You know that feeling you get right before God is going to do something amazing? You can't pinpoint it, but there's an anticipation, knowing something is coming. The first time I talked to Derek and Madi, I felt a little like holding my breath, expecting God to show up in their story in big ways. None of us knew exactly how, or when, or how big. But it turns out God exceeded everyone's expectations. Today Madi graciously shares the story of how God miraculously grew their family grew from four to five.
A wise, dear friend consistently counseled Madi through the nine months of our adoption journey by reminding her, "God is writing a better story than you can write yourself." While we believed her (or at least wanted to believe her), we can't believe how true that adage turned out to be.
Adoption was always part of our family plan, but after having two precious biological children in less than two years, we put our plans on hold. However, on our daughter's third birthday, we felt the Lord call us back to what He had laid on our heart years prior, and we immediately began to pursue growing our family through adoption. After being home study approved, we signed with a lovely agency we found through a close friend. Before we knew it, months ticked by without feeling any closer to bring our child home. We had a restless feeling that we should cast a larger net, and after some prayerful consideration, we took to Google to research our options. We found Christian Adoption Consultants, and scheduled a call with Susan. We immediately found everything we were looking for with her. She not only fast-tracked us on our goal of becoming active at more agencies, but provided invaluable counsel and friendship through the entire process. She was always only a phone call away, and we always felt the gift of being able to be completely vulnerable and honest with her. In the couple months that followed, we had many twists and turns, disappointing "almosts" and "not yets" that were all met by prayer and encouragement from Susan. Looking back, we can see so clearly that God was using every difficult "no" for our good because He loves us.
Two months later, one summer afternoon as we were packing the car for our annual family vacation to the beach in another state, we got an unexpected phone call that we had been chosen as the forever family for a darling baby girl that had been born hours prior. We live on the east coast and up until this point, every case we had gotten from this particular agency had been on the west coast, so we cheerfully asked where we were going. When the case worker responded that this child had been born in the state where we were already packing the car to travel to the beach, we were floored. But God wasn't done. Shortly thereafter we found out our baby was born not only in the state we were already traveling to (and had rented a house and were meeting family and friends, which meant a plan already in place for our other children, a gift all in itself), but in the city in that state where we used to live and where our first child was born. So despite living eight hours away now, our beautiful baby girl was born on the SAME FLOOR of the SAME HOSPITAL as our oldest son. We prayed for so long that when a situation was right, we would have clarity, and we'll never get over the way God showed up in that big way and continued to show up throughout the process. He was in every single detail, and despite this big, obvious miracle, there were so many other God-winks in our journey. From bringing her home weeks early unexpectedly from the NICU on our wedding anniversary to the gift we didn't know we needed of friends and familiarity despite being in a different state since we had lived in that city prior, to the uncanny way she even closely resembles our biological children, it was clear our daughter was hand-picked from the Lord for our family.
We are now home with our precious girl, and feel deeply grateful for all the ways God showed up through our adoption journey. We have seen time and time again how God uses adoption to point us to Him as His own adopted sons and daughters. We learned to lean on Him in complete trust and reliance in ways we have never otherwise experienced. We learned how to jump into situations we may otherwise fear because we have no reason to fear; not because it isn't scary, but because He truly does go before us. We saw His mighty hand in every single detail. Most of all, we saw that God is still in the business of actual miracles, and we'll never get over how obvious of a miracle our daughter and our family story is; pointing us straight to goodness, mercy, and grace that comes only from above. We will never stop singing His praises for all he has done, and the faithful people, like Susan, he used in the process.
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