We began the process of adoption around the time of Thanksgiving of 2010 after some research on various adoption agencies and seeking out advice from friends that had recently adopted... just did an on-line application to see if we qualified. We had our bold-faced, digital answer from God! We were approved to adopt from the country of Ethiopia. Whoo hoo! We did a whole bunch of research on the country of Ethiopia - any information we could get our hands on for that knowledge was bringing us closer to our little one so far away. We were thrilled and excited but also a bit nervous... I was nervous about taking care of a little Ethiopian girl's hair, as I can barely take care of my own mane and the 3 easy boys' coifs we have in our current household at that - ha!
This new direction felt oddly comforting and right, though, not scary or self-defeating or even self-fulfilling. We were fulfilling God's plan! We had our answer, and we couldn't wait to share this news with our family. We told my family and my in-laws over the Christmas holiday about our plans. We were very encouraged by their support. Whew, they shared in our excitement! It was really fun telling them all about God's plan for our family.
We then got all of our home-study materials and dossier materials - oh, the paperwork. I can't adequately describe this part of the process, as it is very overwhelming but absolutely do-able. I don't want to alarm anyone or turn anyone off to the adoption option. It isn't that bad - just reality. We began furiously filling out paper after paper after paper......... The weight and reality of the difficulty of this process kind of took over for a brief instance! It was definitely going to be like a marathon, we thought, and we were not going to grow weary of this process, because it was, after all - necessary - "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31 We were determined to do this in as quick a manner as possible. Our competitive nature (in racing against the clock) was about to kick in and be used for a force of good! Nice!
Then it was time to tell our kiddos. We waited to have to tell them until this process effected their lives. My husband and I decided to tell them on Valentine's Day this year. What greater time to talk about our action of love toward our Lord and Savior than in stepping out in HIS plan and show our love for one of God's orphans? We read them a devotional about a family that adopted from Africa and was that weird or wonderful?? It was an amazing little story about how God can knit together families in the heart and not just in the womb. The family heard God's call for their whole family, not just the mom and dad, we pointed out to the kids. The boys had great questions about it and were actually amazed that little kids could be called to God's plan, too. Oh, they are learning so much from this experience already - thank you, God! Yes, little children can get calls from the Lord, too! We told them that we also heard that call for all of us, not just for mom and dad, and that we would be following that call to Ethiopia to bring home one of God's children, an orphan, to be in our family forever... Conner and Carson would be big brothers again, and Chase would finally get to be a big brother! Conner crumpled into tears of joy; Carson did a happy dance and asked for a sister; Chase got kind of quiet (thought he was going to be upset about no longer being the baby of the family), but he said, "He knew something like this was happening - didn't know what - but that he knew it in his heart!" Oh man, did their reactions get to me. The tears started streaming down my cheeks. It got to JJ, too, for I have only seen my husband cry 3 other times in our 18 years of marriage. God was working in that man's heart for sure. Again, thank you, God! It was a moment I will NEVER forget!
The next day, the kiddos couldn't wait to tell their classmates. I was so happy that they were happy. Conner told his classmates through sobs and tears... such a tender-hearted young man. Carson told the kids with great enthusiasm and confidence that he was going to have a new 5-year old brother after the adoption was finalized... ha, such an imaginative young man. Chase tried to retell the devotional story from the night before... such a little thinker. Conner's classmates (mostly a group of 5th-grade girls from his class) surrounded me in hugs and wishes of congratulations that same day. They were thrilled for us, too. They also said that they wanted to help us bring home our new son or daughter by wanting to organize a pop-can drive to help offset costs. Bless their hearts. Conner's class has been together since kindergarten, so they are all pretty close. Even if it never happens, I was so touched! The tears were flowing down my cheeks again.The hands and feet of Jesus, even in His children, were wanting to help us bring home our child - God's child. I was overwhelmed that
5th-graders would want to move so quickly into action for us - what a beautiful picture of the community of believers. What can I say?? The Lord is good :)
Friday, February 24, 2012
Opening That Door...
