A major shout out to the Lake Wylie AIM store for being amazing. My girls look forward to seeing one of the guys there, AKA the "funny guy." He plays and colors with my girls while I make sure every "i" is dotted and every "t" is crossed, check and recheck our paperwork and take pictures so our future child has his own "maternity" pictures. Let me say, a nine-month pregnancy is way shorter and less stressful than the stress we've experienced in this now two-year process, but it's certainly worth it. This time at the AIM store we even had a little friend come with us to mail off the paperwork. Being typical girly-girls, they came up with a cute pose incorporating everyone!
Today I thought about how this could be the last Father's Day we are a family of four. We will give a child a family and a father. How cool will that be?Last week Chloe finally set aside her fear and decided to follow Jesus' example in believer's baptism at the Freedom Celebration at our church in a few weeks! You should come if you are local. We all bring lawn chairs, eat hot dogs, baptize people and have a huge fireworks display to celebrate Independence Day. Chloe put her faith in Jesus two years ago around Easter. At the time she was terrified of water, plus she was scared of people watching her. She is no longer scared of water as you can tell, but she is still scared of saying, "Jesus is Lord" in front of a bunch of people.
I think that statement scares many people for different reasons. Maybe we are scared of what people might think, talking in front of others or we don't like what we might have to give up to follow Jesus. Like I told my Chlo, I'm pretty sure Jesus was scared too, but He still followed God's plan and provided a way for us to spend eternity with Him! Us being adopted into God's family was WAY more important to Jesus than his temporary pain and difficulty.
Since we began this adoption journey I have realized how central adoption is to the Gospel. The Gospel brings about adoption. If it didn't there would be no hope or future for us. I was reading Orphanology the other day and I read a line that jumped out at me. The chapter was talking about encouraging the church to understand God's will and how it intersects with their lives. Many people try to decide if adoption is God's will for them. He states, "Adoption is God's will...Maybe the question we should be giving families to wrestle with is: Why shouldn't I adopt!?"
There are legitimate reasons for families and individuals not to adopt, but I want to challenge people to consider their answer.
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