I guess I should start off by saying that Jonathan and I haven't always been on the same page when it comes to adoption, or even having more kids at all. As a matter of fact, before we had any kids, I never really even pictured myself with more than 2 kids! I grew up with one sister, and Jonathan came from a family of 4, so 2 just seemed like a simple and well balanced number. After we had Gage, I didn't feel like our family was totally complete yet. It's not like our family life with 3 boys was calm and serene, and we needed more craziness, but I still had that longing for something more. I just wasn't sure at that point what it was. People would ask if we were going to try for another one(I think jokingly most of the time), but I couldn't honestly say no. Yes, I got many crazy looks and comments, but deep down I knew there was something more planned for our lives.
A couple of years ago, I was looking for antique, salvaged brick floors to put in my kitchen, but they were impossible to come by in Dallas, so I googled it to see what came up. The first site that popped up was
http://baseballstobows.blogspot.com/. Its a blog of a family who lives in Baton Rouge(where I'm from) who has 3 sons, and was in the process of adopting a little girl from China. They were building a house and had the EXACT floors that I was looking for desperately here and could not find! I emailed her to find out where she got them and that was that....or so I thought. I soon became hooked on her blog! I checked it everyday just to see what was going on in their lives and how their adoption process was coming along. It's crazy how you can never have met somebody in person, but feel like you've always known them...that's how I felt with Jennifer and her family. When they were in China, I checked multiple times a day for updates and to see their first meeting with their precious daughter, Wesleigh. She is such a cute and sweet little girl and it just melts my heart to see how much the whole family loves her....esp. the boys! Oh my!.... I think that's what really gets me, because I can see my boys being the same way!
Tell me she's not the cutest thing EVER!
Well, fast forward 2 years and I start to think about the possibility of us adopting more and more. I knew it was a far fetch with Jonathan, considering he had already made it clear that we were DONE! I brought it up to him a few times, and he laughed saying "really?....you don't think we're busy enough with 3 kids?" Now, I can be really good at nagging to get something that I want, but I realized that this wasn't a nagging situation. He either needed to be totally on board, or we just couldn't do it. I tried to quit thinking about it, telling myself it just wasn't going to happen, but I couldn't! I prayed that if it's something He really wanted us to do, then to put it on Jonathan's heart too or let me quit thinking about it. Surely enough, we started noticing more families around us that were adopting. Crazy as it sounds, Jonathan came home from work one day and told me that he was actually starting to be more open to the idea of adopting! Needless to say, I was beyond shocked and so excited! I knew at this point we were on our way. Just a few weeks later we went to church and it just so happened to be "
Orphan Sunday"! Slowly but surely, He was paving the way for what He feels so strongly about. Of course I am bawling the whole way through the service, and Jonathan just keeps giving me weird looks like "Really?" Coincidence?...I don't think so. We walk out of church and Jonathan's exact words..."I'm sold...let's do it."!
So, this is the story of the beginning of our journey. I know, without a doubt, that this was all part of God's plan for our lives from the beginning. I know he wants us all to step out of our comfort zone and to be His hands and feet here on earth and to take care of His children. I never realized how much He talks about it in the Bible until we started this whole process. These are just a few:
" Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27
"...Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow" Isaiah 1:17
" A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling" Psalm 68:5
I know this won't be an easy road, and that we will go through some hard times,even after she's home with us, but I also know that it will be an even greater reward, and it will change our lives more than anything we have or will ever do!
I promise, not all of my blogs will be this long! ;)
I will leave you with what Ice Day Part Three looked like...now onto Part 4!!