Today's Adoption Adventure part tres....

Our Adventure continues....

This is the 3rd message in a series that started here. And part 2 is here.

My cell phone rings at 4:43 PM today (Saturday), private number. I look at it, then pick up, I KNOW it is Officer Lovely. I am correct.


She tells me that she is just finishing up our application, and that the approval letter will be ready Monday. She kindly alerts me to one discrepancy, having to do with the number of children. Our application requests 3, because the O suggested we keep the numbers broad, in case we decide to pursue another international adoption, we will already have this very important approval. So our application requests approval for three. In our home study, the social worker is vague-she mentions 2 different numbers in the text of it, and a sibling group in the recommendations section. The sentence does not read well, gramatically, and so I am not sure if it is an oversight or if the Social Worker had reservations about how many children we should be approved for. I will call her to clarify this later on. Officer Lovely tells me she has to use the smaller number, because it is the one in the recommendation section. She is expecting me to be upset.


I am not upset, it's okay, because the number she has to use is the RIGHT number for this adoption. Officer Lovely says we can change the number, but we'd have to get our home study updated and all of that. I say don't bother, because it's the right number for this adoption. She says that she called because she doesn't like surprises, unless they are good ones. And she thought I might not think this was a good surprise.


What Officer Lovely does not know is that we have been praying intently about another international adoption and asked God to make His will crystal clear to us. We want to adopt a lot of children, but we recognize that this may not be God's plan for our family at this time, or ever. It may not be what is best for Steeve & Jean Baptiste. We have committed to God that we will put those precious boys first in all of our decisions from now on, as a way of honoring His putting us together as a family. After all, that's what parents do, right? Put what's best for their children first. We are so blown away to get to play a part in God's plan for these boys.


We have been talking, praying, looking, thinking, pondering, dreaming. But we had no clarity. No clear direction in which to move or not move. And now, we feel like we do.


Not that we couldn't adopt other children internationally. However, we will have to go through this process and pay the fees again. That may be fine, in God's timing. We don't feel like the door is closed at all, but we do feel like we got some direction and clarity.


And we love that God is in the details!


Officer Lovely and I talk a bit further and decide that Weds. is a better day for both of us in terms of picking up the letter. She asks me to call her on Tuesday, and if she is not available, she will leave it with someone, so that I can pick it up. By Tuesday, she will know her schedule better, and who she may leave it with.


Again, the urge to hug and kiss this woman (good thing we were talking on the phone, and not in person) rises up! I am not sure how many more times I can resist the urge to kiss and hug Officer Lovely. I thank her profusely, over and over.


I hang up the phone and thank God for caring about the details.



I. Really. Am. Blown. Away.



Who am I that God would care so much and be so involved in the details?



Wow.


And then, I remember:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother's womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous--and how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!

They are innumerable!

I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me!

Psalms 139:13-18 NLT

Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!

Psalms 66:20 NIV

Again, I say, God is great.

Go to part one. Go to part two.