One More Home

I got a call from my social worker yesterday. Miss Carol Ann is busy revamping our home study, and she needed to ask a few questions regarding the changes we're making in our adoption. See, back when my husband and I filled out our original paperwork and started this journey, we had to ask ourselves what kind of parameters we would set for the child we would welcome home. And I'll be honest, I designed a neat and tidy little box that I felt comfortable with. If God wanted to me to follow His lead and adopt a child, that's just fine, but how about we make this a joint endeavor? I'd say yes to His call to adoption, and in return He'd give me the control the rest of the way. Country? I pick China. Number of children adopting? 1 Age? I think we're okay with up to 4 years old. Sex? Little girl, please. Special needs? We feel we can handle minor special needs. Check, check and check. We're good. Right, God? Now, if you'd like, we can debate thought...

"Not all those who wander are lost..." Taken from the Poem "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter" by JRR Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings novels It has been a while since I have given a status update as to where we are in the process of our adoption. For those of you who have lovingly walked beside us in this journey and have given us words of encouragement, I send my sincere thanks. This road is a long one, and we have cherished your support along the way. That being said, there's been a change of direction for our family, and I hope, as I share our most recent adventure, that you won't jump ahead and try to guess the outcome. Instead, I ask that you simply read the story, coming alongside me as I share how God has been working in our lives. On Wednesday, October 29, 2014, our agency shared on Facebook a need for a family to take in 3 sisters, ages 3, 10 and 12 from Latin America in order to prevent them from having to separate. I didn't see ...

Did you know I'm already the mother of my own personal three ring circus? I, myself, was not aware of this fact until a couple of years ago when we did some family counseling. But seated in that tiny room listening to my children explain just how life was in our home, I realized that it was far more exciting than how I remembered it. Quite frankly, to my children it seems, we're a non-stop source of action and entertainment. It wasn't always this way. My eldest child, who is now seventeen, wasn't my first pregnancy, he was my third. Within the first year of marriage, I had suffered not one, but two, miscarriages. It left both my body and my spirit bruised and battered. I didn't want to spend time with people who had babies, didn't want to hold or even look at a baby, didn't want to discuss babies, period. So, when that third pregnancy came to be, I just put it in the back of my mind and didn't do much in the way of celebration. I ate healthy, got my ...

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" Ecclesiastes 3:1 On July 3, 2013 I wrote a  post  entitled "Let the Home Study Begin!" On June 5, 2014 I received an email from my social worker that our home study was complete, that our I-800 is sitting safely with the US Government waiting for approval, and instructions on how to begin putting together our dossier. Almost one year since we began. One. Year. * Sigh* I thought it was going to go much faster than that. I was so excited the day of our first interview. I was vibrating with energy, ready to get this thing done. But then the unexpected happens, and what you proudly claimed would take six months, takes almost twice that long. When you look at the projected time line for your adoption process, you realize, you're going to be closer to the greater amount of time then the quickest. Now? Now, I feel like I'm stuck inside the classic fable of the tortoise and the hare...

So, many of you may be wondering, where exactly are we in the process of bringing our little girl home? I've spent my last few posts addressing the cause of the fatherless, but the whole topic of our adoption has been pretty much been MIA. Yeah, about that.... Last year, before Christmas, I found myself in the ER with my husband. Not for myself, but for him. He suffers from fibromyalgia, and we are accustomed to the ups and downs of the disease. Some days are fine and dandy, other days are a full scale battle with pain and fatigue. But, this time, things were a little different, and so after two chest X-rays, blood work, and various other tests we were sent home in the early hours of the morning.  In the days to come, more tests were run, and terms like MS and autoimmune were thrown about. In the end, nothing new showed up on the scene. It appears it was just a really bad fibro flair.  But for me, I froze.  In the fear of the moment, I completely shut ...