When God Throws A Curve Ball...

...you catch it.  And then blog about it.  :)

It's been a while.  So much has happened.  I thought I would post about the privilege we had of traveling to Idaho this summer to help on the ranch, Springs of Hope.  I thought I would post about the rest of our trip West.  I thought I would do a 'first day of school' post.  I thought I would advertise the soap and body butter that I make and sell. 

I thought I would. But I didn't.  Life was too busy.

And sometimes God throws a curve ball into our lives to remind us that our busy-ness may not be what He has in mind for us. 

You've all heard about folks who have surprise pregnancies.  In fact, a couple years ago you read about that right here on this blog.  But how many of you have heard of surprise adoptions?!

Well.  If this pans out as it's appearing it may right now...you are reading about a surprise adoption.

We weren't preparing for a fifth child to enter our family.  We really didn't think we needed any more children.  Four is a nice number.  And our family life was FINALLY settling into a 'normal' family setting. 

Our children tell us frequently that they REALLY want another baby, to which we reply "that's not in our hands.  Only God knows if we will ever have more children.  And if we do we'll be delighted!"  They weren't too pleased with that answer, but really it's the truth.  When it comes right down to it, not one of us has the liberty to plan how large/small family we will have.  We can try....but God is bigger than our plans.

Little did we know that our 'baby' would come in the size of a walking, talking five year old!!

Just two weeks ago yesterday we were put in touch with a family who was struggling with their daughter.  We were asked if we could help, or if we knew of anyone who would be willing to help.  We posted it on facebook.  We thought.  We prayed.  We raised our eyebrows at each other and said....we can help.  Let's go for it.

And so we set a time for the family to come to our home.  Two weeks ago today we welcomed their family.  They came as near strangers (well, they buy meat off of us, but we knew nothing about them except the fact that they like lamb and beef.) and left six hours later as friends.  Friends who were desperate for some help.

We offered to do respite. 

Sometime in the course of the week it came out that they weren't feeling that they were equipped to keep their daughter.  They adopted her out of the foster system a year ago and simply were not prepared for the struggles that some adopted children come with.  It is hard.  It is time consuming.  It is stress filled.  It is a cause of many, many divorces in the United States.

Before I go any further, I want to ask that you pray for Gracie's family.  This is so very hard for them.  They love her.  They want to keep her in their family because she is their daughter.  BUT...adoption is not for everyone.  I am all for adoption.  I love it.  After all three of our four children (hopefully four of our five) have come to us through adoption.  You ask how a five year old can do anything that would cause a divorce?  You ask how a  family could even THINK of giving up their daughter?  You ask what in the world they are thinking?  I could go on and on.  We had a five year old who once delighted in the wedge he was driving between Jason and I.  It's called triangulation.  We had a five year old who seemed to destroy anything and everything...punching holes in walls and tearing apart his bed to use the bedrail as a drill in the ceiling of his bedroom.  It is possible to have a five year old terror....a cute one.  One who appears in public to be a perfectly well adjusted child...but in the privacy of the home is the total opposite.

Back to the family of Gracie.  Please pray for them.  Please.  As excited as we are to welcome her into our tribe, not too far from us is a family who is crying.  A family who feels like their daughter has died but she is very much alive.  A daughter who has driven a wedge between her parents.  A daughter who is hurting and traumatized.  A daughter they love.  As hard as it is for them, I respect them for admitting that they simply cannot go on. 

Back to 1.5 weeks ago.  The family was torn.  In the end, we told them through the course of much praying and talking that if they did not want to do the work it would take to heal her heart, if they did not feel that it would work for their family...we would be willing bring her into our home.

They prayed.  We kept Gracie last weekend so they could discuss freely as a family what they felt would be best for them.  And they told us last Sunday night that they would like us to adopt her if we were still willing.

We are.

Just one small problem.  We currently have no homestudy.....and that is pretty much an important document if you plan to adopt.  See what I mean about this being a surprise?!

So how does this continue?  We first have to gain legal guardianship of her...which we are working on.  After that we start a homestudy.  For the third time.  May I offer a word of advice to any who have current homestudies? Don't let them expire.  It's far easier to do an update than it is to start from scratch.   Just saying.

Legal guardianship should take a couple weeks once we get all the required documents to the attorney.  Then we take several months (at least) getting a homestudy approved.  Then there is a mandatory six month waiting period (I think it's that long) before we can adopt her. 

Here we go again!!! 

I guess the thing that I want to stress here is not the fact that we are welcoming another child into our home.  It's not about us.

Our family story has totally been written by Jesus.  When we married we dreamed of having a large family.  At least six children.  And then we were informed by doctors that biological children were not to be expected.

Enter adoption. 

Had it not been for our infertility, I have no doubt that we never would have adopted.  We never would have dealt with the trials that have made us who we are as a couple.

We brought home three children from Russia and declared ourselves 'done'.  We were happy.  We had two boys and a girl.  Life was going well.

Then Will started down his path of trauma-induced struggles and we thought we could not go on.

Enter a surprise pregnancy!  We thought it couldn't be.  Couldn't God see how stressful our lives were?  Couldn't He see that we were exhausted?  Couldn't he see that our marriage was on the rocks?  Couldn't He see that we simply could NOT handle another child...let alone a baby who would keep me up half the night?

It turned out that God did know best.  Huh.  Imagine that. God knew that being pregnant with Ty would cause Will to ramp things up even more...which would cause us to seek drastic help from a therapist in Colorado who would give us the tools we needed to help Will through his struggles.  God knew that Ty would need to eat every couple hours.  God knew that I would need that time with a baby...the time to relax, to regroup, to pray.  God knew that a baby could coax a smile from even the most weary of parents.

And now?  God knew we were getting comfortable where we were.  Things were going well...and He knows that when that happens we tend to not spend as much time on our knees.

God knew.  God knows.  God is writing the story. 

I have no clue how this story will be written.  All I know is that right now we have five children.  Right now, Addie has her much longed for little sister.  Right now, we have another hurting traumatized child sleeping upstairs and I don't have any answers.

I don't feel like I can handle more heartache from a child.  I don't always feel like I can handle this.

And I'm so glad I don't.  For if there is one thing I have learned in the past six years....God WILL give us more than we can handle, for it's in that that we learn to better trust Him.