Pardon my mood to share things that are not really glowing about myself, but I have to say I have a wonderful time planning...seriously, it's a sickness that I love it so much. I love being able to look ahead and know *exactly* what I will be doing, whether that be tomorrow or 5 years from now. It makes me feel "in control" of everything going on. It makes me feel like I am prepared for anything....like I really have my stuff together and have this whole life stuff figured out.
I've been speaking with several folks lately that are in just the beginning stages of thinking about adoption...and they are currently thinking of everything they can that would prevent them from doing it. They are thinking about their savings account, their retirement plans, their homes, their current family. Don't get me wrong, these things absolutely have to be thought about, and thoroughly before stepping into an adoption. However, if we allowed our "plans for our lives" to dictate this adoption, it simply would not have happened.
I was not one of those folks that always knew I would adopt. It's not like I had anything against it at all, I just didn't know a lot about it and really had never spoken to anyone or knew anyone that had done it, until my friend adopted from Ethiopia. We had planned to have 3 children, but after Reece's scary delivery, decided we were blessed to have two and moved on..continuing to plan every step of the way. We had plans for every cent in our account, plans for the girls, plans for our vacations, next homes we were going to buy, work plans...you know that American dream...we had it down pat! We did not plan, however, to be completely overwhelmed and to have our eyes opened like we did.
I said to myself over and over again while I was looking at adoption initially (of course telling myself I was helping my friend by researching..but everyday growing more and more curious myself) that this was not a calling for us. How would we afford it? That's not exactly where we planned for our money to go. Looking back now I cannot believe how incredibly selfish we were, but I am just being honest here. Financial fear is a real roadblock to adoption, not only the cost but also just affording another baby in the family. I would try and fit it into my neatly planned box, but it just never quite fit. I would try and move on, but I just never could.
And now, I cannot imagine our lives without Asher..and he's not even here yet! Just getting organized to move the rooms around has me filled with excitement! Oh my the joys and blessings our family would have missed out on by not taking that leap...by letting go of what we thought our lives could be and letting go to what God knew our lives *should* be. I laugh now when we used to sit around and think of how things would be 5 years from now. It's awesome to let it go and trust God. I would have never thought our life would look like this 5 years ago and I cannot imagine how it will be 5 years from now. All we know is we are not going to let our idea of how much money we should have in the account, how big a house we should have, how many children we should have, how much our 401K should be, what cars we should own or what the rest of the world is thinking dictate our lives again. Seems that real life has put all of our dreams to shame!!!
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I agree so much! We were floored when we first found out how much adoption can cost...but now that Matthew is here we don't give one thought to the money we paid for adoption costs. It is overwhelming but God provided so much and now we are so thankful we weren't scared off by the financial fears we had.
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