Nine years of marriage and four children later, God called Josh and I to step forward and answer the call to care for His children through adoption. Though we were doubtful, confused and ...well scared as ALL GET OUT, we stepped forward and answered His leading to bring home a little girl. We became more confident, yet still unsure of what our future would hold for us but we knew our God always promises to fulfill His plan, in His time and in His way. While we waited I was hearing God's still small whisper saying, "don't be afraid I have more in store." But I was sure I must have heard wrong. After all we are moving forward, we are answering His call, surely He wasn't saying, keep giving, I have more to show you. But as I prayed the whisper became more and more audible, as if He was screaming so loud I could hardly think of anything else. I cried out to GOD! Lord, I love you and I want to do what you ask, but honestly, I don't want to be Noah. Building a boat in the middle of the dessert, claiming he needed it because it was going to flood all over the world, WHAT IS RAIN?!?! Why an even BIGGER STEP?!?! Lord you know one of my biggest life struggles is what people think (sad I know), what are they going to say now! But still very unsure I brought my thoughts to Josh. I told him, I am not saying this is what we should do,or even something I thought we COULD do, but I can't ignore what God has been telling me any more and I thought if I said it out loud to you, you would give me an answer and we could move from there. (Ready to hear him say what we had been saying, no way, we weren't ready for this, we can't do anything else, these big plans would have to wait.) My husband (who has way more faith in me than I do in myself self most days) is such an amazing man of faith, though what may lay ahead is HUGE and WAY more than either of us were ready to even think about, said let's pray. The chances of it even being able to happen are so small, that we will know for sure. So we prayed, we prayed and we cried and we prayed like mad crazy some more. But we both couldn't deny it any more. God WAS telling us to try and bring home TWO of His children.
In the mist of all this I saw the face of a sweet baby boy about Levi's age that a sweet friend was advocating for. He even looked like a Chinese version of Levi. He had my heart, though I was trying desperately to not get attached since in the adoption world, you NEVER know. After asking my social worker it turned out another family was moving forward with adopting him. Always a bitter sweet moment as you want him to have a forever family, but it made me question if this was what God really wanted us to do, or was it all just emotional decisions, after all I first saw his face right before Josh and I decided to move forward. But in my heart I felt God was using this sweet face to move my heart forward in following His plan, and made a SUPER sweet friend in the process.
Now if you read our story from the beginning, you know we just barely qualified for China's adoption financial qualifications, but they didn't ask us for a waiver, which we were very happy and grateful for. We just saw it as another sign from God we were in His will. Well being that we barely qualified for one, neither of us thought we would qualify for two, especially without filling out a waiver, so we figured that would be another God thing if it was going to happen and it was His will. So we filled out all the paper work and started all the work in looking for a little boy. On March 5th I saw a picture of a little boy that another AP (Adoption Parent) was advocating for and I emailed her to get more information. Little "Danny" (his agency given name) caught my heart again. He was with another agency which had me doubtful, some agencies aren't big on transferring files, but after a call to a sweet woman who worked at the agency she was willing to transfer if we were sure we were going to move forward.
So after much prayer and a LOT of waiting (I'm getting a little better at this...well I'm trying to get better at this) we got an email from our agency saying we were PA (pre-approved) for "Danny" on April 8th!!!! And as far as we know, with NO waiver!!! Josh and I just stared at each other in shock! Now God was just showing off! :)
So without out making you wait any longer-I want to introduce to you...Isac David Ning Noll
He is two months younger than Levi. Those of you who have seen our adoption video...does he look a little familiar? :)
Some may wonder if we are crazy. (I think this question was answered and confirmed when we had three close together and then had another, ya know because apparently
I'll leave you with a video of us telling the girls last Friday...needless to say they were very excited and Elli a little prophetic! LOL.
http://vimeo.com/68419307
Hope you all have a fabulous day!
No comments:
Post a Comment