~ Today I want you to meet Laura! Her and I used the same agency to adopt our sweet little ones. We bonded like no other during our trip to China last month. She wrote her story prior to leaving to bring home her sweet Theo. Here is her story:
My name is Laura. I’ve also been known by other names, such as “hot mess”, Jesus lover, wife and mom. My husband John and I currently have two biological children and are in the midst of adopting our third child from China. In less than three weeks we will have children ranging from one, two and three years old. Yes, I believe Jesus must have a sense of humor. Why? Because I have no idea how we are going to pull this off and my husband thinks my “hot messiness” is going to be turned up to maximum volume toting around three children under the age of four. Regardless, I truly believe that this is in God’s plan for our lives and I am surrendering to Him. I don’t know where many of you are in your life right now but just as I believe in his plan for us, God has also called all of you to surrender to Him as well.
Our story is adoption. For us this journey isn’t about adopting, it has been following God’s calling and fully surrendering to Him even when we were scared and adopting right now didn’t seem to make any sense. John and I have always been involved in some kind of orphan care. We believe that adoption is a perfect display of the Gospel, but we didn’t necessarily feel God had called us to adopt a child into our family. When Nora (our two year old) was six months old, I began feeling unsettled and almost restless for another child. It was hard to put my feelings into words and John wasn’t necessarily feeling the same way. After about six months of prayer, reading Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life and some long nights of conversation we decided to move forward with what we both fully believed God had called us to do… Adopt. We were terrified!!! The practical, control freak side of me thought, how are we going to come up with $38,000? What if this isn’t God’s plan? HAVE WE LOST OUR MIND?
Fast-forward thirteen months. Jesus has provided EVERY penny we have needed thus far and given us sweet reminders and confirmation along that way that YES this is His plan and if we had not surrendered we would have missed out on this amazing journey. One of the sweet reminders along the way came in the form of a journal entry almost a year ago. Let me first confess, I am terrible at journaling. I always intend to do it but never get around to it. It s so bad that over the past year I have only had one journal entry. Yep, seriously ONE time. Last week I pulled it out (with no intention to write in it). Here is part of the entry:
I sit here and think about you. Pray for you, dream of you. What are you doing, where are you? Is someone kissing and loving you as I hope they are. I know His purpose for your life is beyond anything I could ever imagine. Thank you God for choosing John and I to be apart of this journey. I feel rushed, but I don’t know why. Maybe because I feel like you are waiting for us! I feel like you have been born but I am not sure why, maybe it is the Holy Spirit. The beginning of March especially the 8th and 9th you are HEAVY on my heart and mind. I weep for you. For what you and I both don’t know and will never know about your past.
As I read this paragraph I felt chills and started tearing up actually to the point of the ugly cry… like OMG CRY! What I realized is that this little reminder from God was saying “trust me, I know what I’m doing”. Yes it was the Holy Spirit and yes this entire journey of surrendering to Jesus was real! This week John and I found out from our agency that March 8th (the same date from the journal entry) will be the day our son will be placed into our arms for the first time! Amazing. Ya’ll I can’t make this stuff up! Jesus used this sweet reminder to tell me just as scripture says in Phillipians 1:6 “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion”.
Are you fully surrendering to Jesus? What is God calling you to do that you are scared of and draw a line in the sand saying “ I’ll follow you God, but only that far”? Don’t miss out on the journey! Surrender your whole self and walk across that line. You will not regret it.
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Here are some sweet pictures of her family! They just returned from China with this sweet guy at the end of March!
Here is sweet Theo, now home!
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You can read more about Laura (and her trip to China) here.
Read here for more Adoption Stories.
