The Beauty of Adoption.....

 November is National Adoption Month. Ya'll I struggle with the words to even say. I'll start out by saying Adoption is beautiful!

 And yet its so difficult! The paperwork, the red tape, the emotions, attachment, trauma. Its alot. Like a whole lot. Those who think its simple or even easy are so wrong, and yet its so worth it. Every excruciatingly hard step is met with so much joy. When you overcome so much together, its a special bond like no other.

  And there are moments you wonder how you ever lived without them. You wonder why you spent so much time worrying and stressing. You wish you could say you trudged through the whole way brave and confident, but the truth, the truth is you felt fear. Fear of the uncertainty, fear of the changes to come. But you look back and see that thats part of the journey. Sharing about the fear and uncertainty is as important as sharing your happily ever after.

So I'll share how I sat in a taxi only minutes away from my baby and asked myself what in the world I was doing. I'll share how he didnt want anything to do with me those first few days. I'll share how afraid we were. I'll share how we had to put our trust solely in God because we felt alone and as if no one understood. I'll share the stuff thats not pretty. Because it will show you the unfathomable beauty the first time Connor relaxed and allowed me to really hold him. The first time he ran to my out stretched arms.  The first time he realized that he was safe with us.

  Ill share about the hospital stays, the surgeries, the long list of specialist, the medicines he takes, the countless pediatcrican visits, the XRays, the MRIs, the PT, OT, and speech therapy updates, the way I cry at every single IEP meeting. I wont hide any of it so that light can be shown on the fact that its not easy. Its actually the opposite, its hard very hard. And yet its the life I was ALWAYS meant to have. Its what I was born to do. I was created to be his mother, not a mother but HIS mother, and likewise Jeremy was created to be his daddy. Not because were anything special, we are ordinary. We are simple folks, we deserve no pedestal.

 BUT GOD in His infinite glory and grace deserves the praise. He is the one who made us a family. The one with the plan to answer countless prayers with one amazing plan. The one who fathers the orphan, the one whose kindness makes us whole. The one who NEVER falls off his throne. The one who makes no mistakes. The one who certainly does give us more than we can handle, and yet never gives us more than He can handle. The one who leaves the 99 to come after us. We are the one He will seek after. Connor is the one HE never left behind. We are the one He never turned his ear from our prayers for a family, even though it might have seemed there was far more important prayers for Him to tend to. There was more pressing matters at hand. He heard us call and He came to our rescue. He came to Connor. He carried him, he carried us. And He made us a family. Not by chance, not by choice, but by His design, by His great plan. Thats His beauty, thats His grace, thats His sovereignty.

Thats the beauty of our story, because our family is a picture of Gods grace. Not anything that we did or even could do, but what HE did and what HE can do.

Thats the beauty of Adoption. 

“We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes.”   - David Platt