Adoption has been on my heart for a very long time. Way back in high school, when I thought I would never have children and was convinced in my own faux-feminist way that I wanted to be a career women, God gave me a glimpse into my future.
I was walking down the hall to film analysis class. I had a habit of praying and talking to God while walking in between classes...sometimes I would repeat scripture verses I was trying to memorize over and over in my head. I was working on Jeremiah 29:11 at the time:
"For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
And in that moment, as I repeated the promise of that verse over and over in my head, I saw the face of an asian girl and heard God's quiet voice whisper in my heart, "this is your child."
WHAT?!? I was 17 years old, plowing head first into a veterinary career that would demand years of schooling. I had no desire to have children. No boyfriend prospects. Adoption was not even on my radar. But in that moment I knew as clear as anything I have ever known in my life that I would have an asian child and that adoption was in my future. That same day, in a totally different class, my teacher would ask to speak to me after class because God had told her to tell me something.
She had just adopted a child from China. It had changed her life and she wanted to encourage me with that information.
Only God could have orchestrated the events of that day and then the course of our lives over the next 13 years to bring us to this day, this moment, when we finally begin to pursue the child God promised long ago. Only God could have grown a tiny seed of interest in adoption into a passion and desire to love and advocate for orphans. God brought a man into my life with a sensitivity and desire for this exact. same. thing. A man who I did not have to convince to "consider" adoption, but who stood with tears streaming down his face when he looked at the children waiting...some for months, years...and said, 'there is no reason, worry or fear valid enough to leave them like this."
So here we are.
The mountains looming ahead of us are large. We don't have nearly the amount of money we need to pursue this, but God is bigger.
We are potentially adopting a child who has many special needs, but God knows how to equip us.
We are choosing to not invest in our earthly wealth, but in the life of a child who needs the love of a family. A child who needs the chance to hear how much Jesus loves them.
We are unable to look at the need and not move. God has opened our eyes to his heart for these children. We are at the point where it became clear to us that despite our limitations, despite our young children at home, despite how this will upend our lives (and believe me I know it will!), we had no good reason not to be obedient to God's call.
We are putting this adoption, this child, the finances, the future, in God's hands and saying, "it is all yours". We will not move without Him, but we know that He is going to move mountains. It was promised years ago, and we move forward with joy and anticipation at how God will answer.
It's going to be bumpy, it is going to be painful, it is going to be stressful, it will be a process of sanctification. But we believe with faith and hope that He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to prosper our children, biological and adopted, to give them hope and a future. It is going to be beautiful.
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