After reading her statement, I remembered my fickleness that is displayed throughout my previous blog posts since the ectopic pregnancy. After all, my thoughts about pursuing adoption sooner than later or trying again to conceive changed more than once.
Whenever I am wondering what I should do in a particular situation, and I ask Bradd, he gently tells me, "Make a decision and stick with it. Love Jesus and do what you want." What he means by that is as long as you are truly in love with Jesus, your desires become His desires. Of course, you still have to pray earnestly and fervantly concerning God's direction in your life, and seek Him in every area. However, I tend to worry quite often whether or not I am doing God's will. My heart also tends to be fickle naturally, especially when I am grieving; as I have learned recently. Hence, Bradd's statement to me.
When I found out about the national together for adoption conference held at our church, I knew I had to go. No matter how far away the adoption process was for us, I knew we would adopt one day, so going to the conference was a must.
I learned many aspects concerning orphan care that I did not know before. For now, I will share the specific part I learned that pushed us to the decision to officially begin the process as well as where we are adopting from.
On the last day of the conference, as I was heading to a session where adult adoptees speak about their experience being adopted, I decided to stop at a booth manned by Christian Adoption Services. One of the ladies talked with me about their international adoption program as well as their domestic one. My heart was pulled towards their international program but I knew how Bradd felt last time I mentioned international adoption. He did not feel comfortable traveling outside of the country. I still felt like I should listen to what she had to say. I also knew I was missing the session, but I just couldn't leave that booth.
One reason for being fickle about beginning the process was the timing and financial strain. With many countries, the wait time once you submit your dossier is one to two years. Once I found out about their regular international adoption program which takes three to four years from the time you submit your dossier, I was smitten with the idea. For us, the longer the process takes, the better. When I found out about several fundraisers that this agency helps you with, the financial worries began to ease as well. It was comforting knowing we would have more time to raise the funds than if we chose domestic adoption or even adoption from a different country. Even though we will still need to raise a significant amount of money within the next year, we believe God will provide.
Another aspect that helped us choose this agency and country was the amount of time spent in the country. We will only have to travel to this country once, and only stay there five to seven days.
Upon leaving the conference, I texted Bradd and asked him to please pray for God to speak to his heart about something I was going to talk to him about. Honestly, I was nervous that Bradd and I would feel differently about the information I was going to share.
I cried and hugged him after he shared his response; which was genuinely and extremely supportive. I smiled too.
Speaking of smiles...
"We are adopted by God into His kingdom, into His family with Jesus. We inherit the Kingdom WITH Jesus. Once we make the decision to follow Christ, we are promised to follow Him all the way up into Heaven. Heaven is OURS. What a wonderful family we will have! The best earthly example of God’s love for us is adoption. Adoption is a heartbreaking process. There are years of waiting, years of tears, years of hardship ahead. Adoption is not all rainbows and unicorns, it’s incredibly hard to become a parent to a child who isn’t your blood. But God does this over and over. God adopted all of us and it was our decision to choose His family. He gets an eternity of heartbreak, but He also gets the elation when one of His children joins His family."
"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, 'Abba, Father.' For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children." Romans 8:14-16
. We hope this blog is not just an encouragement to anyone going through primary or secondary infertility, and/or pregnancy loss but adoption as well. After all, blogs about adoptions, (Rebecca's for example), were extremely helpful- especially right now.
Yes, grief is fickle, but Jesus remains constant and unchanging. I was worried by pursuing the adoption process right away that it was going to become (or already was) an idol in my heart. Perhaps I was indeed (and still am) trying to fill the void left from miscarriages. However, even if I am, I believe God can still be glorified in my weaknesses.
After all, there is a child God has chosen for us to adopt into our family; and adoption is not about us,
but about the child. I pray my desire to give Oliver a sibling through adoption is glorifying God, despite my weaknesses. Jesus has always been faithful. No matter how fickle our hearts are, we can trust and be thankful that He will never fail us.
Please pray that God is glorified through this journey and that He uses this child to one day reach the nations. We covet your prayers during this process.
~Candace
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