I want to start by apologizing for be so negligent in posting to the blog! I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last posted, but so much has been happening in our home that I have allowed this to become a low priority. I've had to have my foot surgically repaired not once, but twice in the last month and being on crutches has made everything much more complicated than usual!
We have spent much time in prayer over the last month as we sought God's will for our adoption. I found myself becoming very frustrated as I read about other family's moments of realizing that a certain child was meant to be theirs. Why were we not having that same feeling??
Last week we thought that God was leading us to a certain child and asked for prayer that God would reveal His will in that situation. He did that by very clearly closing the doors that would have made that adoption possible. Then this week we found a beautiful little girl in Bulgaria who we felt very drawn toward. Eric asked me to contact our adoption coordinator about her and I had just finished doing that when I decided to enter her name into a Google search to see if I could find out what it meant in Bulgarian. That search led me to The Heaston Family blog . When I saw this little cutie's picture pop up on their blog my heart sank. I was thrilled that another family was working toward adopting her, but I was SO disappointed! When was God going to show us who our child was going to be? (BTW, check out the rest of The Heaston's blog. They have some great information and thoughts on adoption)
For some reason I have felt as if the "right" way to approach adoption was to search the listings of waiting children and wait for God to tell me which one was "ours". For some reason I resisted the more usual route of waiting for a referral from the agency. {Traditionally the way an adoption works is that your are approved to adopt with the home study and other required paperwork. Then the agency you are working with takes your information and looks for children who fit into the criteria that they have your family approved for (e.g. age of the child, if you have a gender preference, if you are able to accept children with special needs and if so what severity of needs you are capable of caring for, etc.). Once they find a child(ren) that matches they will send you a referral that includes pictures and detailed information about the child if it is available. Then you have several weeks to review the information and decide whether you want to accept the referral and move forward with the adoption.}. To me it felt as if waiting for a referral was letting someone else choose our child for us. It never occurred to me that God might use the social workers at the agency to show our child to us! I know, I'm a little limited in my thinking sometimes!
I have had so many wonderful opportunities to see and feel God at work over the last few years and it was amazing to see him at work again over the last week. After several times of Him telling us "No, that one is not meant to be yours." I have finally realized that God is planning to work in a different way than I expected. We will be submitting our paperwork and initial fees to the agency tomorrow and asking for a referral.
Please pray that the child(ren) that the agency refers for us will be the exact child(ren) that God has planned for us and that we will know that these children were chosen by Him to be part of our family. We are so thankful for your prayers as we ride the roller coaster of emotions called adoption!
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