Someone once said to me, "Life is not about what happens, if you don't open the door; life is about what happens when you open that door." It is a great variation on the Bible verse from Revelations 3:20 ~ "I stand at the door and knock. If any of you hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in." Those words have had a major impact on my life. Turning 40 (the "half-way" mark) has made me see this more clearly as it applies to my own life the past 40 years and hopefully the next 40+ years yet to come. If I am to be brutally honest with myself (and all of you), I would have to say, I have lived most, if not all of my life, afraid to open the door, when I heard God's knock. I was at times in my life paralyzed by this fear - 'Please don't knock God, because I am not strong enough, good enough, ready enough to open the door to your will'. Satan is so deceptive in making us all feel that way, wouldn't you agree? It's scary to open the door... see what the Lord is calling you to on the other side. It might be messy; it might be hurtful; it might not be what WE planned, etc, etc, etc. Most days it was easier to ignore the knock. Some days it was easier to talk myself out of the knock that I know I heard.
Turning 40, for some reason for me, has made me more open to seeing the beauty in the free will/choice God gives us to open that door or not and step out in HIS perfect plan, because He knows us better than we know ourselves... not to simply dwell on the fear of opening the door, but to discover what good I can do, what blessings await, what joy and happiness I can bring others, when I trust that perfect plan for my life and move through the doorway. He prepared my life behind the closed door through trials and fires, through wonderfully happy times, through prayer, through scripture reading, and through all the God-moments He has brought me to in my life to some day feel ready enough, to feel strong enough, and to feel good enough. We can and DO live the life on the other side of that door doing the Lord's will, NOT in fear, but in trust... NOT in weakness but in strength. NOT in self-defeat, but in confidence! This is God's promise to us, when we follow HIM! This is what happened in our lives as we heard God's knocking, opened the door and walked over that threshhold... not wondering what happens if we OPEN the door, but finding ourselves wondering what happens if we DON'T open it!
Our story is not unique, but we feel overwhelmingly blessed, amazingly humbled, and truly excited to begin a new chapter in our life's story, as we open this door together, as a family... With a tremendous amount of prayer and talking to God, scriptural preparation, talking as husband and wife, praying for our family and about 2 years of time passing, we felt prepared to open the door, when we heard God's knocking! His timing is perfect! We stepped through the door into the world of adoption! God has called our family to open our hearts and our home to one of his many orphaned children from Ethiopia, and we couldn't be more excited!
In the last few years as our 3rd child entered school, I felt a tug at my heartstrings. My husband, JJ, would not say the same about that tug on his heart, however. We were pretty far apart on the issue of adoption! I would say that we were very much like polar opposites at best! Over time, as we prayed for God to either change my heart about adoption or change JJ's heart about it, we both agreed that we needed to forge our family ahead into a new direction - one more obedient to God. Yep, I think it is that whole turning 40-thing again - LOL!
What would that look like for us? Would it mean going on mission trips? Would that mean volunteering as a family more deliberately? Would that mean adoption? Only God knew the answer to our questions and what the perfect plan would be for our family, so we prayed for wisdom. We prayed for answers. We prayed for direction that would be without doubt what the Lord was calling us to do! Maybe turning 40 will do that to a person... make you feel more boldly about a life direction! It's a turning point, a half-way mark, a time of reflection on a life lived one way and now maybe looking forward to a life that needs to be lived more deliberately, for you only have this one half left to get it right!
JJ and I both started to see more clearly little "signs" about what God's perfect plan was for our family. It got to the point that JJ and I would have sharing sessions about we saw each day that drew us closer to God's calling for our family - a devotional here, a conversation with a person there, a whispered word in our prayer times, an unexplained change in our hearts, confidence in a direction that was not there before we asked God to show himself to us... We couldn't resist that knock at our door anymore! It was pretty loud... We, for the first time, weren't so much concerned about what would happen if we opened the door, we became more concerned about what would happen if we didn't!! So, thus we began the application process to adopt! Whoo hoo :)
A bit about us, as this is my first ever blog post... I can't believe I am doing this - whoo hoo! My husband JJ and I have been happily married for 18 years. We are best friends, really! We feel richly blessed by our 3 boys: Conner (age 11), Carson (age 9), and Chase (age 7). All 3 boys are very active in sports and in music. My husband is a high school assistant principal, and I am a stay-at-home mom, who works very part-time at our sons' school as the coordinator of a Spanish/Mandarin immersion program for young children.
