Well, it finally
happened! Our world changed in an
instant. This blog post has been a long
time coming, and I can barely believe I’m sitting here typing it! So, here’s how it went down….
We knew the big
shared list was coming out this past Monday night, but having waited through
three shared lists already, we didn’t have our hopes very high. We also thought we would probably not hear
anything until Tuesday morning, because China time is 12 hours off from ours,
and so the children are matched to the families during our nighttime. So, we were just having a normal Monday
night. Kris and Kate had spent the
evening together having their daddy-daughter date and I had just gotten home
from my Bible study. We were just
catching up on each other’s days, when we heard my phone ring in the other
room. It was our social worker,
Karla. We both instantly knew we had a
referral!! Sure enough, Karla said, “I
have a file for you to look at if you think you might be interested. It’s for an 11 month old little girl”……my
stomach leaves my body at this point, and I can’t even remember the rest of the
conversation…..Ummmm…YEA we were interested!!
J We
had talked about this moment a hundred times before, but there was so much more
emotion than we had planned on!! So we
calmed down, took some deep breaths, and prayed for guidance and peace in
navigating through the file. The next
thing we know, we were looking at a picture of a beautiful very tiny
baby!! I would love to tell so much
more here, but we are not able to give specifics until the next step of the
process has taken place in China, hopefully in about a week, at which point we
can share pictures, etc. Suffice it to
say that over the next 24 hours, God caused both of us to fall in love with a
tiny child we have never met! It’s so
crazy to think you can have such strong emotions when you are looking at a few
pictures and some medical information, but God is so amazing! I think it’s only fair to share the good
parts, the bad parts, and the stressful parts of this journey, so I’ll have a
moment of honesty with you here. I have
been both thrilled for and terrified of this moment from the beginning of our
process. When you carry a baby, you
know that child is the one God intended for you. Not to say it’s easy, but there’s no second-guessing involved –
that is your baby! With this process,
some of it honestly just feels so unnatural.
We know that God is sovereign and had planned this specific child to be
part of our family before the foundation of the world. We trust that this has been in His hands the
whole time. The crazy part is, though,
that the trust doesn’t bypass the decisions.
Even though God knew who our child was, we still had to go through the
process, and there are tough parts of the process. So, what I have been so excited about, and so terrified of was
the referral. If her special needs were
more than we could financially handle, then we would know we couldn’t accept
it. If her needs were something that we
already felt comfortable with, then we would just know. But….what if we looked at her and didn’t
know? I mean, how do you know that the
face you’re looking at is your daughter?
Well, I’ll tell you…..God makes you know. Over the course of 24 hours, God brought our hearts to a place
where there was absolutely no doubt that we were supposed to accept this
referral. The funniest part was, the
latest information in the file was 5 months old, and the first thing Kris and I
said to each other was that we would have to have updated information before we
could make a decision. We were very
sure that we wouldn’t know for sure until we had more information to look
at. And God said….HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Then He caused us to fall in love with her
in a way that you fall in love with your child……a way that no new information
could make you be less in love with her.
So, we said yes to her!!!! Just
a couple hours after we had accepted, we received updated information – new
pictures and everything!! What an
awesome confirmation that was!! We just
looked at the pictures and cried! What
a precious little sweetheart! God is so
amazing!!!! I look at our little Kate,
and watch her looking at a picture of her little sister, and I am in awe at how
God has chosen to put this family together.
I am so undeserving of His awesome love. I look back now and think if one bit of paperwork had gotten
signed a day sooner or later, I wouldn’t be sitting here gazing into the
gorgeous big brown eyes of my sweet girl…..but God had this process right in
the palm of His hand the whole time!
And He will continue to guide and direct us and take care of His baby
girl in China, our daughter…..
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