The Good The Bad The Ugly

This is a copy of the email I posted on my yahoo site today. One of the PWM started us a separate loop because we needed to be understanding of others who may not be of the same faith. She asked us to re-introduce ourselves sharing how we began our adoption journey and where we are in the process. I do not struggle with pride so I am putting this out there for all to see just how HUMAN I really am. I hope that there is someone who benefits from this post. Someone who also struggles with being in the world but not of it. Here is to increasing HIS kingdom and bringing together orphans to their families! He is so good!

Hi Prayer Warrior Mommas!
Hannah thank you for starting this prayer loop, as I see it we would not be able to get through this without prayer, or the prayers of others on our behalf(and the other way around) We started on this journey of adoption officially in June 08 when my husband finally agreed to let me look into adopting a child from africa. I had a seed planted in my heart long before this. We too went through some infertility issues in the late 90's but were able to conceive a son and a daughter who are now 12 and 10 years old. Spring of 08 God really confirmed to me that adopting was what He wanted for my family. He lead us through a series of events that my husbands heart was finally softened and he truly felt like God had taken a baseball bat to his head to get his attention. Jill K, I just read your story and the amazing thing is that God also used the book of JONAH to confirm His will for me. Our pastor did a sermon series last spring on the little book and after church I went to the prayer chapel and just cried out to HIM because I was finally honest with myself that it wasn't just my husband holding things up, it was me too! We went out to dinner with our two children and they began asking questions why was I crying? God had just gotten real honest with me, and I with Him, and so I told my children the truth. (Warning, this is real gut level sharing here, it's not pretty, but it was truly me, stuck in a terrible place. Please proceed with grace and forgiveness in your heart for me)

So I began to tell my children about the sermon on JONAH, and how I felt that God was really shaking me up because I was not listening to His call for me. I told them that He had put adoption on my heart (THEY KNEW THIS, WE TALKED A LOT ABOUT IT) and frankly I was pulling a JONAH and running the other way. I was hiding behind Jamie (dad, my husband) and his doubts, but the truth was I was scared. I was scared if the baby would be healthy, how it would impact our family, we have the best son and daughter on earth; how could I risk messing that up? I was also scared because I really felt that He was calling us to AFRICA which would mean that we would have a black child, and raise this child in our small town full of mostly white people, how would they fit in? And of course I couldn't stop thinking that my kids were practically grown, just a few years they would be out of the house, not to mention the me time I had! And I was thinking about going back to being a mom to an infant? Also feeling a little selfish, we had made it through med school, through residency, and now we were at a point in our lives that I could actually start shopping at Saks, not the secondhand stores, and I could afford to drive the LEXUS I had dreamed of, vs the economical minivan, and if I was to adopt a child, then frankly that gold ROLEX I'd wanted for so long would no longer be a reality! See, I told you it got pretty bad, please forgive me? And then out of the mouths of babes, my son says, "Mom, this is from God, He only has good things in store for us. He would not ask us to do something that might bring us harm."

Perspective! I got it! A friend that was actually not very supportive gave me a copy of Kay warrens book, Dangerous Surrender. She had started to read it, gave it to me saying this book is for you. I read it, read it to my husband, who was pretty close to opening his heart by now, and we prayed the prayer God was waiting for: "Yes Father, what ever it is, we will do it. Your will Father not mine." Never been so scared before in all my life, I kid you not, I was scared to death to pray that prayer, but with it came so much relief and peace. I felt empowered to adopt our child, FAITH NOT FEAR!

There is a large community at our church who have adopted domestically and internationally. God introduced Jamie and I to Eric and Chantelle (IAN waiting family currently #1 on the baby girl list) and she and I got together for lunch a couple of days later, a couple of weeks later we had signed with IAN, began our homestudy process, collecting the dossier, and on Oct 22, we were officially on the waiting list. We were #13 for baby girl and # 8 for baby boy. Today we are #8 for baby girl and #4 for baby boy. We haven't looked back and God is growing us closer to HIM and more to His likeness I am proud to say. So there it is, the good the bad and the ugly!

His Blessings,
MichelleO