Discouraged, but encouraged

Yesterday morning was a bit discouraging for me. As I posted yesterday, we found out that the birthparents chose the other family because the other family didn't have any children. (I'm assuming that means they can't have biological children, although I could be wrong in that assumption.) We completely understood why they would want to give their child to a couple who can't conceive. We were disappointed for ourselves, but happy for this other couple. And although I would have loved to adopt this baby boy, that wasn't the main reason I was discouraged. When I found out we were "competing" for this baby boy with a family that can't have biological children, I was very confused and felt like our adoption process had lost its original purpose.

When we decided God was leading us to adopt, we wanted to adopt where there was a true need for orphans to be adopted. That is the reason why we're adopting: we want to fulfill the Biblical command to take care of orphans and bring a child into our family who has no one else to care for him/her. That was our purpose (and still is!) in seeking to adopt a child. When we began this process, we were looking into adopting from Ethiopia or China until we heard of the need to adopt minority infants here in the U.S. We decided if there was such a need to adopt children right here in our very own state, we didn't have to travel elsewhere. So we began the adoption process, eagerly filled out our paperwork, completed our homestudy, and thought we would be bringing home a baby any day. We got two or three calls about potential adoptions before we were even done with our paperwork! Surely it wouldn't take very long before we got matched. Right?

Well... here we are seven months later and have not been matched with a child. Our adoption agency said they had a real dry spell over the summer with birthmothers placing their children for adoption, so we just thought that was the reason why our wait was taking a little longer. No big deal, we thought, this might just take a little longer than we had anticipated. We were very excited when this potential situation came up with this little boy a couple weeks ago, and really thought this might be the child God had for us. At the same time, we also knew it might not be God's will, so we tried to guard ourselves from getting too excited. But when we found out yesterday that the other family had been chosen because they don't have children, one phrase kept ringing through my mind, "Where's the need?"

I was discouraged and frustrated because I don't want to be "competing" for babies with families that can't have biological children. That is not why we signed up to adopt. We want to adopt so we can bring home a child that can't find a home, not a child that has families on a waiting list in order to bring him/her home. I just haven't seen the need to adopt minority children that we thought was there when we signed up for this process. With this news yesterday, I felt like our purpose in adopting had gotten off-track and wondered if we were really headed in the right direction.

Thankfully, my husband isn't quite as emotional as I am and he had a much more rational mind yesterday while I was dealing with all this discouragement and frustation. He assured me that he thinks we are still on the right track and that maybe this conference he is attending this weekend is yet another one of God's smiling providences on our situation. He was excited to talk to others from ministries such as the Micah Fund and ABBA Fund and get their insight into our situation. Although I was having my own doubts about our adoption process, I decided to trust Luke's leadership and judgment and wait and hear what he would learn at the conference.

This afternoon Luke called me between conference sessions and told me that he has been able to make some really good contacts with people from other adoption ministries. He has learned that there are certain areas in the country (mainly the South) where there really is a huge need for families to adopt minority children. He spoke with a woman from Georgia who said they rarely find families in Georgia to adopt their minority children, and that most of their children get adopted to families in Minnesota through the Micah Fund. I was excited to learn this; that this need we had been hearing about really does exist. I was also amazed, once again, at how God works things out. We found out we were not chosen for this other adoption about fifteen minutes before Luke left for this conference. If we had not had that experience, he wouldn't have been prompted to ask these questions of these other ministries. This was such a good reminder for me that God is in control of all this, and I need to not get so impatient and discouraged.

I'll get to talk to Luke more in-depth tonight (he only had a few minutes to talk when he called earlier) and get to hear more about what he has learned. I am so thankful the conference was scheduled this weekend, and that Luke has been encouraged and edified through it. I'm sure he'll have lots more to share when he gets home tomorrow.

