Saturday, August 25, 2012

God's plans, an African impala, and our child

For those of you that know me, you are probably aware that I like things to be planned out and to go exactly according to plan. God knows me pretty well... I mean, He created me and all... but I think He has forgotten this little fact about me.
When we began this process back in February, we so badly wanted to adopt from Taiwan! I'm familiar with an orphanage there in Taiwan, The Home Of God's Love, and know several people who have adopted from this particular orphanage.  However, in May, the Taiwanese adoption laws changed. Since no one knew exactly how these new laws would affect adoption, the orphanage, as well as many other orphanages in Taiwan, decided to place their adoption program on hold.
To say the least, we were sad about this change in plans, but felt God leading us to pursue a domestic adoption. So we began the process. About three weeks ago, our paperwork was completed and our profile began to be shown to birth mothers.
This past week I received an email from one of the women that works for The Home Of God's Love.  They are opening their program back up again and would like to go ahead and process our application. My jaw dropped and I had no clue what to say.  I immediately contacted Steve and we shared a little lunch-date-phone-conference. Those of you that know Steve and I well know that I am more emotionally driven and he is the rational one who keeps me in line.  So I fully expected my wonderful husband to inform me that we can't switch now and that we should just move forward with the domestic. But to my surprise, about two minutes into the conversation he said "Let's do it... let's switch back to Taiwan." Utter shock! We discussed it more and both fully agreed that Taiwan was always where our hearts were and we would have to be crazy to now jump at this opportunity.
A dear friend of ours shared a story with us last weekend... not knowing our circumstances and what decisions we were about to face. He told us about the African impala. The impala can jump up to ten feet high and a distance greater than thirty feet.  However, if you place a three foot wall in front of them, they will stay put.  Why? Because they can't see where they will land, so they will not jump. This whole week, in all of our decision-making... I just keep hearing God say "Don't let not seeing where you will land keep you from jumping." So we are going to take this leap of faith and switch back to Taiwan, knowing that God knows exactly where we will land! God has thrown several wrenches in our plans... and is stretching me about as thin as I can go in the patience department... but I couldn't be happier with where He is leading us! While we see this process a little bit at a time, He sees the end and knows exactly who our child is!

No comments:

Post a Comment