Coffee Conversation

Get yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for the long story. I wish we could be sitting on my couch and I could personally take each of you through the details of the journey we have been on for the the past six months. I want you to hear the passion and excitement in my story. I want you to share in the wonder and awe of all the little ways that God has poured into our hearts and watered the seed of adoption. I want to document every private converstion of doubt and struggle as well as the glipmses of hope that have been revealed at just the right times. It is amazing how those words (scriptures) that I hid in my heart so long ago have resurfaced to speak to me through this season. The word is living and breathing. I feel a bit like Moses, inadequate to accomplish something so big, so beyond me. But then I guess that's when I am reminded that in my weakness, He is made strong.

I have recently read the book "The Strength of Mercy" written by Jan Beazely. She is one of the co-founders of the adoption agency that we have chosen to use. She so adequately summed up a major question I have asked myself. When did God begin this special plan in our lives? This is the story of our journey. We aren't writing it, we simply get the privilage of living it out. Jan says,

"Experience by experience through seemingly ordinary days,

He supernaturally orders our lives.

Only when we look back and reflect on what appeared to have been ordinary events of life does it become clear what a miracle the Lord has performed.

Nothing in our lives gets wasted.

Every moment points us in an already-established direction.

Our only real choice is to surrender our hearts and lives to God's plan.

Our journey is one God set in motion for a very ordinary family."

This is very much how I feel.

The Lord of hosts has sworn saying,

"Surely just as I have intended

so it has happened,

and just as I have planned

so it will stand."

Isaiah 14:24

Jan also has to say, "The truly great things God accomplishes through his people often are not achieved through major events but through small steps of obedience."

To revisit my question, where did this story begin? It began for me when I was twelve and the Jamerson family invested themselves into me and my family. God used that adoptive family to instill in me the need to give back. God put within me my gifts, talents, interests and experiences with children. He will not waste these things in my life. I agree with another statement made by Jan, "our deepest hopes often are rooted in dreams that God Himself has planted in our hearts."

Of course it was no mistake that God matched me with Jay who shares the conviction to serve God and others. Our relationship began serving the kids in the Simple Room (Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greenville, IL.) We both have always known that a kind of adoption was most likely in our future. However, we both assumed that the opportunity would present itself as a result of a relationship we already have. Perhaps a student, friend or neighbor would need a home for their child. Honestly, I fully expected it mirror my experience.

I have often been reminded that His plans are not my plans and His ways are not my ways. I will have to put our conversation down until I have more daytime to continue. I have so much to say and only 45 minutes left until it is tomorrow. Tomorrow morning comes early and I am flying solo.