So...what started out as a very discouraging weekend has been turned into an encouraging one for both of us. God is always faithful, and I'm learning to trust Him more and more through this adoption process. I know someday when we look back on this adoption process, we'll have an amazing story to tell of God's faithfulness and blessings in our lives.

Not this time...

We found out this morning that the birthparents chose the other family. The other family doesn't have any children which is why they chose them. We were disappointed, but understanding and happy for the other family.

Luke is off to South Carolina today with a friend from our church. They are attending the Together for Adoption Conference. He is hoping to make contacts with people from several adoption ministries and gain more information for both our own adoption and our church's future adoption ministry. It sounds like it should be a great conference--I can't wait to hear what he learns! I'm sure he'll post something about it when he returns.

Please keep praying for us as we continue on our adoption journey. This journey has not been easy, but we know it will be worth it in the end.

No news yet...

The birthparents are still making their decision, hopefully we will find out by the end of this week. We did find out that there ended up only being two families whose profiles were presented, so they are choosing between us and one other family. We're still guarding our excitement, knowing they could choose the other family. Keep praying for the birthparents, and that God will lead them to choose the right family for this little guy.

Update

We have found out that our adoption agency will be meeting with the birthparents on Monday to present the profiles. There are three families that are having their profiles presented(that's three, including us). The adoption agency has no way of knowing when they will decide on a family. We could find out as early as Tuesday or it could be a couple of weeks. Pray for them as they make their decision. We are excited about the possibility of adopting this little guy, but are trying to guard our excitement since they could easily choose one of the other families.

We'll update the blog when we hear something!

Adoption update

Just a quick update/prayer request regarding our adoption. We found out last Thursday that there is a baby boy our agency is trying to find a family for. He was born in July at 30 weeks gestation, and spent several weeks in the NICU. The pediatrician that examined him says that he will probably be "near normal" as far as his development, and that his medical issues are most likely due to his extreme prematurity. However, they can't be sure that he will be "near normal" so he is considered a special needs baby. He is staying with a foster family right now, and his birthparents have already terminated their rights. They just need to pick a family!

We have gotten to see pics of him which is fun; we never received pictures with the other babies. He's an adorable little guy and we would love to bring him home with us! We realize that God might have a different plan for his life, so we want to be willing to accept that too. Please pray that God will give the birthmother wisdom as she chooses the adoptive family, and that He will give this little guy a loving, Christian home. We don't know how soon she will choose a family; we might be waiting a week or two before we hear anything. We'll update the blog as soon as we hear!

Life with Boys

Life with small children in the home is always interesting, especially when both your children are boys. Even more so when they are rowdy boys that love to wrestle and break things. Those are the kind of boys that we have in our home. Yeah, there's never a dull moment around our place.

Both our boys can be rough and rowdy, but for some reason Isaac tends to get hurt the most. Some of his injuries have been self-inflicted, and some are coming from his younger brother. Isaac's not a clumsy child, and I don't think Caleb is any rougher with Isaac than Isaac is with Caleb, but Isaac tends to be the one that gets hurt. I told him that God must be toughening him up so he can be a really brave man someday. He seemed to like that idea.

This weekend was a real test of Isaac's toughness. It seemed like all weekend he was recovering from one injury to the next. It started Saturday afternoon and involved Isaac, Caleb and a toy drill. I'm not sure exactly what happened because I was upstairs, but all of a sudden I heard Isaac crying loudly and I knew he was hurt. I went downstairs to find him with a "goose egg" sized knot on his head and Caleb quickly trying to explain what happened. Caleb said he had "accidentally" hit Isaac in the head with the drill. Judging from the guilty look on Caleb's face and isaac's very different story, I decided Caleb was guilty and he got punished. Hopefully he'll remember his punishment the next time he is tempted to take Isaac out with a Black & Decker.

