Simplified version: We adopt because God adopted us first.
Our little family was formed when Jonathan and I were married in November of 2009. By then we’d been together for several years, and knew we wanted to start a family pretty soon after getting married.
Very brief version of what happened next…So a couple of months into our marriage, we casually started trying for a baby. Months passed and no pregnancy. After about 10 months of trying, I shared my concerns with my Dr. From there I had some tests done and everything came back normal. No real answers were provided. Eventually after several more months of trying more seriously, we tried two rounds of Clomid, but still no pregnancy. When it came time for round 3, I lacked motivation to go back to the doctor. Something just wasn’t sitting right with my heart.
What was going on behind the scenes….I didn’t realize it at first, but God was transforming and preparing our hearts for something entirely different during those frustrating months of trying to conceive. Through different people and situations, God kept drawing us back to Africa. Somehow I came across a blog of a couple who had experienced similar heartache and frustrations and were now in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. Jonathan and I had already shared with each other our heart for adoption early on in our relationship, but the plan had always been to try for a biological child first. Through this couple’s adoption journey and a lot of researching on my own, our eyes were opened to this world we’d known little of before. Our hearts broke for these orphans. The more we came to know, the greater the ache to do something about it. It was like we’d always known that orphans existed in the world, but these faces became more than statistics. They became real. We were currently answering God’s call to care for orphans by sponsoring a child and financially supporting others on their adoption journey. While this had been so rewarding for us, we knew we wanted and could do more. We could provide love, stability, a home, family and hope to one child at the very least. We began discussing all these feelings with each other and praying to God for clarity.
“Once our eyes are opened, we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act.” – Proverbs 24:12
One morning on the way to work, I was listening to a song I’d heard several times before, but this time it took my breath away at how much the lyrics resonated with the feelings I was trying to make sense of:
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
We came to realize that God’s plan for our family had been different from ours all along. He was leading us to grow our family through adoption.
We have been asked a lot if we think we’ll have biological children someday or if we will continue to try? Sure! My doctor has never given me the impression that this was impossible, and I believe if it’s God’s will, anything can happen! What I do know is that we’re completely focused on bringing home our baby from Ethiopia right now. This is our heart’s greatest desire.
We are so excited to begin our adoption journey and hope you will join us!
