More than we could ever have imagined

A week after we got home from Colombia, we got an e-mail from our divinely appointed lawyer stating that our adoption case was being reopened and that they would consider giving us the second chance that we were asking for.  This was a miracle in itself, since they flat out told us that nothing of the sort had ever been done before.  Within days, our lives turned upside down all over again as we re-immersed ourselves in all of the paperwork, phonecalls, appointments, and financial agreements that go along with an international adoption process.

As confident as I felt, knowing that only God could have orchestrated this turn of events, not a bit of it has been easy.  I detested almost every step we had to take and cringed with every check we had to write.  I can't tell you how many times over the last four months that we reached another roadblock and I just threw my hands up in the air, saying, "God, I quit!  This is just too hard, too complicated, too frustrating, too costly--in so many ways. I just don't want to do this any more!!!!!"  Then someone would always come up beside me and show me that it wasn't time to give up hope just yet.  Anything can happen with the time we have left.  Somehow I always found the resolve, the strength, the determination, and the resources to keep pushing ahead.

So, here we are now, almost three years to the date of watching our dreams come crashing down, and once again we wait for answers.  Just why DID God give us the inspiration and just the right connections to pursue this case again?  Why DID He open this door again?  Within the next thirty days or so, we should finally have the answers we are seeking.  Will "Juan" and Julian ever become our legal children, or does God have something completely different in mind for the five of us that we just haven't seen yet?

 I, personally, can't even say just what it is that I'm hoping for.  Of course, I want us to be approved this time around.  What a humiliation to go through this all again and receive the same response.  Yet I can't say I'm hoping to bring one or both boys home, either.  We are fully aware of all of the very real challenges that will come with that. I can't imagine life without  them, though, and fortunately, this time I know that I will not lose either of them, whether we can adopt them or not.

My prayers are very different than they were three years ago.  I'm not praying daily for this to all go through and work out.  My daily prayer is only that God will do more through this situation than we could ever ask or imagine.  If it means bringing one or both of them home, then so be it.  If it involves just one of them or neither of them, then so be it.

Just a few days ago while I was out on my porch, God and I had a little heart to heart, and basically I found myself rehearsing all the ways that He has already done exactly what I've prayed for-- by giving us more than we ever could have asked for.  Right after coming back home after our first trip to Colombia, I was already overwhelmed with having found the other end of the phone line through which all of my conversations with "Juan" had taken place two years prior.  I actually stood in the same place where he stood for all of those phone calls.

As if that wasn't enough, God later connected me with the very person that stood beside him the day they told him we weren't coming for him.  Through her, God began revealing details of those days that I always wanted to know. I wondered why  I even needed to know, but I thanked God for filling in those gaps.  Then this summer, as we sat around the table in Mercedes' home less than 48 hours before coming back home, she filled us in on sweet details about each of the boys when they were children.  I will never forget the thoughts that ran through my head in those moments, realizing that God was still continuing to reveal their story to us.  All in his perfect timing, just as it was always meant to be.

I don't know what to expect or even hope for this coming month as we begin to finally receive answers, first from Colombia, then from immigration, then regarding the grants that we applied for.  All I know is that God is going to continue to use this story and this situation in greater ways than we ever could ask or imagine.  I know He will because He already has.  His track record doesn't change.

 I hope that in the midst of whatever you find yourself facing today, you will see that God has done the same for you.  If you delight yourself in Him, He will give you the desires of your heart.  My desire is for everyone who has followed our journey to look at our situation and say, "That could only be God" (quote from session six in our Esther study by Beth Moore).