Last week, I had one of the worst bladder infections I've had in a long time. Thought it was another IC flare up at first, but as it got worse and worse, I finally went to the doctor where it was confirmed as some really rare strain of bacteria. {I'm sure I got from the ghetto water park we went to on Friday} [side note: Jenn and I both got a nasty flu-like virus the day after we went to that same waterpark a few weeks ago...coincidence, I think not.] It started last Saturday night and I couldn't even get out of bed on Sunday. I slept for 24 hours straight getting up only long enough to take some pain meds and eat something. My mom was so worried about me that she surprised me by coming into town to help take care of me and the kiddos. She was a God-send because I went to see the doctor on Tuesday morning and I would have had to lug all 4 kids with me if she weren't here. I love my Momma.
All that to say, when your Mom spends a lot of time with your kids without you around, there's no telling what kind of stuff they might tell her that you'll have to explain later. This time it was, "Jesse said you all were going to adopt a baby." Kids are such concrete thinkers. When we talk about or pray about the future and God's will for our family, the kids sometimes assume it's just gonna happen. Their faith is so pure and God has proven faithful to them already over and over in their short lives so far. Why would they doubt? We prayed that God would bring Shelby and Jesse a baby sister for over a year...& He did. We prayed for God to take care of us and make sure we never went without food to eat or a roof over our heads when we were in Arizona...He did. We prayed that God would move us back to Oklahoma or Kansas...and He did. We prayed God would lead Daddy back into ministry...He did. As a family we have prayed for countless other miracles {too personal to mention}to happen in our family or friends' lives and seen answers to those prayers as well.
God answers prayers. We know that and the kids know that. His answers are Yes, No, or Wait. God's given the Ls a lot of "Wait" answers. We are an impatient bunch and he is growing us in that area.
So back to, "Jesse said you all were adopting a baby." Our prayer for the past several months has been for God to reveal to us whether or not it is in His plan for us to adopt. We have started no processes toward adoption, although, at least a few times a month I get adoption blog obsessed. Shelby and I both do. James waffles and truth be told, I do too at this point. But one thing we do know is that we love children and we love having a big family...and that is not super common these days, so if we have extra love to give and a passion for raising kids, doesn't that mean that God might have at least one or two more in mind for us.
A Mom once told me that "you just know when your family is complete...God gives you a peace about it." Well, if that is true, my family is not complete. But really,the more I search scripture, the less I buy into this whole idea about "God just giving us a peace about the right answer." He opens and closes doors, and makes it pretty clear how we are supposed to live in His Holy Book. There is only one scripture I can think of off the top of my head that talks about Him giving us a peace in a difficult situation and that peace isn't about a decision to make...He says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." What this scripture says to me is that if you pray, trust God and you have a thankful heart, whatever He brings into your life will not shake you...He will give you peace with whatever plans He has for you.
We humans make so many plans based on our emotions and sometimes we leave no room for God to direct our paths. If I were to choose to adopt right now based on my emotions, I'd adopt 5 or 10 kids, some with special needs. Now the other extreme are those out there that are totally closed off to God numbering their children and they are so emotionally spent with the 1 or 2 they have that they refuse to entertain the idea that God might just have a few more children waiting for them.
Where we are at right now is the "waiting mode," we are waffling and since we haven't taken the leap to contact an agency or anything we are basically telling God that if He has a child for us He needs to make it very clear...bring the child to us. Collide our paths with a mother looking for a family, or confirm in some other way that adoption is His plan for us. So, that is what I told my Mom when she asked me if what Jesse said was true. We are praying about it, but we are making no plans right now.
This morning in bible study we were focusing on Psalm 67, but I kept being drawn over to Psalm 68:5-6 on the next page. I had underlined it and circled it long ago in my bible and I love it.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.
I love the entire passage, but "He sets the lonely in families" has always stood out to me.
He sets the lonely in families...sometimes it happens through marriage, God gives a lonely man a wife whose family embraces him as their own son...sometimes through a lonely teenager's best friend's parents, she feels the warmth of a family for the first time...it happens in church families all the time, a lonesome stranger wanders in and becomes a part of God's holy family. And, it happens through adoption. As I try to find statistics on how many orphans there are worldwide the numbers vary, but they are all in the hundreds of millions. How can we not at least CONSIDER or PRAY about the possibility that one of those orphans is our son or daughter? How can YOU?
