Nothing Is Impossible With God

This adoption thing is getting more real in my mind every day. We started school 2 weeks ago and I have been cleaning things out and organizing a bit. I tend to let things get pretty unkempt and then I do an overhaul. But this spell was a little different. Each closet I organized or shelf that I re-stacked, I was thinking about how new kids would be using them soon. I'm going to have to make room for different clothes in the closets. I going to have to put board books back in a prominent place on shelves. The crayons and markers and scissors are going to have to be under a lock and key once again. And soon Anderson will learn that the world does not revolve around him anymore. :) And I think he is going to undergo that change full of grace. He is ready to be a big brother. Just like I'm ready to be a mom to babies again. Emma is ready to change her siblings' diapers. In most families being the oldest of four means that you have gotten to do that, but not in ours. She was only three and a half years old when Anderson was born. Now she is going to be eight and a half and she might be the only kid that age that is still looking forward to this! Annie is excited to have a little sister to dress up. She has successfully put Anderson in a dress a time or two but that isn't near as fun as dressing Elsie will be. Johnny is ready to be on holding duty. Of all my kids, he is the one that will hold a baby through smiles and tears and is always sad when his turn is up. He has always been so gentle with babies, he was only 54 weeks old when Annie was born and he had the sweetest head-pet that he did to her. Daddy is anxious to fall asleep holding them, singlely or both at once on his chest, skin to skin. We are both wondering what their personalities will be like. Is Ki going to be scared like Annie when Daddy threw her up in the air? How long will it take Elsie to smile? (All the pictures we have of her, she looks so sad.) Are they going to be sitters or movers? Time will tell. 

The big prayer request right now is that the lawyer will "get to us" and send us an affidavit. He is supposed to email it to us. We will make sure all the information is correct, sign it, and have it notarized and then ship it to Uganda. As soon as we get that back to him, he can request a court date. When we have a court day, we go. 

Earlier this year Jonathan and I were talking about what we were bracing for and what we were praying for....two different things. :) Jonathan said he was bracing for 3 years. I told him I was praying for a 2012 adoption, which was one of those God-Moving-Mountains prayer requests. But I thought that if I was going to ask, then I was going to ask for what I wanted. And even though all signs pointed to years of waiting, we found our babies just over half way though 2012. God moved mountains. And now we have been told that December is when we should expect to go to Africa. And I'm praying for an October court date. I'm not testing God or trying to take advantage of Him. He tells me in the Bible that He delights in me and that He wants to give me good gifts. 

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:7-12

I know God doesn't give us everything we ask for. The Bible also tells me that I have to ask according to His will. Well David, in Psalm 68 tells me:

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing..."

I know that it would be better for my kids to be with us in our family, not half way across the world. Even with the best care-takers in the world, kids are lonely when they don't have a mommy and a daddy. And I am praying, and invite you to join me in praying for God to move mountains again. Let's be like the persistent widow in Luke 18. I'm praying day and night that we get to go in October--A mountain-moving prayer request.