Listening to the Lord

I'm so thankful that I listened and obeyed when I felt the Lord calling us to adopt again. I really felt in my heart that we would find our next child on a photolisting of children with special needs. I began researching whenever I would see syndromes or medical conditions that I hadn't heard of, and mentally took note of what I felt our family could and could not handle. We saw our Smiley Boy's face on a special needs photolisting, and knew he was supposed to be part of our family. We read about his medical history and felt at peace with his history of meningitis and his ASD. We took his file to our doctor to review, and our doctor was not optimistic. In fact, he said if it were him, he'd look for a healthier child. This obviously did not go over well with me since I believe that every child, no matter how healthy he or she is, deserves a family. The doctor's opinion did not deter us because we knew that God led us to this child. Our most recent report is that Smiley Boy is developmentally on target and very healthy! Praise the Lord! I'm so glad I listened to God's voice and obeyed him in choosing this precious child, rather than following the advice of the doctor.

This whole adoption process has been a journey of faith. We did not start out having all the money we needed for the adoption just sitting around in our savings. We are trusting that the Lord will provide every step of the way, and He has! I pray daily that God will provide the money that we need at the time that we need it. We have had a few yard sales recently to help pay one of the agency fees which is due in the next few weeks. I wondered how we were going to make the payment since we were short. Well, today, we were given the exact amount of the money that we needed to be able to send in the check!!! My prayers were answered because someone listened to the Lord's prompting and obeyed by giving generously. We are so blessed to have so many people supporting us.

Our adoption agency is drafting our official acceptance paperwork this week. Once it is complete, we will sign and return it, and then it will be sent to Korea. This gives the Korean adoption agency the green light to start the paperwork process with their government to allow Smiley Boy to leave Korea and become part of our family. However...we found out yesterday that our acceptance cannot be sent to Korea until we mail them the $14,350 international fee. WOW! We thought we would have a few months to apply for grants and do more fundraising, but we were wrong. So, once again, we're trusting God to provide in a BIG way. We are frantically finishing grant applications and praying that the committees reviewing the applications will look upon us favorably. It's amazing how at peace I am with everything though.

I am reminded of the verse in Phillipians 4:7:
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."