We have a referral!!!!!

We have a referral!!! We have known about this for a week or so, but I couldn’t blog about it yet.  I don’t know what the problem was, except that now it is all so real.  This adoption has been an idea in my heart for so long that finally having a picture of a real child caused all kinds of thoughts and emotions to surface.  I think that I have sorted through most of those, and so now with excitement I can tell you that our family knows who Peanut is…a four year old little girl named Miriam.

When we were given the referral, we were given a week to decide if we would say yes to this child.  Suddenly the doubts started filling my head…can we really do this…what if I don’t bond with her…is this the child for us…how do we know?  During that week, I drove my family crazy.  I was the one who initiated the idea of adoption and now I was questioning the whole thing.  My week was filled with praying and thinking and doubting and pondering.    It got to be time to make a decision and I felt paralyzed, so I sent an email to my team of prayer warriors and asked them to pray for God to break through all my thoughts and make His way clear to me.  They showed a lot of self-control by not telling me what to do but only let me know that they were praying.  That afternoon, Jeremiah 29:11 occupied my thoughts: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  I felt like the Lord was saying in my spirit that this was His verse for Miriam and for her life.  For some faith filled people this would be enough, but for a skeptic like me, I needed more.  Joey and I are taking a Perspectives class on Tuesday nights, so I tucked all these thoughts inside and we made our way to class.  For worship that night we sang Aaron Keyes’ song, Sovereign Over Us.  The chorus talks about God’s plan to prosper us and He does not forget us.  Ok, there seems to be a theme here.  I am beginning to get it.  Then, our speaker for the evening was Michelle Ricketts from the organization, She Is Safe.  Her talk was about Jesus redeeming the suffering of vulnerable girls around the globe.  Story after story of God’s redeeming love overcoming obstacles and suffering grew my faith and gave me courage.  I felt like I was hearing God speak to our decision.  We got home late from class, and I decided to check my email before going to bed.  There in my inbox was an email from my sweet friend, Alison.  She and her family were on vacation, but she had checked her email and responded to my request for prayer.  Alison’s precious children, Turner and Parker, were in the Community Bible Study children’s program where I volunteer.  Her email was encouraging and promised to pray, but the response from 6 year old Turner is what gave me all the assurance that I needed.  For encouragement, she told her mom to send me the verse that they have in their kitchen.  Yep, you guessed it…Jeremiah 29:11.  God used a special child in my life to confirm the fact that Miriam was the child He intended for our family.  God is so good and faithful to answer our cries for help.  But what I really love about Him is the tender and personal way He answered this prayer. So, the next day, we said yes and have signed the contracts and written the checks.   Now, we need your prayers as we move forward in the process to bring our new daughter home.