I have decided that I'm not procrastinating any longer.
Ever since we have been engaged, in our pre-marital counseling Joe and I talked about adopting. Since we have been married we knew we were called to adopt and have been praying for God's direction in the timing. Since Elyana was born, we have felt that the next blessing to the Terry tribe would be through adoption.
We have started the process, have been working with our home study agency to complete the paperwork and are hoping to have our home study done next month. The process is long and challenging (so I've heard and read) and we are praying for grace and strength for the journey.
It is inevitable that when we share or someone has heard about us adopting that they want to share a horrific or tragic story about someone they knew whose child went astray or began a drug addict or worse. It has utterly brought me to my knees asking God if He was sure that this is what we are called to as a family. Here is how He sweetly spoke to my heart...
"For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]-- (Ephesians 1)
In the providence of His will he planned for us to be adopted. It wasn't plan B, it wasn't some tragic ending, It wasn't a mistake...IT WAS HIS WILL!
For some glorious and redemptive reason he is having a woman on the other side of the globe carry our baby and is going to use us traveling there to pick that sweet thing up to be one of our own to bring Him glory. Although I can't fully wrap my mind around it, Ephesians goes on to say...
[So that we might be] to the praise and the commendation of His glorious grace (favor and mercy), which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
This weekend, we are headed to Together for Adoption- a conference in Austin that is going to be a-mazing! I pray that I don't break out in the ugly cry when I walk in the door. There are going to be tons of agencies, ministries, church advocates, etc. Some of the sessions that we are going to be attending are "Leading your family through the adoption process," "Adopting outside of your skin color: a gospel-centered view of trans racial adoption," "Funding your adoption," "Human trafficking and adoption." I am praying that its gonna be life changing.
2 comments:
We are praying our way down the same road! Justin may be there this weekend in Austin. I'll have him get in touch with Joe. So exciting.
i am so very excited for y'all. that sounds like a great conference and i wish i was going with you.
girl, i *always* break out in the ugly cry. i cannot *not* do it. :) just this past weekend i went to a local MOPS meeting (they have MOPS in this city) and they had a speaker on adoption. i cried the entire time. then we broke into groups and had discussion questions. the first one was 'are you interested in adoption and if so, why...what made you want to adopt.' that answer is just so blatantly simple to me. they all looked at me because they knew i was an 'adopter'...i seriously, i am not lying, snorted i started crying so hard. i finally got out 'because there are so many kids that don't have families and need them.' just so simple. but i could hardly get it out. grrr. :) seriously, if i'm ever going to 'make a dent' in changing the reality of adoption, i have *got* to be able to speak without the ugly cry...because i literally can't talk with the ugly cry. you can pray for that for me. hahaha.
praying for you this weekend. oh my gosh...tell us everything when you get back!!
Post a Comment