'How's it going with the adoption?' is a common question we are asked and sometimes that can be fantastic and sometimes that can be draining. Mostly our answer is 'great!' because it is, in fact, GREAT. I mean, God has already allowed us to raise over $12k! We've already been able to encourage several couples to dive into the scary-yet-wonderful process of adoption! We've learned more about the heart of our Heavenly Father than we could have ever anticipated! So, it is great. And yet there's always a desire to answer that question 'how's it going with the adoption?' with a definitive, quantifiable answer. We can tell you we are have over 80 prospective birth moms that have requested our full profile and we can tell you that because of a recent donation we've been able to increase the amount we are able to financially support a potential birth mother and we can tell you that we're in the top of the bell curve (months 7-14 are when most birth moms select adoptive parents in our program) and all of those things are wonderful but they don't exactly tell the story.
We are waiting* for our child to come home and no definitive, quantifiable measurements help that waiting go faster. We are waiting for our family to expand, for that tan room to become our baby's room, for you all to finally get the 'ok, NOW you can throw us that shower', for our parents to get the privilege of spoiling their grand kid. So, 8 months feels like an eternity.
BUT BUT BUT! Jesus. Jesus changes everything. Jesus pursued us through everything - through every mess up and stubbornness we could throw at Him. He pursued us through much more than we could ever imagine pursuing our child, through much more than any red tape or bureaucracy or financial hardship.
8 months. An eternity and a blip all at once. Thanks for praying with and for us.
Bethany and Wayne
*a lot of what we're learning on waiting comes from dear friends who are running the race ahead of us. Here's a link to an incredible post by one of our friends Dave on how waiting isn't nothing. Have a read
Adopting Kelley, from start to finish, took 3 years. At the time, it seemed like an eternity and I would not have survived it without my best friend, Nancy Edwards, and Jesus. Now it seems like a blip and have the perfect hind-sight of knowing God was preparing Kelley just for us. It was worth the wait. I remember people asking and not knowing how to answer because back then, everything was blind to us and we didn't even know when we were being considered. By the way - Nancy was alone at my house the day the adoption agency finally called and I still have the message she wrote out saying Claton Farr from Children's Home Society called about a baby. Praying for you.
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