Turning 40, for some reason for me, has made me more open to seeing the beauty in the free will/choice God gives us to open that door or not and step out in HIS perfect plan, because He knows us better than we know ourselves... not to simply dwell on the fear of opening the door, but to discover what good I can do, what blessings await, what joy and happiness I can bring others, when I trust that perfect plan for my life and move through the doorway. He prepared my life behind the closed door through trials and fires, through wonderfully happy times, through prayer, through scripture reading, and through all the God-moments He has brought me to in my life to some day feel ready enough, to feel strong enough, and to feel good enough. We can and DO live the life on the other side of that door doing the Lord's will, NOT in fear, but in trust... NOT in weakness but in strength. NOT in self-defeat, but in confidence! This is God's promise to us, when we follow HIM! This is what happened in our lives as we heard God's knocking, opened the door and walked over that threshhold... not wondering what happens if we OPEN the door, but finding ourselves wondering what happens if we DON'T open it!
Our story is not unique, but we feel overwhelmingly blessed, amazingly humbled, and truly excited to begin a new chapter in our life's story, as we open this door together, as a family... With a tremendous amount of prayer and talking to God, scriptural preparation, talking as husband and wife, praying for our family and about 2 years of time passing, we felt prepared to open the door, when we heard God's knocking! His timing is perfect! We stepped through the door into the world of adoption! God has called our family to open our hearts and our home to one of his many orphaned children from Ethiopia, and we couldn't be more excited!
In the last few years as our 3rd child entered school, I felt a tug at my heartstrings. My husband, JJ, would not say the same about that tug on his heart, however. We were pretty far apart on the issue of adoption! I would say that we were very much like polar opposites at best! Over time, as we prayed for God to either change my heart about adoption or change JJ's heart about it, we both agreed that we needed to forge our family ahead into a new direction - one more obedient to God. Yep, I think it is that whole turning 40-thing again - LOL!
What would that look like for us? Would it mean going on mission trips? Would that mean volunteering as a family more deliberately? Would that mean adoption? Only God knew the answer to our questions and what the perfect plan would be for our family, so we prayed for wisdom. We prayed for answers. We prayed for direction that would be without doubt what the Lord was calling us to do! Maybe turning 40 will do that to a person... make you feel more boldly about a life direction! It's a turning point, a half-way mark, a time of reflection on a life lived one way and now maybe looking forward to a life that needs to be lived more deliberately, for you only have this one half left to get it right!
JJ and I both started to see more clearly little "signs" about what God's perfect plan was for our family. It got to the point that JJ and I would have sharing sessions about we saw each day that drew us closer to God's calling for our family - a devotional here, a conversation with a person there, a whispered word in our prayer times, an unexplained change in our hearts, confidence in a direction that was not there before we asked God to show himself to us... We couldn't resist that knock at our door anymore! It was pretty loud... We, for the first time, weren't so much concerned about what would happen if we opened the door, we became more concerned about what would happen if we didn't!! So, thus we began the application process to adopt! Whoo hoo :)
A bit about us, as this is my first ever blog post... I can't believe I am doing this - whoo hoo! My husband JJ and I have been happily married for 18 years. We are best friends, really! We feel richly blessed by our 3 boys: Conner (age 11), Carson (age 9), and Chase (age 7). All 3 boys are very active in sports and in music. My husband is a high school assistant principal, and I am a stay-at-home mom, who works very part-time at our sons' school as the coordinator of a Spanish/Mandarin immersion program for young children.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)