Isaac recovered from the drill incident quite well, only to injure himself later that evening. He and Caleb were wrestling with their daddy (does that tell you where they get this rowdy behavior?) on our bed when Isaac somehow kneed himself square in the eye. Really hard. We thought he was going to have a black eye because it immediately got pretty red and swollen. I put ice on it while my hubby convinced him that black eyes are cool and all his friends will be impressed if he has a black eye. (Once again, do you understand where they get their rowdy personalities?) We put the boys to bed wondering exactly what Isaac was going to look like in the morning when he woke up.

Amazingly, he woke up the next morning looking refreshed and ready to face the new day. The day was pretty uneventful until we let the boys play outside after lunchtime. Luke and I were still inside when I suddenly heard Isaac crying outside. Actually, this time he was screaming. I ran outside and found him holding his head that now has blood running down the side of it. One of the neighbor kids ran over and told me "Caleb ran over Isaac's head with his bike!" I knew this couldn't be exactly what happened, but I took her word for it that Caleb was somehow involved. Since I don't handle the sight of blood well, I took him inside so Luke could clean and examine the wound while I went to hunt down the mad biker.

After about thirty minutes or so, we had discerned that Isaac did not need stitches and that Caleb had not intentionally ran into Isaac on his bike. Luke did have to shave part of Isaac's hair in order to bandage and clean the wound, so he has kind of a punk-rock, half-Mohawk look going on right now. I'm thankful he didn't end up with that black eye from the previous day or else I would be scared to take him out in public. Here's what our poor son looked like when the weekend was over:


Since I am trying to train myself to look for God's blessings in every situation, here are the blessings I can derive from this weekend:

1) We weren't planning on getting a family picture made anytime soon.

2) God has given Isaac an exceptionally hard head which helps him to withstand all his injuries. Accidentally knocking heads with Isaac can bring a grown man to tears.

3) None of these injuries were life-threatening, and God has protected our boys from any serious injuries thus far. For that, we are very thankful.

Just so you don't think our boys are complete hooligans, here's a picture of them being nice and calm.

They really are sweet boys, and we love them dearly. I know they love each other too, even though their battle scars might suggest something different at times.

Peace during troubled times

As many of you know, my husband has a gift for understanding the financial markets. One of the reasons why I feel God has blessed him with such a great aptitude for finance is because Luke uses this knowledge in a God-glorifying way. He is very generous with what he has, and he realizes that money is just a temporary, earthly item. He's not driven by greed, he just loves to study finance and to help others with his knowledge. He gets just as (if not more) excited about helping others financially than he does helping himself.

His knowledge has been a great blessing in our lives and the lives of other friends and family members. He has been forecasting a financial meltdown in our country for several years now, and he obviously was right on his predictions. I'm very thankful for his vast understanding of the financial markets because we were financially prepared for this along with many of our friends and family.

Before marrying Luke, I knew nothing about finance. I felt like I was doing well financially if my checkbook was balanced and my bills were paid. If there had been a global financial crisis back then as there is now, I would have been completely ignorant about what was going on. Things are different now. With Luke as my hubby, I am full aware of everything going on in the financial world. I think Luke's financial knowledge is a huge blessing from God, but sometimes it makes me understand the saying, "Ignorance is bliss."

What's going on in our world right now can be very scary and I have struggled a lot with worry and anxiety over the last several days. I confess this as sin, because I know as Christians we are told not to worry and be anxious. I shouldn't be worrying myself over "What if?" but just remembering that God is Sovereign and no matter what happens it is in His perfect plan. I found a verse in the Bible today that I am going to try and remind myself of when I start to worry and get anxious:

"The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all." Psalm 103:19

When I worry about the stock market or the upcoming election, I am forgetting that

-God is bigger than both of those things.
-Nothing is going to happen to this world that God isn't in control of.
-As Christians, we know this life is temporal and Heaven is what we should really be looking forward to.

I don't know what will happen to our country in the future, but I do know that I serve a great God. He tells us in 1 Peter 5:7 that we should be "...casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." That's my prayer for today. I want to cast my anxiety on Christ, because He holds all of this in His very capable hands.