Sometimes God Shows Off

In 5 days my little girl, Lydia, will be 1 month old.  Looking back over this past month and the many months leading up to our adoption, I am continuously blown away at all the many ways God showed Himself to be faithful.  There are so many stories that I could write down and knowing where to start is difficult, so I'm gonna just back up to the beginning and try to do justice to the story that God has written in our lives.

If you've been keeping up with our blog very long, one thing you probably picked up on is that it was never really a question of whether we would adopt again after bringing Isaac home, but rather when we would adopt again.  Not so strangely, Bethany and I had differing views on the timeline.  We started talking it over around September of last year, 2014, and we both agreed that we were ready to start the adventure all over again.  The only problem was that Bethany was ready to go immediately whereas I really wanted to make sure we paid off our first adoption loan and took care of some things financially before embarking on another roller coaster.  Add to that the fact that we decided to trade in the Equinox toward the purchase a minivan, you can see where I might be a little concerned.  This is where God decided to show me that He had everything under control.  We found a van through the help of a very dear friend and the Equinox traded for more that what we thought we'd be able to sell it for.  As a matter of fact, the trade from the Equinox allowed us to pay off Isaac's adoption loan and then we were able to get a home equity loan to cover Lydia's adoption.  Just to prove a point, God allowed the home equity loan not only be enough to cover the adoption costs but even just a little bit more.  He had already blown me away, but He hasn't even started to show off yet!

Adoption is not a fast process, it seems to move at the speed of molasses on a cold day sometimes.  To me, the idea of everything taking some time was more than alright.  To Bethany, the idea that things could drag out for a while was complete torture.  We'd been through the waiting game with Isaac so I knew what to expect only I didn't know that Bethany had recruited some serious prayer warriors when I wasn't looking and must've given them orders to pray for a speedy process because the next thing I know we've got a Skype interview with the birth mother scheduled for a weeknight in December!  During the conversation we find out that the baby is going to be a little girl and that the due date is March 11th.  Huh???  What happened to adoption being a slow process?  Once again, the student has been put in his place by the Master.

So now the prepping begins.  We start talking to people who have made this trip before us only to find out that we should expect to be gone no less than 2 weeks (14 days) but should prepare to be gone for as many as 6 weeks!  We learned that the length of our stay would be determined by how backed up the court system was once the baby was born.  We would be worked in when it was convenient to the court.  A million questions began to swim around in my mind at that point, not the least of which was how we could afford for one or both of us to be off from work for 6 weeks.  I was prepared to use up my 3 weeks of vacation, but what would happen after that was anybody's guess.  Bethany isn't full time, so that means there is no vacation pay for her.  Fear and doubt... how I hate you both!  It's at this point that God shows up again, as only He can.  I have a sit down meeting with the personnel committee at CBC to be told that they are going to grant me an extra 2 weeks of paid leave so that I don't have to worry about the length of stay in Arkansas.  Bethany's employer also tells her not to worry, that she will be taken care of as well during the time we are gone and the following weeks after getting back until she returns to work.  God is like a problem solving NINJA and He's still hasn't started showing off yet!

We pack and prepare for departure.  We make plans for the kids and what will happen while we are gone and how they'll come and meet with us once we're down there and settled.  We make a plan for when we will leave, because we've been told that they are planning to induce labor on a certain day, and everything goes like clockwork until we left on Monday March 9th.  4 1/2 hours into the trip we get a text explaining that the doctor decided not to induce.  We turn around and head home, licking our wounds and wondering what the plan will be now.  We were really deflated at this point, but God had a plan and part of that plan was giving us an extra day with our kiddos at home.  Early in the morning on the 11th, Bethany gets a text and we learn that the baby may be coming.  Four hours later we know for sure and the mad dash to get to Arkansas begins again!  Bethany and I jumped in the van with what seemed like enough supplies for a year and headed down the road.  9 hours and one very sketchy back road in Missouri later, we were holding our little girl.  All was right in the world.

We spent time with our little girl and with the birth parents.  It's amazing to see how God brought our two families together.  If you haven't read the previous posts written by Bethany, go and read them because it's truly an incredible work that He did.  Thursday morning our attorney, Vaughn, stopped by to pay us a visit.  Everything was going just as we thought it would until he said something that just didn't make sense to me.  He told us that he was headed to court to file a motion to finalize and that if everything worked out right we might be finalizing the following week on Tuesday.  Wait, what?  At 11:54 AM on Thursday March, 12th God decided to show off when I received the following text message: "The hearing is set for Tuesday at 9:00 AM."  8 days after leaving, we returned to our home with our little girl.  8 DAYS!  Fear and doubt you can hit the bricks because MY GOD IS BIG!  Vaughn couldn't explain it.  He said it never happens like this.  I know what happened though, God happened.

Since then, it's just been one thing after another of God showing Himself faithful.  From cards filled with gifts to a baby shower resulting in a whole year's worth of diapers, He just keeps showing up.  What a ride!