Hi there! Thank you so much for stopping by and reading my story. I know I know another blog, REALLY!?!?! I knew I wanted to start blogging my adoption story not only for myself, but for others who may be thinking they want to start the process, and well, for fundraising. I had started writing this about a month ago when God started putting this on my heart but wasn't ready to put it all out there yet. So I'm going to start my first few blogs back to catch you up. :) Because I'm nice like that...
October 15, 2012
Well, I will first give you a glimpse into our lives. As a young child I had always loved kids. Always thought and dreamed about being a mommy. And adoption was always on my heart, though I still wanted very much to bare my own children too, my heart ached for those who were brought into the world with no one to love them and kiss them goodnight. Fast forward many years later and while in college I met the love of my life. He too shared in my interest for adding onto our family with children who needed love. We always said, we’d get married, have a few years as a couple, have kids, they would get a little older, then we would start looking into growing our family through adoption. Wellll, God had other plans, other BIGGER plans that did not include our own plans…Josh and I were married for 2 weeks when God blessed us with Anna. Though it was an exciting time, I was also unsure of how things were going to work, Josh was still in college, I still had college to finish, it just didn't seem like my plan. But we loved it anyway because we knew it was what God wanted for our lives. A year later Emma was born and then a year and a half later Elli and three years after that Levi was born into our family. Remember when I said we wanted to wait til our youngest was a little older to adopt? Yeah that wasn't in God’s plan either. I've been blessed to have a few friends around me who have been through the process of adopting, internationally and domestically. Watching the joy of being with their new child ALWAYS brings tears to my eyes and makes my heart so full. Though these children don’t quit understand the gravity this love from these parents will have on their little lives, it gives me chills to know what these little people will grow up to be a great person in society because these parents were given the gift of changing these little people. I started feeling this nudge when a friend of mine posted a story of this woman in China who had been gathering children out of boxes and trashcans and in parks benches, and bringing them into her home and taking care of them for years. My heart ached for these parents in China, who couldn’t fight against the government to keep the children they bore. Or couldn’t take care of the needs they so desperately needed. I felt this tug get stronger and stronger as I watch another friend of mine go to Russia to bring home another little boy with down syndrome. I wept as I watched the videos of her with him, and the other children standing in the background, never knowing the love of a mothers kisses or hugs. I wanted to reach through the screen and bring them all home! I felt God telling me, you can start. But could I? Me? I’m not brave like these women Lord. Surely you still mean wait. My youngest isn’t even out of diapers yet, surely you mean wait? We aren’t even in a house we own yet, surely you mean wait? We aren’t even a little close to having anything saved for an adoption, surely you mean wait? But God said, you saw what I did for your friends. You saw their faith and you saw what I can do, so why wait? I prayed and I prayed and I PRAYED! I prayed Lord, I’m not sure why your giving this to me so early, but if this is what you want only make this passion stronger! So, after the feelings growing stronger and stronger, I gave into to the peace that this is what God wants for us. And oh what peace did I have when I surrendered to that calling! I am not kidding when I say it literally felt like a physical peace like I have NEVER felt before!! Now you may ask, like we did...Why now? I don’t know why now, but I feel a push, no a SHOVE, to move forward that is impossible to really put into words. I talked to my friend who had adopted from China already and she gave me the name of someone to do out home study. While I was excited about the peace I felt to move forward, I was also very very scared! What if I was wrong, what if they did a home study and they told us we weren’t good enough parents and that they were going to take our biological children away! -Now I know I’m exaggerating emotions, but the thoughts did cross my mind.- Anyway, I knew I needed to make that first step, though not a huge one because nothing would be set in ink, I needed to unfreeze, and move. So in my Bible study group, without wanting to disclose everything, I gave a prayer request and…disclosed everything. I’m not kidding you when I say I was sick to my stomach and shaking, because once it’s out there, it’s out there. A day later and I had still not called, though it was on my to do list for the day, I kept putting it til after "I get this done first". Then a friend of mine called-you know who you are-and told me what’s the worst that can happen, really. After that I felt my body start to thaw. I mean, really, how lucky am I that I have such good friends to back me up, to stand behind me, even when I myself think we might be nuts, she gave me the push I really needed. So I made the call and that call led to some questions being answered and another number to call. All the while God had something else crazy going on. When we looked on the websites of orphanages and their requirements to adopt we saw that you had to make X amount of money and X amount of money per person living in the house hold. We when we started feeling these feelings we did not have that. But in the middle of all this, God was working on a promotion for my husband, one that was bigger than he was expecting. And then they told him what his new salary would be… EXACTLY what we would need to adopt from China. Seeing God work in all these ways just gives me such joy. Now we wait. We wait for God to bring the right child or children into out lives. I have never ever ever ever been very good at waiting on ANYTHING! I have friends tell me I must be so patient because I home school, the answer is, nope but I’m trying. This is the reason I am typing this at 1:30am. Because I can't stop thinking about that little person half way across the world waiting for us to claim them as their own. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I know the peace like no other that I have is reassurance that God has it all mapped out for us, so I will sit back and watch Him work an amazing picture and road map for our lives and live His plan, not ours...
Hope you have a blessed day!
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