Welcome to my first post on my new website. I had been sharing posts in a shared space for years and the more I have wanted to write, the more I felt an urge to create my own space. I am going to go back to some old posts, condense them and share them in this new space both because blogging is how I journal life, and also because I hope they may be of use to someone else like me…
(Inveraray, Scottland in 2011, back when we were younger, free-er and a lot more child-less. We had saved for years for this trip of a lifetime. We didn’t know it back then, but I think now you could call this our “babymoon”.)
Our journey towards parenthood began back in the fall and winter of 2010/2011 while we were reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan with our Bible Study group. Shawn and I had both grown up in strong Christian families and were devout in our personal relationships with Jesus. However, our eyes were suddenly opened in a new way… and we didn’t like what we were seeing. We saw that our lifestyle was dictated largely by the North American pursuits of health, wealth and holidays. Our lifestyle was modest and we were great with our money. But that was part of the problem, most of the time, we viewed our pay cheques as our money as opposed to God’s. As we began to do some soul and scripture searching, we found that we didn’t necessarily take Jesus’ words for their literal meaning. We chose, like many other Christians, to use his “figurative” meaning or to apply things more loosely so that they fit into the life we felt comfortable with. We never really read “sell all you have and give it to the poor” and thought that we should do it. Never. We began to see that Jesus had a much bigger vision for his followers than the narrow one we had created. But in taking scripture literally, we had to do some things differently than we ever had.
As our hearts were stirred more toward things of eternal value, we also felt a stirring towards growing our family. More specifically, we felt a deep pull towards growing our family through adoption. Neither of us had any desire for biological children, but we had often thought of adopting “one day”. We were passionate about the value of human life and knew that there were children waiting for families and moms looking for options when they were not able to parent. I imagine, prior to this new revival in our lives, we thought we might do it when we were more “financially able”. But, as we all know, we are never financially able to anything we aren’t working towards. As we began to give more away and save for the adoption, we also realized that our income could go a lot farther than we once thought. It was so easy to see ways in which we had misused God’s resources, simply by living the way our culture taught. We soon found that we could give more, save more and love God with more of our hearts as we let go of what we thought was ours, and started to really evaluate what the money God was giving us was purchasing- a lot of which had no eternal significance.
We spent roughly a year researching, reading, taking classes, self assessing, home assessing, editing, praying and waiting before our dossier was completed. The application process to adopt is such an interesting stage: saving money, self-evaluation and growing a heart for adoption. The beginning of adoption really has nothing to do with parenting, but as a life surrendered to God always is, it was more about heart change.
So after a year of adoption preparation, zig-zags in the road, and deviations from our original plan, we settled on applying to adopt through a private agency in Florida. We received a proposal in September, just five months after sending our dossier to the agency. We had been chosen by a mom whose baby was due on December 21, 2012 and we cautiously began preparing for the arrival of the baby! We got to know the expectant mother through phone calls, which was such a privilege, even knowing that she would have to make her final decision after giving birth.
Surprise, surprise the baby came early. Seven weeks early. I flew down to Florida to meet this sweet little girl. Her mom chose to complete her adoption plan, and the process of making us her legal parents began. At 26 days old she was discharged and Shawn then flew down to meet his daughter in person at last. It was such a wonderful moment for our family of three to be together for the first time. Our stay in Florida lasted three and a half more weeks. It was a long wait, and at times stressful. There were so many things out of our control, which is really hard for a control freak like me. After all my lessons, I still had to put so much into practice. We did, in fact, make it home for Chrstmas, despite all the delays.
At times I still cannot believe how powerful our God is. And how he loves us so much. Those two years leading up to and bringing our first child home were filled with excitement, frustration, joy, worry and miracles. I can’t believe how little I knew and how simple my understanding was of adoption at the time. It’s kind of embarrassing and I cringe to think of all the incorrect things I believed and said about adoption in my ignorance. But God uses us. He uses us in our naivety and our simplicity and our sin. I might never know what my God was capable of if not for him calling us into this life. I might never have known the overwhelming support of friends, family and the body of Christ. I might never have come to understand the deep complexities of vulnerable families. I might never have gained the empathy that I have for people who lose their first families. I might never have known that living by faith is terrifying, but undeniably better than living in the security of life without risk. And still, the toughest part to understand is that with our God there is no risk. He calls us for His Glory and His purposes alone. There is no better place for our family to be than in His hands and in His will. What will He do next?
Lanaya
(edited from several blog posts written in January 2013)
