REFERRAL!!!! A Beautiful Referral!

Gosh, it has been over a year since I have written on this blog. I had to figure out where on the web it was located. Now, I look at the pictures of my little family at the top of this blog and my children look so young. In only a year they have seemingly grown up.
On Thursday April 19, we accepted the referral of a beautiful little 4 year old girl. We are over the moon with excitement and grateful that God doesn't give up (like we did)!
I have so many thoughts and as thinking goes, it is sometimes random. I am convicted that we really did give up. We, in our minds, had kinda thought that maybe we heard the Lord wrong. And then we thought that maybe we should do foster care or foster to adopt . . . and all of those thoughts were so REAL and so okay. I mean a kid is a kid and they all need families. But that is not what God told us. As we looked back we knew there was a moment when God said "do this thing." And that 'thing' was adopt from Ethiopia. If we hadn't heard that I promise you we wouldn't have gone through all of that paperwork! But as time went on and Ethiopian adoptions slowed, we just thought it wouldn't happen. And we were seriously on the verge of getting out of the Ethiopian program and pursuing foster to adopt. Even after we got the referral we went to an information meeting for foster care. And we were suddenly in extreme turmoil. The kind of turmoil where you think there will never be a resolution. The kind of turmoil where you just want to forget the whole grand idea, because suddenly it has become a real big mess. But God in his patience and kindness guided us back to what was true through the wise counsel of very good friends. The council: pray against the fear and when the fear is gone, what is left? And that is what we did  . . . and the purest peace sank onto our hearts for a whole day. It felt miraculous. What was true then was what was true from the beginning: God told us to adopt from Ethiopia, he didn't ever change his mind and he didn't ever tell us to change ours. And once the truth rose to the top, a sweet excitement and passion for this little life emerged. And it has grown.
We know we are crazy. We know we are old. We know that we will be in our 60's when she is 20. We know that we will be mistaken for her grandparents (thank God for highlights). We know it will be hard, although we have no idea how hard. We know we will be so tired. I know I will be driving this ugly 1993 Suburban around forever. We know there will great joy, great pain and pink where there is no pink. We know there will be little girl squeals and girly hormones. But when you are supposed to do something, you just do it. I mean, you can live in fear forever. You can live in fear and get to the end of your life and think "why didn't I just go for it?" And then it's too late. I don't know, I guess I don't want to live like that. Deep down we want to live by faith. And as another friend reminded me today, "Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." And the Lord means what he says.
We covet your prayers as we enter this unknown territory.