The journey began!

It was the year 2002. With one child in Kindergarten and 2 more in diapers, our life was chaos! It was good chaos though...and very full. One afternoon, I had a few moments of quiet so I sat down and read my Bible. I had been studying Genesis and how the Lord loved His people. I knew that kind of love. The Lord choose to reveal that kind of love when I birthed each one of my children! I grew a new heart each time another was born. My question that day was "Lord, how can You love me, a gentile, when you chose Abraham's descendants?" The Lord said very softly.. . I want you to experience what it means to be grafted into a family...I want you to adopt a child for me...then you will know how I can love you!" I thought I was crazy. Remember, life was full! I told God that I would be up for that but He would have to work on Jeff's heart. I promised the Lord that I would only tell Jeff once and let Him do the rest. Well, I told Jeff, and he got mad! You see, I have a lot of crazy ideas....Jeff is used to that. He usually listens to my ideas and affirms my thought process and allows me to come to the conclusion that this will not work. NOT THIS TIME. Jeff got mad! So I dropped the idea. Everytime the thought of adoption would come to mind I would say a quick prayer of "Lord, I'll do it but You need to soften Jeff's heart!"



I held onto this idea for 2 years. We got rid of all of our baby things. Just when I was preparing for the youngest to go to Kindergarten (and "freedom" was around the corner) I felt the Lord say..."get prepared and watch!" Many things started to happen. The pastor gave a sermon on priorities, the soccer coach was in the process of receiving their daughter from Korea, Jeff met a co-worker that was in the middle of an adoption. ... I asked Jeff for tickets to Stephen Curtis Chapman concert for Christmas. Little did I know this concert was to be one to raise funds for adoptions. We walked into the arena and Jeff said...I think the Lord is softening my heart towards the idea of adoption.