Several years ago, three to be exact, Adam and I were sitting in our church in Birmingham, minding our own business, listening to an incredible sermon on the book of Ruth. I have always loved the story of Ruth. There is something about her dedication to Naomi and her absolute trust in God that draws me to her. Ruth walked away from everything she had ever known in order to serve Naomi; she gave up what was comfortable and familiar to look after her mother-in-law, now a widow. Talk about sacrifice. Ruth walked by blind faith, trusting in a God she had not grown up knowing. God asked her to do something that sounds insane to my ears. But she did it, and she grew in her faith because of it.
In the middle of the sermon, the Lord began to speak to my heart, telling me that at some point in our lives, He wanted us to adopt children into our family, just as He had adopted us into His family. Now, adoption is something I have been interested in since high school, but Adam and I had never talked about it. This is where the story takes a crazy, super-natural turn. Right at that moment, right there in church, my husband turned to look at me and said, "How would you feel about adopting children into our family?" WHAT? Stuff like this does not happen to us very often. Tears...immediate tears. I told Adam that I had just been thinking the same EXACT thing. Oh, God is good. So we talked about it that day-and on a lot of days thereafter. We decided that, yes, God was definitely calling us to adopt. But from where? We felt drawn to China and to Africa, but we knew it was not yet time. Adam was still in PT school at UAB and had about two years left. So we decided to pray about it on a regular basis until we felt like God was telling us to move things forward. It is a strange feeling to pray for your children who are not yet born and will be born on the other side of the world. But God is so good, and He has walked right alongside us through this.
Now, I am a planner. I am a teacher, so, quite literally, every single day of my life has a plan. So, naturally, I began to plan exactly how our family would look and when everything would happen. And, oh, it was a perfect, problem-free picture! Ha! Silly, silly me. We always thought that we would have some (two, to be precise) biological children and then adopt some (two to be precise) children. Well, life has not gone according to my feeble, human plan. We began the family-starting process in early 2011, thinking, of course, that we would have kids right away. Not in God's divine plan for us. In December of 2011, Adam and I decided that we would pray very intentionally, and if we were still not on the way to having a biological child by March of 2012, then we would begin the adoption process. Well, here we are. Yes, things are not happening in the sequence we planned for, but we know that our God is faithful and all-powerful and that His plans for us are always, always good. For that reason, we are trying to step out in faith and trust that God is Who He says He is and will do what His what His Word says He will do.
We are both so excited and honored to be called to adoption, and we cannot wait to see what God has in store for our family!
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."
Ephesians 1: 3-6
Love,
Baylor
Love,
Baylor
Baylor,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your story. We will definitely be joining you in prayer throughout this journey. It is so wonderful to hear how God is working in and thru your life. It is such a blessing to see you walking by faith and being patient in this time of waiting. Thank you again for letting Him use you! We love y'all!
Penny and Nick :)