Sharing Your Story even when You're Unsure What God is Doing with it.

Sharing Your Story even when You're Unsure What God is Doing with it.

Recently I found myself on a bench in Murren, Switzerland sharing my story with a woman I met at this playground where our children were playing together. They were from Zurich and only there for a short vacation. The mom of this family saw the airport tag hanging on my stroller and asked me where we were from. I told her we were visiting from North Carolina in the United States. She was very curious as to why a young family would travel so far to be someplace that her family found to be a quiet and ‘plain’ holiday. I didn’t have a great answer apart from the desire we had to be away from our own home, in a different culture and way of life, to give us some perspective on our own culture. It ended up that her son’s name was Vincent as well so we had something in common within the first five minutes of talking. Then the question everyone seems to ask of parents with one child “Is he your only child?” Easy answer for this one: “yes.” Then the next question that seems to work its way into almost every culture I’ve ever encountered, “do you want more?”

So I just met this lady, how should I answer that? I know the easy and shallow answer “Yes” with some mixture of “we’ll just have to see what happens” or “who knows when.”

I decided to take the route of truth.

How often does someone ask, “How are you?” and you quickly respond with “great!” or “OK” before quickly asking “how about you?” I know I do it all the time.

Since I figured this woman and I may be sitting on this bench for at least a few minutes together, and I may never see her again, why not just be honest?

Within about 8 minutes I summarized our story of trying for over 5 years to have my son, doctor’s statements of impossibility, and our call by God to adopt. I told her how I miraculously became pregnant while we were in the adoption process. I told her what a gift my son was to us and how much he’s shown us about God and how we hoped to learn more about Him by adopting another child and seeing how He speaks to our family then.

She was pretty quiet. I’m pretty sure she is not a person of faith in the same way I am. A little unsure of what to say next I stayed quiet as well. She asked “Do you really believe God gave you your son?” Easy answer for this one, “yes, I absolutely do.” She seemed to be really thinking about what I said for just a moment while watching her four children play then started up a new topic by asking what we had done during our holiday so far. I told her and asked for suggestions for what to do over the next few days we had left and she was incredibly sweet and helpful. Almost at the same time my husband came over and I took my turn at chasing our son around as he and her spoke about his business in Europe. I watched from afar and found myself wondering what she thought of this American couple that traveled to another continent to hike some trails and play on a playground with our miracle son.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to her again before we were both departing from the playground in separate directions. I’m not sure I would have known what else to say but it felt really good to be honest with someone, even someone I barely knew.

Throughout this trip I felt like God was making me more secure in the fact that He would take care of us and that He would take care of me. That the desire in my heart to adopt was something He put there and that I needed to rest and rely on Him and stop thinking I had to rely on myself and my own abilities to parent. He took time over this trip to calm some fears I had. He gave me LOTS of opportunities to learn patience with my son and with myself. He gave my husband and I LOTS of opportunities to rely on Him and not our own plans or expectations and lastly, He gave us LOTS of opportunities to rely on each other as teammates, soul mates, and best friends. He gave us a mountain top experience in Switzerland, figuratively and physically.

Now that we’ve returned home, back to reality, and we’re ready to restart the adoption process. We knew we were still about $8,000 shy of having what we needed even after saving most of my income for the last four years. My cut in hours and pay, our medical bills from having Vince, and the much needed purchase of a reliable car in the last month of my pregnancy really cut into our saving for this adoption but knowing that we would be able to obtain the savings we needed within 10-11 months meant we felt ready to restart the process. After taking some time over the last week to update most all of our pre-home study paperwork we emailed the agency we chose two years ago to see what it would take for us to restart. I was feeling very excited and very hopeful.

After having a great and much needed day of fun with friends I checked my email to find that the adoption social worker had emailed me back. I excitedly opened the email to read it to my husband as we drove home. Not only has then entire application and process changed, the fees have as well. The fees now required from our agency are an additional $4,500 compared to two years ago with the possibility of additional fees dependent on the life situation of the birthmom. I hate to focus on the money side of things but I’m just going to be real with it, this means the total cost was now going to be over $30,000.

My heart literally shattered, as it is now as I type that number out. l am heart broken about how much farther I feel from this dream of having another child in our home. We were already unsure how the expenses would work out but this felt like a door literally slammed in my face and broke my spirit at the same time.

My mind knows that God can and will do anything, and when I look at my son my heart knows that too but everything in me is unsure of what to do now. It feels like a roadblock. I know what God is calling us to do but I don’t know how. We were both so sure this was the way but now what? It’ll be at least another 12-14 months before we’d have that kind of money. We’ve felt strongly convicted about keeping our family debt-free. We remember our early years of marriage when we struggled financially to keep our head above water before we both had solid jobs and once we became debt-free we agreed to do what we needed to do to stay that way.

Just as I feel this ache in my heart I sit here and remember the face of that mom I shared a park bench with in Switzerland. She asked, “Do you really believe God gave you your son?” To which I replied, “yes, I absolutely do.”

I ABSOLUTELY DO.

I absolutely believe my daughter is out there and I absolutely believe God will gift her to me.

I’m not going to lie and say “I’m OK.” It would certainly be foolish to say that I have it all together and am coping with this “just fine.” But I will say that I ABSOLUTELY DO believe that God has a plan and purpose for this deep yearning in my heart, for this deep yearning in our family to love through the act of adoption. I know through everything we’ve gone through it has tested my husband and I over and over and over again and through each season of heartbreak, loss, and confusion, He has brought us closer to each other and closer to Himself. That is something I’m counting on and even though I’m more confused than ever I ABSOLUTELY believe that God works all things together for good for those who love Him. And I love Him, and want Him desperately.

We used to cite the story of Noah quite frequently throughout our preparations for our first child (not knowing he would be biological). We had our nursery ready for a child in 2010, three years before our son would sleep in it, despite knowing it was ‘medically impossible.' People would look at us like we were crazy, even well intentioned friends of the same faith would laugh that we were more prepared than a pregnant couple. But I’m sure Noah got that a lot. You know that boat wasn’t built over night and I’m sure in the YEARS it took him to build it he heard his fair share of doubts from others, and maybe even had his own but he continued to operate and prepare IN FAITH for what God told him was coming. We will continue to do the same.

The nursery is again ready and is our ‘ark.’

Please pray for our family as we seek God’s will for our adoption process. Pray that we will receive direction and pray that God would be glorified in it all. I don’t want anyone watching our family to be able to explain away some of the miracles God deserves glory for. That is certainly true for our son; no one can explain away how he arrived, even our doctors. I want the same testimony for our daughter. We covet your prayers as God calms my heart and we keep our feet planted on the solid rock that is HIM and His deep love for us.