Thursday, March 26, 2015

A Still Small Voice

This blog is a diary of my journey, with my husband and children, through the fost-adopt process. My goal here is to document and work through my own humanity, while hopefully providing those walking the same path a sense of companionship and understanding. We are at the beginning of our journey, and I thought it might be prudent to share how we arrived here.

My husband and I are a relatively young couple, married five years with three young children. Yet even before our first child was born we had both expressed an interest in adoption. As Christians we knew we had been blessed with so much more then we could ever hope to deserve, and felt it good and right to share those blessings with another child. That is how the seed was first planted in our hearts. However, as life goes we were whisked away into the hustle and bustle of daily survival. We were in need of community, of fortitude, and growth. What grace and provision! God pruned and trimmed our hearts, sometimes rather painfully! And I have no doubt He will continue to do so, I know I can always use a good weeding! Even so, some time after our youngest was born we both began to feel that itch. There was something we were being prepared for. There was something we were being called to do. Unbeknownst to us, the still small voice inside had begun to whisper in our individual hearts. Before long the whisper had turned into a wind that blew the dust off of those original seeds. This idea of adoption begin to spring up into conversations, subtly at first, until we both had the "you too??" epiphany and we knew it was right.

Next came the questions and research. Private adoption? International? What about Foster Care? (Now, I will interject some personal history here. My parents fostered children for the better part of my childhood so the idea was not foreign to me, especially with one of my brothers being adopted from foster care. I saw the immense good, the struggle, and was absolutely grateful for that part of my upbringing. However, at the time I only had experience with older children and we were looking at adopting a baby.) It became clear very quickly that private and international adoption were going to be too expensive for us with three other little mouths to feed. That is just our reality. I must admit the inquiries into fost-adopt came somewhat hesitantly for both of us. To put it plainly the prospect was frightening! There are so many unknowns. So many variables. So much risk for pain. We didn't know if it was even possible or realistic to try to adopt a baby But ultimately we knew. We always knew. We only needed to close our eyes and trust that God would guide us and catch us when we fell.

We took that leap and contacted a recommended case worker to begin the licensing process. We are filled with so many emotions but in this blog I will speak only for myself, unless I can directly quote my family, for I can only speak to what my heart is experiencing. I am excited, hopeful, anxious, curious, awed, and humbled. The only thing, for now, that I am not is doubting. I know this is right. God doesn't need me, but I am blessed to be used by Him anyway. I am an ill equipped green horn soldier, but a soldier nonetheless.



"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future" Jeremiah 29:11

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