Congratulations Clayton and Mica

Pictures like these are often the result of years of prayers...

But pictures like these only share a glimpse of the beautiful story God creates when he makes a family.

Clayton and Mica have long been praying for this sweet little girl. They have three boys here with them on earth and one beautiful daughter in heaven and felt called to add another girl to their family through adoption. Although they had been home study ready for a year, they hadn't contacted Christian Adoption Consultants until this past April. Two months later, they were chosen by a brave and beautiful expectant mother to be adoptive parents to her little one. And just last week they welcomed their daughter into their family.

This picture doesn't tell you how well they have loved their daughter's birth mother. How they have cried and laughed with her. How they have shared Jesus with her. And how they have begun a relationship with her that honors their daughter's beautiful beginnings and her bright future.

This picture doesn't tell you that this sweet baby, who they named Faith, was born nine years and one day after their daughter Grace passed away. Mica shared with me today that this timing was like God whispering to her "sorrow lasts for a night but joy comes in the morning." The day after Faith was born, Mica's grandmother, who shared a very close relationship with her, passed away. This weekend she will be buried next to Grace.

Mica shared, "I will be able to look at the loss of death and truly remember hope of life as I think of my precious Faith.  Oh how God is good!  Life is messy but if we hold on to Jesus it will be beautiful!"  

Some pictures are worth a thousand words. But these pictures are just the beginning of an amazing story of answers to a family's prayers, a birth mother's hopes and dreams for her daughter, and the faithfulness of a good and gracious God to all of them...