Our Increasing Family...

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. 

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act."

Psalm 37:4-5

These verses have been a foundation of mine for months.  God has shown us how faithful He is to His Word, and we are a testimony of such faithfulness.

The day was March 14 when our adoption agency called us with the news:  2 adorable brothers, "E" and "E," were being sent to us as referrals!  Ecstatic that these may be our sons, my hands clumsily texted the news to Paul.  He shared with me in the excitement, and we began the decision-making process of bringing these boys home- a process that included weeks of long discussions, prayers, and counsel. One of these boys was much older than the age that we had expected to adopt, so we desperately sought the Lord for guidance, wisdom, and clarity (thanks to our pediatrician friends, Justin and Kat, for being an invaluable help to us during that time!).  Having no inclination to refrain from adopting these boys, we decided to call our agency with the official confirmation of our plan to proceed in this adoption process. 

Before I made the phone call and having no suspicion of pregnancy, I thought that it would be wise for us to "check all of the boxes," as I explained to Paul, and be sure that I was not pregnant.  I made a quick trip to Walgreens to provide such assurance and returned home to discover that the Lord had surprised us and answered our prayers for guidance: He has blessed us with another pregnancy!   Both of us are as surprised as one can possibly be about a pregnancy, and we are thanking the Lord for "acting" as we have "committed our way to Him," (Psalm 37:5).  This baby will be 16 months younger than Luke, and we are thrilled to have little ones grow up so close in age.

While we are overjoyed about this miracle growing within me, we also grieve the loss of these little boys.  We have studied their faces; we know their stories; we have envisioned them playing with Luke; and we are praying that the Lord provides them with a stable, Christ-centered family into which they will be adopted.  Lord-willing, we are committed to adoption, and we have decided that the best decision for our family is to receive a referral of another little one in the months ahead.  Our hearts rest in His guidance, because we know that as we "trust in Him, He will act."