the Medical is in!

Well, just a week after losing our referral for our little guy we found out that the beautiful little girl we have been waiting for did pass her medical. Because it was so soon after our loss of the little guy, we have been slow to get too excited or too attached. We have been cautiously guarding our hearts. So our announcement on our blog & to many of our friends and family has been a bit delayed as well. We have talked with our agency and they reassured us that everything is good to go with "LIL SISTER"....
so without further ado...

We have a referral for a beautiful 8 month old little girl!!!!!

*I was tempted not to do this. Not to post her picture. I don't want to have to go through that again, but my hope is not in my circumstances or how "perfectly" our adoption process goes. My hope is in Christ ALONE. So rather than letting my heart become hard and calloused I will guard it slightly, but I will be excited. I will pray and ASK the Lord to let us adopt her and bring her home soon, even though I feel very vulnerable by doing so. I recently told some friends in my bible study that I am struggling with prayer. After praying without ceasing for the referral we had for the little boy & then losing the referral I felt scared to ask anything of Him. I was so disappointed that God didn't see fit to answer the way I wanted Him to.  I confessed to my friends that I would rather not ask and not receive than ask & not receive. So do I really believe that I have a Father who delights in giving good gifts to His children? And that He who gave His only Son to me will not withhold ANY good gift from me? (from Elyse Fitzpatrick's Because He Loves me, p.105)

Yes, Lord. Yes. And help me in my moments of unbelief!! As Fitzpatrick says on page 99, "Like Nicodemus, many of us need our self-confidence and self-reliance annihilated before we're willing to look to him in faith and to believe... Whether we're overly introspective and excessively aware of our failures or blindly proud and self-sufficient, the gospel dares us to look away to Another in faith."

This sounds all too much like my testimony. Lord, help me to trust in You alone! Not in my own well-laid plans. Not in the words of men, who will disappoint. Not in myself at all. Help me to believe that your Word is true & meditate on it day and night.

 

"God works all things together for good for those who love Him, for those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

We recently had the opportunity to hear our dear friend, Blake Gillen, preach at our old church in Lexington. He said of this verse, "What is the ultimate GOOD that God works together for believers in all circumstances? To make them more like Christ." That is the GOOD. To be more like Jesus. Paul isn't promising good circumstances to all believers. He is promising that believers will be sanctified (made more like Christ) through all of their circumstances! What a good reminder for me in the midst of this whole crazy adoption process. All of this God is working together for my good, for my sanctification.

 

We do covet the prayers of believers! We trust that God will not withhold any good gift from us. And so we are asking that the Lord keep "Little Sister" safe, fed, and loved on, and that we WOULD be able to adopt her and be able to hold our daughter in our arms one day soon!