Deliverance......"You are a hiding place for me, You Lord preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs and shouts of deliverance." Psalm 32:7
So much to say...so little time to say it. First of all, we have a daughter in China waiting for us!!!! We have received our pre-approval. We have sent off paperwork to immigration to be fingerprinted and to the state to be certified! Things are moving right along. I wish that I could share about our beautiful daughter who is waiting for us in China, but it is against our agency's policies to publically share until we have our Referral Acceptance from China, and since our paperwork is not done yet, we won't receive that for a few months. As soon as we can share her picture, we will!!!!
I want to give you an update (a few actually) since I have not shared in a few weeks! Let me start by saying God is GREAT and I am sooo thankful that He is in control. My husband works for the government. Just a few weeks after we started the adoption process this summer, our family was affected by sequestration. Financially, it was hard, but it was a blessing to get to spend more time with him. The sequestration ended early and life got back to normal. Then we locked a file on a child in China and sent the paperwork that told China our intent to adopt her. Normally you get an answer back (the pre approval or PA for short) within a week. We saw family after family get matched and get PA, but ours never came. Last Tuesday, October first, I prayed for God to please let us get our PA, that I was getting very worried that something was wrong. I started homeschool with the girls and then the phone rings. It was Brandon calling from work to tell me that we got our PA!!! I was so excited!!!! About 10 minutes later, the phone rings again.....it was Brandon. He simply said, "They are sending us home." Wow. My world, like so many other's was being invaded by the the government shut down. That night I went to meet with an amazing group of women at Huntsville Night Light, a community Bible study that meets at my church each Tuesday night. I am the worship leader and my dear friend and mentor is the teacher. The lesson was on deliverance!!!! My God is so much bigger than my circumstances. He is tender and loving. He is holy and just. He is mighty. He loves us. He hurts for us. Let me tell you what I know to be truth. Every day that I whined and complained to Him about not having our PA, He was holding me. He was gently and quietly saying "not now, I know when you need it." You see, my heavenly Daddy knew when He asked us to take this journey that we would shortly walk through sequestration and the shut down. He knew when we accepted our daughter's file that her PA would be delayed and I venture to say that He did that for us. He knew that on Tuesday, October 1st my husband would call and tell me he was coming home. He knew that on that day just minutes before we got that hard news, we would need good news.... the news that China said yes and that we had a daughter!!!! What grace and love He granted us. We don't deserve it, but really, who does. That is why it is called Grace! I wish I could love God like He loves me. Oh....He also orchestrated our yard sale timing. We had it last Saturday and it just so happened that Brandon was off that week due to the shut down and was able to help me sooooo much!!! The love we were shown on that day was unbelievable. We had friends show up as early as 5:20 to help!! Some came with doughnuts!! We had friends stay for hours. My bestie stayed all day!!!!! (5:20am-5:30ish pm)!!!! Grammy ran the angel table and PawPaw watched the little one! Friends made cookies as thank yous to our guests. To all of you that helped, you are gifts to my family. You practiced pure love and religion...you helped the orphaned!!! For those of you who shopped, you practiced pure religion.....you helped the orphaned!!! Thank you for your ministry to us. We are forever greatful!
On another note...fundraising!!! The yard sale was a success. It was not what I had hoped for and prayed for, but I am learning some things. Before we started this adoption, I wanted to throw out a Gideon's Fleece... Oh how God laughed at that. (So did Brandon when he saw how God laughed). God showed me then that this journey was going to be different. He showed me that we were going to get closer and it was going to be a bumpy journey. He told me that I was going to be worked on and molded into something He could better use. I should have known we would not raise the "x" amount of money I wanted us to on the yard sale, but I also should have known it would be right at what we needed. I think that is how God is going to operate this time. This is the second time in this adoption process that God gave us just enough money just when the bill for a specific part of the adoption was due. I am thankful that He is taking the time to walk with us daily....no not daily, every second of every day He is walking right with us. That is unbelievable to me. The God of the universe is intimately part of our life!!! I am so thankful for that. I pray that He is with our daughter in China. I pray a hedge of protection around her. I pray that her care takers will be kind to her. I pray that she has a sense of hope. I wish I could hold her right now! I wish I could cook her a meal and she could eat til her heart was content. I can wish away, but the fact is, it will be months before we meet her. She is in God's hands. I know He is holding her. He loves the orphaned. Please join us in praying Psalm 32:7, a psalm of deliverance over our sweet child who is waiting for her forever family.
