When doubt consumes us

I want to take a minute, not to complain, but to kinda open up to what has been going on with us lately. We have been overcome with doubt here lately. Not because we don't still want this more than anything in the world, but rather we are beginning to wonder if we were truly listening to the calling of the Lord or not. For the first time in a year (when we first started the process) I have really begun to question if we are following the Lord's plan for us. Not only is the paperwork never right when we send it in (as you can tell, our agency called and we still have to correct a few more things), but we have been slammed financially here in the past few months. Being able to afford this adoption has been a heavy burden on our hearts from day one, but we have always felt that if we are following the Lord's calling that the financial aspect will just fall into place. For the most part up to this point it has (one way or another) fallen into place. The concerning part for us is that the largest portions of the financial parts are coming up. In the past couple months: the transmission has went out in my car, we rear eneded a car and had to pay our deductible (which we do hope to get back because the accident wasn't our fault), this past week we realized that we had a major moisture problem in our house that had to be immediatly taken care of. Then last night, it would appear as though our air conditioner has decided that it is tired of servicing us. So for two months now our pocketbooks have been heavily hit, and on top of that we have sent dossier paperwork 3 times only to be told that it still isn't right. So I think that this would have any human scratching there head and reassessing their situation.
Our biggest fear is that we are not listening to the Lord and he is trying to tell us that we are traveling the wrong path. Yet on the same hand, what if we are on the right path and the devil is trying to stop us from what the Lord has for us? So the other night, we sat down to talk and we decided that we had to make a decision to either hold up on the adoption before we get any further in, or to proceed fighting tooth and nail until we succeed. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I am so close to throwing in the towel and giving up. But we both decided that we are going to push through this and fight as hard as we have to. We both come to the conclusion that if we weren't doing something right, then the devil wouldn't be trying so hard to stop us. So that's where we are right now, and this is what we have been dealing with for a few weeks now. Today my aunt sent me a message:
Hey Shanny, just wanted to share this with you today. In our service today, Bro. Billy was talking about being adopted by the Father and he mentioned a little girl that was adopted and she that adoption was "when you grew in your mommy's heart not her tummy". I thought of you and how special that you are to be ready to give your heart someone (ones) that really really need your love. God is working on this as we speak! I love you!
Shasha: You timing was impecable on this. It was what I needed and when I needed it. Thank you so much for sending that today. Love ya!

Back on Track

It has been a long, difficult and quite stressful summer. In the frustrations that this summer has brought on, I have allowed myelf to loose sight over who is in control. Thankfully, we were able to go on a family vacation this past week that has allowed me to take some days to rest, relax and unwind. Vacation could not have come at a more perfect time. We had hoped that we could mail off the second round of dossier documents prior to vacation, but it just didn't happen. The remaining documents that we needed were in the mail when we got home. So yesterday, Benji and I took off to Atlanta to get everything apostilled. It is in the mail as of an hour ago, and will be with AWAA tomorrow for a final review. So praise God we are back on track and hopefully moving forward.