Fingers Crossed

Benji and I took off to Atlanta once again yesterday to get the last few corrected forms apostilled. So it is all in the mail to the adoptin agency, who will look over it and then forward it on to Russia for translation. We are hoping and praying that everything is good and it will be forwarded on this time. We both are beyond ready to move past the paperchase and move to the next season...paper pregnant/waiting for a referral!

With God we can weather these storms

The past week has been, once again, a crazy week. We were approached, once again with a domsestic adoption. It was of a baby girl to be born in December. We were hesitant at first because we are so far into our Russian adoption. But then the more that we thought about it, the more that we felt as though we should at least look into this option. From both, the paperwork to the finances, our Russian adoption has constantly hit roadblocks. So we began to think that maybe the Lord was allowing these road blocks because just maybe we were to explore another option. So we did just that and we sent a profile to the birth mother. I'd be lying if I said that we both didn't allow ourselves to become a little excited. Could this be the child that God is sending us? Financially it would be so much easier for us to go this route, plus it would be soon, very soon. We would have our baby by Christmas. We are at a point in our adoption to where we can get a good portion of our money back. Then yesterday, Johnna (our adoption coordinater) called to tell us that she was going to go on and mail our dossier for translation and we'd add the remaining forms later (one form I am having a super tough time getting from the state). This is the point that we have fought to get to for 15 months now. We had to ask her to hold off for just a little bit until we knew a little better what the Lord is calling us to do at this time.
So over the past week, I have tried really hard to seek the Lord. I have spent as much time in prayer and reading my Bible as I possibly could. I found an adoption devotional that I had forgot that I had. In my readings it said that sometimes it is easy to become "child" focused rather than "God" focused when you are adopting. This really ressonated with me because that is exactly what I have done. I have become so focused on getting our child that I have lost sight of seeking God in this.
This morning I recieved an email to inform us that the birthmother decided to go with another couple. I wont lie and say that I wasn't dissappointed, because I surely was. The thought of having our child by Christmas this year was scary yet sssooo exciting. However, I know that God has other plans for us. This was not the path that he wanted us to take. Therefore, he has a much better path out there for us. Could we sit here and get mad that it didn't work out, and could we be mad with the Lord allowing us to stop our focus and have to endure this terrible emotional stress that this situation brought on us? Absolutley! However, we choose to just say "God needed us to hold up for just a bit because the baby that he has for us is just not ready yet." We are willing to wait as long as it takes to get to the baby the the Lord is preparing for us. Someone once sent me something that states "there's always rain before a rainbow". Well we are definately in some rainy weather right now, but that just means that our rainbow is soon to follow!