"My suggestion is to be fearless"

Photo Credit : Cassie Pease Designs. Follow her, her stuff is awesome.

Several months ago, I met with a friend and her mother and we began talking about adoption. At that time, I had concerns and much trepidation about beginning the process. Where would we get the amount of money it costs? What if the birth mother changes her mind? How could I bring myself to take joy out of a young woman's pain? This friend's mother had been an adoption attorney for thirty years and she made several recommendations, both practical and spiritual, about how to deal with these questions. Throughout our long conversation, what most sticks out in my mind was her insistence that once we were ready to be open to adopting, we had to be fearless--to trust in God's providence and the child He has in mind for our family.

The past few weeks I have learned a lot about God's providence by watching it happen and witnessing it up close.

A few months ago, not long after we started this process of adopting--filling out paperwork, going to orientation meetings, getting TB tested and FBI fingerprints--I heard from this friend who told me about a woman who was looking for an adoptive family and that I should pray for, especially since we had a lot in common.

So I did. It was wonderful to be able to pray for a real expectant mother, who was really looking for a real adoptive family. It didn't matter to me whether we were up for consideration. Without knowing it, she helped me to realize more fully about what it meant to be pro-life, to be pro-woman and to be pro-God's will for a family. Something changes when the person you are praying for is not simply "all of the women in crisis pregnancy considering adoption" but a name and a personality about whose existence I have a glimpse and a kinship, albeit small.

Then my friend recommended that we throw together a profile book to be shown to the woman. But we haven't finished all the paperwork, or the training, or the homestudy yet, I remember thinking. But I also recalled my intention to be entirely open to the family God has in mind for us and to be available to whatever way He intends to make that happen... to be fearless. So, I thought, why not?

Actually, I didn't really put together the profile book. Christmas and finals and procrastination and my inability to figure out the Shutterfly website pushed back until my wonderful friend just decided to use my Facebook pictures to put one together for us and left spots blank with what to write here or there about ourselves. She did such a great job from what little she had, and I figured out how to change some of it.... but I didn't get to do my usual process of researching the best profiles and how-to's and pouring over which pictures and how to say exactly what I want to say... It is like a trial run, I thought, and I can always do a better researched one when I do my real profile later.

So we sent out the profile book with express shipping, since we waited until the last possible minute, naturally.  I got a text the evening of the meeting; "Do you mind if the birth-mother holds on to your profile book to consider?"

We still knew that we were one of several couples that she was considering and that it was still quite a long shot that she would choose us for her child, since she didn't particularly want an inter-state adoption, so we didn't get our hopes up... or should I say we intentionally did everything we could not to get our hopes up.

Then a week ago, we started getting more and more emails and texts and phone calls with questions about our life and I began trying (mostly in vain) to avoid the anxious excitement of the possibility of becoming parents much sooner than we had ever expected. On Friday we were informed that the young woman wanted to meet us. We bought airplane tickets, did lesson plans and arranged for substitute teachers, found someone to chaperone our trip to Austin for the Rally for Life, and a friend to watch Maggie and take us to the airport and we hopped on a plane the next morning.

At the airport. Guess who forgot her contacts... and makeup.

On Monday, two days after meeting, a week after we realized that she was praying about us and considering us for her child, an hour before we were about to head back to Houston, we received a phone call in which we were asked to adopt her baby.

It is wonderfully beautiful; the woman who helped me to understand my struggles with adoption and who encouraged me to "be fearless" has matched us with our child. It is truly amazing to be able to witness and experience God's awesome providence in action.

We still have quite a way to go and lots to do before we bring Baby C home--but as our plans have changed, we pray that we will just trust and follow God's will for us and our family.