For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

God is so good! During my quiet time this morning, God blazed His light on some of my questions...let me just admit it...on my complaining heart.  This whole adoption process is costly in many areas...money, time, emotions, vulnerability.  There have been moments during this journey that I want to scream, "Are you kidding me?"  No one contemplating a biological child has to get their septic tank inspected...ask countless people for references...recount her life from birth to the present to a social worker, etc. BUT this is different and all those things that have been driving me crazy are for a purpose and for ultimate good.  God showed me this through His Word this morning.  As I was reading in Matthew chapter 6, this verse jumped out at me, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also".  I have loved this verse since Joey and I lead the stewardship campaign at our church in Cleveland.  It simply proves itself true when it comes to our finances, but this morning, God showed me its truth in the adoption process.  As our family invests our resources in bringing Peanut home, our hearts become invested in our sweet brown baby.  When we write our checks to our agency, we are pointing our finances toward the task of finding our Peanut and bringing him/her to a place of belonging.  While we clean, fill out forms, gather information, and educate ourselves, we begin to invest ourselves in the life of our new child and our hearts start to reside with Peanut.  As we invest our emotions in exposing all we are by opening our lives to our adoption agency, we give our true selves to this child and God begins to meld our hearts with his/hers.  Through this long and involved process, God is doing a good and necessary work.  He is refining us...helping us to count the cost...giving us a willingness to walk through the difficult times...preparing our hearts and home for Peanut.  God is using this process to take our hearts and place them somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Now, we are praying and trusting for God in His awesome power and miraculous ways to begin to work on Peanut's heart to prepare that sweet child for our home and our family.