Fast Forwarded Faithfulness

It's been radio silence here for a hot minute. Okay, more than a hot minute. Since August to be exact. I have wanted to blog but haven't been able to put thoughts into a clear train of thought or honestly have been so tired at the end of the days that all I want to do is just be done with the day. Today, however I was struck over the head with my BSF lesson for the week, and I can't NOT blog right now. For anyone that doesn't know, BSF stands for Bible Study Fellowship. I was invited by a sweet, dear friend years ago. I put it off for a while and then figured "why not?" BSF is a super in depth study of a particular book of the Bible. It is a world wide study, and every class all over the world is doing the exact same thing. I had never really studied the Bible before, so I had no idea what I was getting into. I suddenly realized how little I knew, and I was in a place where that was okay. Fast forward 4.5 years and we are doing a study of the book of Romans. This is tough stuff, but SO, SO good.

This past weekend, we had our fourth annual girl's trip. It was a wonderful weekend away with a lot of girl talk, hot tubs, wine, and just hanging out with no kids. Glorious, I tell ya. I had done my BSF lesson before I left, and I reviewed it when I got home for the purpose of our leader's meeting. There was a question on the lesson this week that was easy to answer, but the more I thought about it the more I have REALLY thought about it. I keep thinking about it, and I figure now is as good a time as any to update all 10 of you who read this (haha) on what has been going on with us.

The question was, "Trace God's wise ways in one area of your life." Well, I wrote down adoption and a few bullet points. Then, I really started to think. God is so faithful, and He is so much wiser than I can ever imagine. Some of what has happened in the course of all this hasn't made sense at the time, and some things have stung my pride a little, but I am beginning to get a glimpse of the bigger picture, and Whoa....Let's start nearer to the beginning.

We had tossed around the idea of adoption for a while. One of us would bring it up, and the other one wouldn't really want to talk about it further or so it seemed. We had also talked about how the older kids broke our hearts. If you don't think so, just visit the It's Our Turn Now website. Pages upon pages of kids, most of whom are older and will probably age out of the system before they ever find a family. Then, we both agreed it was time to get cracking on the process of starting the process. Trust me when I tell you there are processes for processes when it comes to adoption. Anxiety and fear crept in, and I told the hubs that I just couldn't think about older kids anymore. They came with too much "stuff", too much "history", etc. It was really all about me and my fears and had nothing at all to do with the actual child we hoped to make a member of our family. I prayed long and hard after this, and I was reminded of another year at BSF when we did the life of Moses. My big take away for that year was that God equips those He calls. I mean, if God only called those the world saw as ready to do the tasks at hand, there would be no room for anyone to actually give God the glory He deserves. With that reminder came a peace that it was all going to be okay, and I logged back into that darn website and looked at page after page of orphans. My heart broke all over again for those kids that might just age out without knowing what a family looks like. I called the husband and told him I was back in the game, big kids included. So we began the process.

God, in his faithfulness, saw that we were placed in the same group as another couple who had little kids who also wanted to adopt an older child. They have been one step ahead of us through the process, and I am so thankful I have had them as a sounding board at times to relay fears and frustrations and get back great, godly advice in return.

You think you are prepared to read the histories of the children they think you will match with  for adoption. Nothing prepares you to read, in graphic detail, the horrible things that some of these kids have dealt with. At forty years old, I haven't even come close to seeing, feeling, experiencing what some of these kids have been through before their 13th birthdays. It can make the frustrations you feel toward disobedient little people evaporate pretty quickly, I'll tell you.

