It's a New Year! We have pulled through a year of four surgeries, which brought many medical bills, a new school for Nick, new jobs for both Jon and I, a massive flood at Jon's parents and grandparents, my dad losing his job, my sister building a new house, and finances being tighter than they have ever been before....yet God remains faithful! Our family is ready to see what 2011 will bring us...we pray it's our baby!
The question of the day...."so how is your adoption process going and do you have a baby that you know of yet?" The answer: "We are still waiting on a match, but I know it's God's timing...." You know how many times this same question and answer have been repeated since we started this process? At least a few hundred times.... Somedays, I get frustrated, b/c I am anxious and so ready. Other days I am at peace knowing God has a perfect timing for us and our baby will be with us in His perfect timing... I admit, It is not easy to wait, but when has following the Will of God ever been easy? God never said it was going to be easy, He only said this was His calling and His path and that He will walk through it with us!
So where are we in the process? This is what is currently happening in the Stewart household... I am writing Thank You notes to our wonderful friends and family that have so generously given to our first matching grant and have helped us raise almost $12K for our baby through the Hand in Hand Matching grant!! Jon and I are patiently waiting to see if Gift of Adoption will be able to help with some of the finances of the adoption. Our application will be going to the review committee this week! If they are in God's will for us, it will happen!! We are working on another form of financing as well, through Lifesong. They have matching grants, fundraising, and no interest loans. This application is in depth and will take us a little while to gather the information needed for it. I still believe that God will provide 100% for our adoption in some way or another! We will also be contacting our consultant to check in with the different agencies that we have applied for and check to make sure our information is where it needs to be. The guest room will begin it's tranformation process this weekend into a baby room, as well! This is where we are in the adoption process.....
In addition to the adoption, though, we are attending to our precious Nick and continuing to pray that his bone graft works! We will know in March, when he sees his orthodontist, if the bone graft worked! Again, patience and waiting...do we see a common theme, here? Until then, he remains on soft foods and low activity levels...hmmm, lets see how this goes! Nick is so precious to us....Words cannot describe the love I have for this child! God brought him into our lives at almost 3months old and he has truly blessed us ever since! I am constantly blessed by his words. As we go to numerous doctors appointments for him, he gets the common question, "do you have any brothers or sisters?" I would respond with, "Well, not yet, but...." and before I can finish, Nick chimes in, " we are adopting! We might get a boy or a girl, but I kind of want a boy, but a girl would be good too...God will give us the perfect baby....I am so excited...I'm going to be a big brother and you know I'm not sure about changing the diapers, though.... but after the baby we want to adopt some kids, maybe my age and the boy will share my room and then I will have someone to play with.......and then...." They have just unleashed this child's overwhelming excitement about his soon to be baby brother or sister and God's immense calling on his heart! I believe that God doesn't just call the parents to adopt, He calls the whole family into adoption! As you can see, Nicholas has been called as an adopted child, himself, and to adopt sisters and brothers into the family God has blessed him with!
Writing this entry reminds me of God's calling for us and brings me back to why we are walking through this journey slowly....
It wouldn't be considered a journey if we weren't experiences the ups and downs....
it wouldn't be considered a journey if my child didn't have time to process and truly understand his own calling....
it wouldn't be considered a journey if our calling wasn't confirmed through the words of child....
it wouldn't be considered a journey if I didn't get the chance to watch as our consultant adopts and watches their baby struggle in the NICU....
it wouldn't be considered a journey if our finances were already there and we didn't have to ask for support....
it wouldn't be considered a journey if we didn't have 3 surgeries in the midst of this processs...
it wouldn't be considered a journey if Jon wasn't struggling with his commission only job and we didn't have to lean on God in faith..
and it truly wouldn't be considered a journey if God wasn't involved in all the details and I didn't learn to trust Him completely through this process!!
God is faithful and remains faithful in every aspect of our lives, although it may not seem like it at the time..He is always here with us...and will reveal his purpose for each journey we have gone through! From the words of a child...if we had not encountered and gone through the endometriosis journey....would we be here now...on this journey to adopt....God's calling for us!!!
Look for God in your journey!!!
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