Ephesians 1:4-5 says "Even before He made the world,
God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without
fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into
His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus
Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great
pleasure." Let that sink in a minute. God chose us and loved
us even though we were sinful, dirty, undeserving, and on
and on I could go. He WANTED to do it!!! I don't know about
you, but that makes we want to scream praises to Him and
shout out the biggest THANK YOU ever imaginable! We
deserved DEATH but are given the opportunity to have LIFE
eternal if we are willing to accept this free gift. That's good
stuff right there!!!!
When I was 15 years old, I felt 2 very strong callings
from the Lord in my life. The first was that I was to marry
a minister. Check. The second was that I was supposed
to adopt a child from Asia. It was a clear message from the
Lord that this was an act of worship that He wanted me to do
no matter what. He brought me to this passage in Ephesians
and it was like He laid it out for me very clearly. He called
me to action. There are about 163 million orphans reported
in the world. 163 million children in need of a home....that is
a heartbreaking statistic! It is time to do something about this.
J and I began dating over 10 years ago. One of our first
conversations centered around the 2 callings in my life. It was
so clear to me how God was in the middle of all of it because
J had already accepted God's call to full time ministry and
he was completely on board with adoption. Our
conversations during those first few months of dating really
solidified it in my heart that this was the man God had created
and prepared for me and an adoptive journey was the path that
He had for our family. We were married in 2005 and in 2009,
we welcomed our beautiful little girl Ella Kate. We knew we
had to wait until we were both 30 to officially begin all the
paperwork and the long road to bringing our daughter home.
What we weren't expecting was our sweet Walker who
surprised us in 2012. We can't imagine life without him now,
but it did delay our process a little bit since the youngest child
in the house must be 1 year old before the home study can
be completed. =) I am amazed at how the Lord is at work
in our family. We have really been able to have some special
conversations with Ella Kate about how our family is going
to change and it is so sweet to hear the precious prayers
that she offers up for her sister and all the orphans in the world.
It is a blessing in deed to see the Lord softening her heart and
making her aware and sensitive to the fact that there is a lot
more to this life than just her.
As we begin this journey, will you please pray for our family?
We can not do this alone!!! We will be updating on this blog
and our adoption blog with specific prayer needs, ways you
can help, as well as documenting every step along the way
as we get closer and closer to bringing our little one home.
Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings, but thank
you even more for praying for us and supporting us on this
amazing journey that God has set out before us.
This is so wonderful! We will be praying for you guys as you start the journey to giving one more child a family!
ReplyDelete