We went to an adoption mixer, and that was all kinds of awkward. The kids know they are there to meet potential families that want to adopt them, and we felt like we were shopping for a kid. It was weird and exciting all at the same time. What if our future son/daughter was there? What happened at the end was that we met a lovely 17 year old African American girl that we had heard about in our first training. She was quiet, with a shy smile but with soft-spoken wisdom in her that can only come about with a life of hard knocks. Honestly, she was so quiet that I didn't think too much about it until a few days after the mixer when her case worker called to say she was interested in getting to know us more. I was shocked and excited, and after some meetings and phone calls we all agreed that she would spend her winter break here with us. What ensued was a pretty uncomfortable week. I think she knew pretty quickly that our family wasn't what she wanted. She was super sweet with the boys but I just think she knew that for her it didn't feel right. I hate any kind of awkwardness, and in my attempt to make it less awkward only made it more awkward. On Friday morning, she and I were home alone and after attempting to engage her in conversations and an outing I phoned a friend. A fellow leader from BSF, another adoptive parent, a parent of teenagers and pleaded for advice. She told me to just go talk to her and share my heart. After saying some quick prayers I headed up the stairs. What I thought was going to be a very weird conversation turned into something that really lightened the weight of day for both of us. I just told her that this choice had to be something that we both were happy with in the end, and that if she didn't choose us that it was perfectly okay. We weren't going anywhere. If she ended up in Savannah for college, we were more than happy to see her, take her to dinner, have her over, hang out, etc, etc. If she decided she didn't want to be part of our family that didn't mean we had to disappear from her life - unless she wanted us to do so, and if she did that was okay, too. I took her back on Saturday, and then I received a call the next week that she didn't want to be adopted anymore by anyone. It stung a little. Did she not see how cool we are (insert sarcasm here)? But once again, God is faithful. After a lot of moving around at our agency, her case worker is now working our current case. She said that R has started college, is doing well, and she asked how we were doing the other day. The case worker asked if it was okay to give my number to her since she had gotten a new phone and had lost ours. If she so desires, I am more than happy to keep my word to be here for her if she needs us. God is good.

Again, we had to enter the search for "our kid". A teenage girl caught our attention, and I made a call to our caseworker who informed us that she already had pulled her file for another family. Sure enough, this girl had already been scoped out by the other family we went through training with upon entering the "process". Once again, God is wiser than me. Surprise, surprise. I am so thankful He didn't give me what I thought I might want because this sweet girl was exactly what the other family needed to make their family complete.

Once again we received call after call about kids. It was very apparent upon hearing about them or reading their histories that it would not be a wise move to take the next step. Then, we were approached about a teenage girl who sounded great at first. Then, we learned more things, and those things were more concerning but not things we felt like we could just give an automatic "no". Jason and I prayed together for the first time I can remember and asked for there to be a CLEAR answer to whether or not to move forward. And God, once again being faithful and wise, VERY clearly answered that question, and back to the search we went.

But....not for long. About a week after that door was shut we got a call. Our caseworker called to ask if we might be interested in a 13 year old boy with no behavior issues. My answer was a quick yes. Not even 5 minutes later she called back and said that he was 13, had no behavior issues, would love to have siblings and a dad that would play baseball with him, and that he wanted a Christian family. I got chills. Within 30 minutes, his caseworker called me to tell me more. We got to meet him when we evacuated for Hurricane Irma. He moved in December 22nd. As I type this, I am currently waiting on him to get home from church where he played with the youth praise band for the first time. God is good, and SO, SO much wiser than I am.

I'm not going to lie. The transition hasn't been easy, and it has been no fault of the now 14 year old living in my house. It has been about me, my heart, my stubbornness, and my need to have control and order of all things around me. There have been many times I have questioned the wisdom of our decision, and today and this week's lesson just reminds me that my wisdom and God's wisdom don't look the same. And God, being the One with the perfect track record and all....well, let's just say I'll trust Him. At a low point, I called on that friend who now has a 17 year old daughter, and she gave me the best advice I have received yet. She told me that she had to grieve what her family used to be so that she could accept what it is now. That may sound harsh to those who have never been down this path, but those words will stick with me forever and have helped me so, so much. God, once again in His ever flowing faithfulness, put me with a group of ladies in BSF this year who would be such a source of strength. I have adoptive mamas and foster mamas I have called and gotten such wisdom and prayer, and God knew I would need those ladies at a time such as this.

As I said earlier, I have thought A LOT about this the past two days and if you are still hanging in there, thank you for letting me share my heart.

Our BSF leader said today, "We don't have to understand everything to praise the One who does." Amen and amen. Ain't that the truth.