No Change in His Plan, but a Change in Ours

Thank you to those of you who prayed for us as we received the news about the future of adoptions in Ethiopia.  We truly felt your prayers and God provided the wisdom we had asked for almost instantaneously. 

Within days of posting our last update, God confirmed in our hearts what He wanted our next steps to be.  Not even three days later, we had a peace that is beyond understanding.  Only Christ can infiltrate the heart and give the peace that we received.  Only He can give such comfort and knowledge of His will.  To be honest, I was a little shocked about how quickly He revealed our next steps.  I know that He answers prayers, but I did not expect to go from having no idea to being completely sure in such a short amount of time, over such a big decision, with so many unknowns.

I thought that we would wait to hear an official statement from Ethiopia and then we would have more facts and then we could proceed.  Then we could really start making tough decisions, if they needed to be made.  It just made sense. 

That was human logic. 

Many times God does want us to be logical—He did give us a brain and we should use it.  He instructs us to count the cost.  There are obvious decisions that we make every single day and it would be quite foolish to throw all logic aside and wait for a burning bush.

But other times, it is as if there is a burning bush.

He works outside of logic, too.

Sometimes God so clearly speaks to us, and it does not have to “make sense.”  The more we know Him, the more familiar we are with His voice, and the more confident we are when we hear Him speaking.  His sheep know His voice.  So when He tells us something that is really crazy and makes no sense to the world (like adopt child #5, for example), we just obey.  We defy logic and obey because we know that obedience is the only thing that really makes sense after all.

In this case, God did not wait for us to have all the pieces of information so that we could make an “informed” decision.  Rather, He quickly and gently said, “I have something else for you.” 

We have waited for over three weeks and we still do not have an official word from Ethiopia, but we know our next steps, regardless. 

With heavy hearts we informed our agency that we would no longer be pursuing an adoption from Ethiopia.  I cannot adequately convey the sadness this brings us.  We love Africa and have such a heart for the people there.  It thrilled us to think of bringing home a daughter from a place that has so deeply touched us.  A place that we cannot stop thinking about.  The place where two of my sons were born. 

I have this image in my head of what I thought our daughter would be like.  And it will not happen, at least not right now, and maybe never.  It feels a little like a death has happened. 

God has allowed us to feel this pain, but we are not grieving without hope. 

God has not changed the adoption plan for our family.  He is slowly uncovering what His plan was all along. 

Beginning this adoption journey in Ethiopia was a necessary step in the process.  It was not a mistake.  We are seeing even now that all of this was orchestrated in perfect timing to bring us to where He wants us. 

I will save the details of how amazing this revelation has been.  How “random” pieces are fitting together.  All the things that were not in place when this journey began, but that are happening now.  Countries being opened, relationships being forged, new works being pondered, and on and on and on.

All of this so wonderfully orchestrated by our loving Heavenly Father to show us that our daughter is probably waking up each morning somewhere in

 

India.