Why adopt?

After getting this question a few more times this weekend, I thought I would share with you, my blogger friends, the whole story of how we came to the decision to adopt. When asked why we are adopting Robb very simply answers, "It is bigger than we are." That short sentence pretty much sums it up. A year ago in March I followed the adoption journey of a friend of ours. Long after they were home I found myself still reading adoption stories daily on the internet. With Gage not even 1 year old, I knew that this wasn't something for our family but enjoyed reading of other families who gave the gift of life to an orphan. I started praying for orphans and for the Lord's protection upon them. By Fall I was starting to feel a stirring in my heart about doing more for these orphans. With a 15 month old I still felt that adoption couldn't be for us and found many reasons why it just wouldn't work for our family to adopt but maybe we were supposed to be doing missions work. The stirring became more evident and the more God nudged the more I prayed. From November to February I had chronic stomach aches that I saw a doctor about, and of course the tests brought up nothing. He put me on heartburn medicine and sent me on my way. One night in February I woke up with such a heaviness on my chest that I could barely breathe. I started sobbing as I thought of all the orphans in the world that weren't being held that night because there just wasn't enough hands to provide comfort for them. I had a vision of a room full of cribs with babies lying quietly, waiting for their turn to be held. At that very moment I knew that God had a bigger plan for our lives. We were to provide a home to one of those orphans. Well, now that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was what we needed to do, Robb hadn't had any of the same feelings. I never shared anything about what I had been feeling because Robb was satisfied with our family after we had Brylie....I talked him into a 3rd and there was no way I wanted to even approach him about a 4th! My stomach aches became worse after my revelation and it was eating me up inside as I prepared to tell Robb about all that had been going on in my heart. Two weeks after that night Robb and I lay in bed and I cried as I told him about what the Lord showed me. I explained that this was not something I sought after, but something that the Lord brought to me. He hugged me with tears in his eyes, knowing what I had been going through, and agreed to spend a lot of time in prayer about it. I knew that the enemy had been working over time on me when, after I spilled my heart to Robb, the stomach aches completely stopped! I haven't had a stomach ache since! After 3 weeks of fervent prayer Robb wanted to proceed with the adoption of a little girl from China. We both felt so confident about this decision and knew that this was the path of the Lord. Well, just this weekend Robb said to me, "ever since making the decision to adopt, I feel like I have been under attack". And it clicked....since that decision, Robb has had a terrible eye infection, pulled a muscle in his chest, which caused him a lot of pain, had several back aches, and most recently has suffered with an aching pain in his side. The devil works in such a way that it took us a while to realize what was happening. We had been chalking up all the aches and pains to stress and whatnot. Knowing that we are "under attack" only makes us more confident that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Now that we recognize what is happening, we are committed to praying even more for God's hand upon the whole process. This past weekend I was told by another mom that is adopting that she heard it could take up to 3 years for us to get our little girls. I am believing that this will not happen and we will have our daughters by the beginning of 2009. God can do amazing things and I believe he will miraculously speed up the very slow adoption process so more children can be united to their forever families. So, to answer the question, 'Why adopt?' we can confidently sum it all up by responding with, "it is bigger than we are".