As an adoption consultant, I have the amazing privilege of watching God work in the adoption journeys of my adoptive families. His care along the way is always unmistakable! Every story has it's share of loss and difficulty, and Charlie and Rachel's process was particularly challenging. There is no doubt in my mind that God worked powerfully in their hearts along the way. Rachel shares about God's personal care for them in her own words below.
We had our plan to start our family, but the Lord had explained that He had a plan for us that was bigger and better than we could imagine. When we finally "Let go and let God," it was clear to us that God intended for us to start our family through adoption. We were bathed in prayer and supported both financially and emotionally by family and friends. So many people shared in our excitement. But months went by and the excitement wore off.
At one point, I remember feeling that God had just walked away, leaving me sitting in the dark scrambling to find Him. Like the lights had gone out and I had no flashlight to see. In His perfect timing, I attended a women’s retreat. All weekend long He placed people in front of me that were connected to adoption or infertility in some fashion. Every person that shared their story also prayed with me, for me, and in some cases cried with me. I was very grateful for the connections through these women and their stories, but what I really wanted was to hear Jesus. I sat one night alone on the floor and said to Him “I will sit here in this very spot waiting until I hear your voice.” I lost that battle of patience and went to bed with a sore butt and a bruised spirit. I was disappointed, but in reality I was simply being a child of God throwing a tantrum and wasn't interested in waking up the next morning for the last day of the retreat. However, I woke up to God's voice through a song sung by Steven Curtis Chapman.
“And this is going to be a glorious unfolding
Just you wait and see and you will be amazed
You've just got to believe the story is so far from over
So hold on to every promise God has made to us
And watch this glorious unfolding.”
In my mind that translated to “WAIT A MINUTE! I'M WORKING ON IT!” First I laughed, then I cried. I could “see” again, knowing He wasn’t done with us. That was all the reassurance I needed to know that He was still walking this journey with me.
A few weeks later we finally had that celebratory moment of being officially matched! I will spare you the details of the challenging months leading to our son’s birth, but I will share that things got ugly. So ugly, that at one point, we considered walking away from the match. I felt our marriage straining and all I wanted to do was hold tight to what I knew was good. I called Katie (our amazing consultant who calmly walked us through all our messes and never ending questions and phone calls) and told her I was ready to be done. Not just done with the match, but DONE DONE with everything. I was not willing to lose what I had in order to bring a baby home that wasn’t even guaranteed to be ours. It was painful and discouraging in so many ways.
When Charlie returned home from work that day, the first thing we did was pray. We prayed for what felt like days asking for guidance and clarity in our situation. We found ourselves in these difficult situations multiple times in the months leading up to our son’s birth and each time God very clearly said “sit tight and let me do my work.” It was an incredibly challenging time for us. The ONLY reason we made it through this journey was because of Jesus.
If you asked me in the beginning of our journey to describe what we thought our adoption journey would look like, I would have painted a very different picture. Our lives are forever changed for the better. Our sweet little boy is this connection between two women who would have never crossed paths otherwise. Some days I find myself tearing up when he gives me that silly little grin as I think about how empty our life was without him in it. God did this... all of it… He led us to Katie with CAC, He led us to our son’s birth mother, and He led us to our baby boy. Just as he did way back when with Noah and his family after the rain, He gave us a rainbow after our storm.
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For more information about domestic infant adoption, please contact me. I'd love to help you!
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