Sometimes its pretty amazing how many times God has to remind me to trust Him and have faith in Him.
We began this journey a year and a half ago. At that time, I felt like I had my answer as to what was the right direction to take. As I guess is with anything that requires a long wait, my faith has been tested. First, it was people putting their two cents in where it wasn't necessary or required causing me to doubt and absolutely tearing up my mind and heart. For those of you who have been through the adoption process, I'm sure you know the people - those that say "I don't think you should adopt. I don't have the right feeling about it. I've heard of too many situations that didn't turn out well."
I finally began getting over that one but the most recent one was my own doubt. What if it never happens? What if no one wants to pick a family that has biological children (or a child)? What if we sit on that list FOREVER!? My best friend (who has been a rock for me to lean on/talk to through this whole process) reminded me that someone may want the child to have a sibling. That's true - but you still can't help but doubt - what if it never happens.
I continue preparing. We have painted the nursery, I've picked out a car seat, and picked out a pack-n-play. I'm trying to have faith and believe that continuing to prepare is my way of having faith. Fast forward to today.
We had a yard sale for our church during a mile-long yard sale at Grant. The money we raise usually goes to the church kitchen. Since our kitchen fund didn't really need the money this time, I decided to setup my own section and sell some of my stuff to try to raise money to get things like the car seat and if any extra, to help add to the adoption fund. A young 14-yo sister from our church (who just received salvation a couple of months ago) went with us to help. Shortly after the yard sales started, the young lady started going around visiting other yard sales. She started bringing back baby outfits - FOR ME! And she kept doing this - this 14 year old girl was spending the money she had on my future baby.
Now, let's go back for a moment. Remember I told you about the people putting their two cents worth in? Well, I guess I had told myself that no one (other than my parents) really supported our decision. I shouldn't say no one, but that not many did - they didn't know about adoption, didn't think it would really happen, etc. That was all (or mostly) of course in my mind.
My aunt arrived at the yard sale a little late and started getting stuff out of her car. I explained that the section on the left was separate from the church stuff and the reason I was trying to make the money. She immediately tells me that I can have her stuff to sell for my side if I wanted. That touched me because it let me know she wanted to help. A little while later, she and another sister from our church had gone to visit the restroom and passed a yard sale with a bassinet. They thought of me and my aunt practically begged me to come over and see it. It was in great shape and we ended up getting this $80-90 bassinet for $25. Now, baby "EJ", as I've been calling him/her since the girl's name we have picked starts with an E and the boys name starts with a J, has a place to sleep at Mamaw's house.
Ok - fast forward to the end of the yard sale. I made over $100 - which thrilled me because I was worried about making much of anything. As we were picking up the church's yard sale stuff, the young lady I spoke about earlier decided to take some of her sister's clothes over to the lady that had sold us the bassinet. The lady had found out earlier about our plans to adopt. She asked the young lady if her friend would like more baby clothes. They called me over and this lady GAVE me a box full of baby clothes. The young lady that had helped me get these clothes was SOOO happy!
I was thankful, but it didn't really hit me until I got home. I sat down and started going through the box of clothes. About 1/2 way through, I realized that there were a LOT of clothes (over 125 total in that box). All of sudden I realized - "This is stuff I would've picked out had I been shopping for baby clothes!"
Then, when I showed it to my husband, he gave me the most encouragement I could have received. His words, encouraging me that he didn't think it would be long and how he felt about it, gave me my faith right back.
Sometimes, God works in mysterious ways. Who would've thought when I got to that yard sale around 5am this morning, that my faith would be restored before night. Thank you God for encouragement and helping me have faith!
