and it would be 25 years since the time of God's promise until they had a son. 25 YEARS! And, Sarah was "past the years of childbearing" (Gen. 18:11) before she became pregnant with Isaac. That tells us she had already gone through menopause.

Where would our faith be - if 25 years had passed and our bodies were incapable? Would we still believe God and trust in His promises? Let me share what my study has to say:

"We often think receiving what we've been guaranteed ought to be a cakewalk, but Scripture shows the opposite is more often true. The most profound things God promised were often fulfilled against the greatest odds and through the most difficult hardships. To God, faith is often the point-God does nothing cheaply. Perhaps the divine nature of a promise fulfilled guarantees its expense. We may receive a hundred unexpected things from God with delightful ease while the fulfillment of some of the things we believe He promised us proves virtually impossible. You see, the impossibility is what makes the fulfillment of the promise fall under the God category. God makes promises man simply can't keep."


The beautiful thing is, there was nothing my friends could do to bring their children home from Liberia. God did it. And nothing can dispute that. Another beautiful thing - it builds my faith (and so many others'). If I ever start to doubt and wonder how on earth God will bring another child into our home, all I have to do is remember all the promises He's already kept.

We have our second of three meetings this coming Tuesday and God is moving and already putting things together for us to be able to have our third sooner than we thought would be possible! I'm excited to see how God will continue to keep His promises - to us and others.

The Process

Thank you to all of you who were praying for us yesterday during our first home study visit! It went very well. The majority of what we went over was our family backgrounds and we, of course, got some more paperwork to do! :)

Many people have been asking me about the process and how it works, so I thought I'd give you a quick run down of what I know so far. Keep in mind that there are different types of adoption: international, domestic infants (infants from the U.S.), and through the foster care system. There are similarities and differences in how the process works for each, so all I can speak to is how it's working for us with a domestic infant adoption.
 
The first thing a family does once they commit to adoption is to find an agency to work with. That is a process all on it's own! Once that agency is picked, you fill out an application for that agency to see if they'll work with you. Once you're approved through them, you begin what's called your homestudy process. This is basically a series of 3 meetings you have with the person from your agency that you'll be working with (this is the point in the process where we're at). From what I know of that so far, you are given paperwork to work on throughout, some training to do, and you answer many questions about you, your family, your relationships, and probably many more things we haven't experienced yet! ;) We will also put together a "profile" about our family that will be sent out to prospective mothers. Once your homestudy is complete after the 3rd visit, your agency sends out your profile to other agencies. Then we wait. We wait for the birth mother of our future child to find us and choose us.

Ah, waiting. My favorite.

To be honest, there's not a lot about this process that I'm afraid of. We know that God has another child out there for us and we KNOW that God keeps His promises and works everything out for the good of those who love Him. But there is one thing I am dreading.

Waiting.

Waiting for God to provide the money we need to complete the homestudy. Waiting for the birth mother to choose us. All I can do in the waiting is pray. But the reality of being a follower of Christ is that prayer is the single most powerful thing we can do. I am learning to live in that truth.

Anita, the woman we're working with through God's Children Adoption Agency (who I'm sure will become a fast friend), is coming over again on Tues., April 12th. I'm excited that she'll be joining us for dinner, too! She really will become a part of the family. :)

And in the end, all the waiting will be worth it.

A Clean House & Answered Prayer

I am sitting in a spic and span, completely clean house - and I'm praying it will last until Saturday! A girl can hope, right? Saturday morning is our first home study visit. The representative from our adoption agency that we'll be working with is coming over to meet us. For the first time. Today was my only day to clean, so I had no choice! I've been told by a friend who has worked with this agency before that they will not be going through all my closets and cupboards. Articles online have told me that she will not take a white glove to all the surfaces in my home. But still. . . I needed to clean. I certainly don't want her to think I don't take this seriously or that it's not important to me. I resisted the urge to clean out our closets and scrub every nook and cranny. However, I did consider scrubbing the plastic mat that our boots sit on.  :)

Shifting gears entirely, I have to write about what happened the rest of that Sunday morning in November. God is just too good not to share! At the end of the service we were given a chance to respond to what we heard from the front. Were our hearts opened? Did we acknowledge that God has a part for each of us to play in taking care of the orphaned? I went forward and got down on my knees before God and cried out to Him. Would He allow US - me - to take His light to the dark places? I sat and cried, praying over the precious little ones who need to know that they have a Creator who loves them with all He is. I asked God to show us what He would have us do and then give us the resources to do it. 

Within 2 hours - I was given two $50 gift cards, 2 job offers (temporary ones), and $80 secretly slipped into my purse. I'd say God answered.

Bringing Light to Dark Places

I never intended to start a blog. For the life of me, I couldn't think of why anyone would be interested in reading it. I still can't. But, I've been encouraged by a few people to start one. . . so here I am. The reason I decided to start one now is simple. . . . God has started us on a journey called adoption and we firmly believe that any journey God sends us on is never just for us. The things He does in our lives are meant to be shared - it's His testimony - so I'm happy to share it. I will be honest and forthcoming with all parts of our adoption process (with out going into too much detail when it's not necessary). Adoption takes time, patience, soul searching, answering hard questions, many ups and downs, and yes - money. People don't like to talk about money very much, but the way I see it is this: God will get the glory in all aspects of our adoption journey, and money is a huge way where His hand is going to be seen as we step forward in faith! So, in order to make sure God gets ALL the glory through our process, no part will be off limits for me to talk about. 

We always said that adoption wasn't a matter of "if" but a matter of "when." The "when" hit me hard early November, 2010. For months prior to that day, my heart was becoming more and more tender to the orphan again. I could not even watch a short video on Operation Christmas Child without choking down tears. I was pushing away thoughts of how to rearrange my house or how many more kids our living room could handle. What was I thinking? We can't afford this right now! We don't even have any baby stuff anymore! Then the first Sunday of November came. Adoption was the focus at church that morning - and I came armed with kleenex! Two couples who have gone through their own adoption processes shared from the front that day. Both were powerful. But one of the women said something that I could not shake. She said she had come to the point of realizing that adoption was not about her, or her family, or even that child(ren) they had hopes of bringing home. It's about taking His light to the dark places. 

And so begins our journey as we rely on God to help us bring Light to dark places.