“We are saying ‘yes’ as two imperfect people, with fears and doubts, who have absolutely no idea how this is all going to play out.”
One Sunday, not long ago, I learned that 50% of millennials think there should be a movie made about their life. That’s HALF of all people born between 1981 and 1996 that believe their life is the stuff movies are made of. Half!
Perhaps it’s because I fall short of being a millennial by a year, or maybe just because I think my life is far from interesting, but I definitely fall into the OTHER half.
So why, you might be wondering, if I’m not interesting enough for a movie, do I think I’m interesting enough for a blog? The short answer is, I don’t.
Exceptionally ordinary is how I would describe myself, possibly even verging on boring. I am a mom and a wife and I treasure and adore those titles. I get mad when I get up in the night and inevitably step on a wayward toy. Our family has a fat cat, two guinea pigs that smell, a turtle, four chickens, and a dog with one eye. All of which have a capacity for begging that pushes my temper to levels I’m not proud of. My laundry get stored in the dryer for days, we forget things from the grocery store every single week, I drink too much coffee, our house is too small, and my waistline is too big. We argue over how to load the dishwasher and the right way to cook eggs. We’re not rich nor are we glamorous. We don’t take exotic vacations and we’re not known for much outside of our jobs and our family.
So again, why would I think anyone would want to read about our story?
Well, because we are just….ordinary!
There’s absolutely nothing special about us and yet, God is speaking into our lives and He is saying, “Go! And do”. He’s leading us, these ordinary people, and the direction He’s pointed is far different than the path we would have taken alone.
In fairness, I know I just lost about half of the people who actually decided to read this. And that is okay, I knew that I would. But for the rest of you still hanging on with me, let me go back to 2012 and give you the cliff notes version of how we got here.
It was that August, seven years ago, that I somehow stumbled upon Reece’s Rainbow. I scrolled through the faces of these gorgeous children, orphans, each one just thrown away by their parents and a misinformed society because they were different. Their faces punched a hole right through me and as dramatic as it sounds, I haven’t been the same since. When I saw “Corinne” my mind was made up. I was going to bring her home.
However, it wasn’t my time. The answer was NO.
So instead, I became her Warrior. She was the first child I signed up to advocate for and I poured every drop of my free time into raising awareness for her. I loved that little girl, though all I knew of her was a picture and a diagnosis. I wanted desperately for her to have a family.
Then things went a little topsy-turvy in my life and shortly after, her country closed international adoptions. She was stuck and I was too wrapped up in my own circumstances to have even noticed what had happened. There is still guilt there.
Years passed. Things settled into a new normal for me. And God started nudging again.
I shared posts of waiting children. We donated to adoption funds. We prayed for orphans. The feeling that it wasn’t enough was eating away at me. So a little over a year ago, as a family of four, we sat together and scoured the faces of Reece’s Rainbow again. Until you have let yourself look, actually see their brokenness and sense their desperation, you cannot imagine how hard it is to choose just one. But we did. We chose “Bethany” to advocate for and the harder we worked, the deeper in love with her I fell.
Now here’s where I get real with you.
I think I have known, and chosen to ignore, what God had placed on my heart seven years ago. I tried to placate Him, and myself, by doing these other things. It IS true, these children need people to share their stories and their faces, they need people to advocate for them, they need people to fundraise for them, and they need people to pray for them.
But that’s not what He was asking me to do.
On September 9, 2018, God completely and irrevocably wrecked me. The details of this day are extremely personal and something I’ll save for another day, but it was a single moment when I KNEW. I knew our lives were going to change in drastic and beautiful and frightening ways. I knew the hard road that was laid out in front of us and I had NO IDEA how we were going to get to the end of it. But what I did know, was that God was going to see us through it. We were going to adopt a special needs child. We were going to cross borders and bring home an orphan from a country that couldn’t see his/her worth. It was so clear, it was impossible to even try to continue ignoring Him.
That, in a nutshell, is what this blog is. It’s our adoption journey. From the very beginning to the end, and the long road in between, I’ll share. Writing is therapeutic for me, and perhaps the honesty here will speak to someone else.
Because if nothing else, we are simple, ordinary, nothing special people who just happened to (finally) say ‘yes’ to placing all our faith in God and His plan for us. We are saying ‘yes’ as two imperfect people, with fears and doubts, who have absolutely no idea how this is all going to play out.
And I have a feeling that’s right where He wants us.
The Other Side of Fear 