Greetings!
We have not been involved with the adoption process for several months now - see Heavy Heart I believe the New Year always brings us hope for great things. My surgery went well and I am on the mend. Don is still underemployed but continuing to establish his own business. In January, we decided to start a morning devotional for couples. I guess you could call it a "New Year's Resolution" but I have never been successful at resolutions so I am reluctant to declare this as a resolution!
On January 24, 2008, we planned an evening to go out to dinner (economy style) and stop by the Christian Bookstore to pick up a guide for our devotions. We were not sure what we were looking for so we put it in God's hands and had faith He would show us the way. After several hours, (Don and I both can get lost in a bookstore) we finally settled on the book Moments with You: Daily Connections for Couples by Dennis and Barbara Rainey. Once we got home that evening, we decided to start our devotion and we have been at it ever since. They say it takes 30 days to establish or break a habit - we have 21 more days to go! Man, are we on a roll!
We are starting our day with prayer and devotions, what a great way to begin each morning!
Strangely (or according to God's plan) around the beginning of January, Don and I both began having feelings that we needed to get our adoption back in process. We started feeling a need to get our paperwork in order because ...just maybe.... We have been here before and realistically, we do not have the finances to complete our adoption, so neither one of us said anything to the other about what we were feeling. That is, until we started our devotions.
As we began praying and doing our devotions daily, we started talking more and we shared our feelings about the adoption. We were compelled to add the adoption to our daily prayer list again and ask for guidance and wisdom. Within days, we received a series of phone calls from our adoption coordinator and our homestudy agency encouraging us to get back into the waiting room.
I have to admit, I was overcome with anxiety about this and could not wrap my head around it. It felt like a cruel joke. Don and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would never be parents. We had given up the idea of adoption - we told everyone it wasn't for us and that God had something else in mind for us. We even thought perhaps our purpose was hosting exchange students.
Not sure if we were really "hearing God tell us to continue with the adoption", we focused our prayers on adoption and asked God to "hit us over the head please" with His will for us.
On the evening of January 29, 2008, we received a call from our adoption coordinator telling us that we are one of the last families left from May 2006 when the agency lost accreditation. She informed us that we are at the top of the list but we MUST get our dossier updated! We were stunned!
We were feeling overwhelmed with happiness but also overwhelmed with sadness knowing that our adoption savings had been spent on living expenses for the past 5 months. That evening we talked about it and prayed about it and came to the conclusion that we could not afford to adopt. Why must it always come down to money? We went to bed that night praying for some message from God that our decision was the right one.
On January 30, 2008, we began our usual routine. Get up, feed the cats, make coffee, brush teeth, begin devotion. Bamm! There it was, our answer. The devotion for January 30 was:
Adopting God's Heart In the middle of the page is this statement:
Caring for the fatherless is not simply a compassionate act. Adoption is not merely an additional means of growing our families to the desired size. Caring for orphans is about obedience and expressing the heart of God.
Clearly, God hit us over the head! The message was very clear, God was calling us to adopt and we were saying "not now, we can't, we don't have the money......."
As I write this entry, it seems that God was speaking to us clearly all along, we were just hard of hearing! God calls us to have faith and trust in Him that our needs will be taken care of.
We pulled out the adoption file and we are beginning to work on updating everything. We know that it will be a slow process but we are forging ahead as obedient children of God.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
Obediently sitting on a limb of faith,
Elizabeth
Worry about yourself!
10 years ago
2 comments:
Elizabeth - God WILL provide. God IS faithful!! While we waited 2 years to bring Dmitry home, the expenses kept coming with little hope of him *ever* coming home. I felt defeated many times. Now Dmitry is home but we still have financial burden from the adoption. We maxxed out 3 of our credit cards and we refinanced our house twice during our wait. We were needing to get a larger vehicle but with limited funds knew we would not be able to get a very nice vehicle and I had just gotten done expressing my confusion on the adoption finances to my husband. When we started our adoption it was clear to us God was directing us to adopt, we knew the "pricetag" was daunting but stepped in faith that God would provide. Yes, Dmitry is home with us now but we are left with such a heavy financial burden on our shoulders, and I was feeling like God brought us here just to leave us in debt? I was so confused. LITERALLY within minutes, I get a phonecall from a family member who we had been talking to about needing a vehicle. Long story short they called to say they were giving us money to help us pay for a vehicle that would be more dependable than what we had the money for. It was amazing. I was brought to tears. God never said he would miraculously pay off this adoption, however He DID make it possible, and continues to work in our lives getting us by. Many people say that God will not give you more than you can handle. A close friend pointed out that God does not give us more than we can handle WITHOUT HIS HELP. God does take us to those places where we aren't able to do it alone SO THAT we come to Him. You are being so faithful. Continue your devotions, listen to His prompting. GOD IS ALWAYS FAITHFUL.
Oops sorry for the double negative - I meant to say:
God does not give us more than we can handle WITH HIS HELP.
Better yet I went back to my blog and found the comment and she says it better than me. Here it is:
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Listen. God called you to adopt this boy. And He will help you parent this boy. God never promises that life will be easy - but He does promise to be with us.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." If we could do it on our own, we wouldn't need Him. I hate that phrase, "God won't give me more than I can handle." Of course more than what we can handle is thrown at us - so HE can get glory.
God DOES get the glory, when you lay your life at the throne. Regardless of what your circumstances are or how much you feel like things are out of control. It is still God's glory when you call out to Him and praise His name in the midst of your circumstances.
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Amen!!
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