At almost 8 weeks post surgery, life is getting back to normal....I am feeling so much better, back at work full time, and focused on our adoption journey! Life is GOOD!
Life for Joe and I is a true blessing! We are so grateful for our amazing family, church family, and friends who surround us with love and give us that little extra squeeze to get through the tough days.
At the end of June when we were getting all of our paperwork together to start applying to adoption agencies and waiting on our home study to be complete, we had no idea what our journey would show us or how our hearts would be opened and changed forever.
We have been so blessed to have friends who have walked this adoption path before us as well as an amazing new forever friend and consultant extraordinaire, who have helped us to understand so many things about what is important, and what is not in the grand adoption plan.
When going through this journey, you are presented with adoption opportunities/situations and you must decided based on the information you are given, if you would like to be presented to the birth mother and from there, she picks a family and that is called a match.
As a hopeful adoptive family, we have been asked numerous times, what gender of baby are you wanting to adopt, what race, what age, how do you feel about the birth mom drinking, taking drugs, smoking....all of these things factor into whether an adoptive family decides to be shown. What Joe and I have learned about ourselves is that we are so much better for being asked these questions and for really having to examine each situation and ourselves.
When an opportunity arises, Joe and I spend time reading through the information we are given and really seek God to find out whether this is an opportunity that we'd like to be presented. We make these decisions together and we try to learn as much as we can before we make this important decision. Opportunity/Situations come in waves, some days to a week...there is nothing....some days to a week....there are many. We have truly felt like the opportunities and situation that we have been presented with have asked us to reach deep inside and to look hard at ourselves to know what our hearts feel and what we know we can handle.
Life does not stop just because you are on this adoption roller coaster ride and journey.
Work is super busy as we work on the system integration, Joe has been involved with the youth at church and in an amazing production of the book of Acts to the theme of Grease, called Grace, Your the One God Wants. I have been trying to get back in swing of things and resting as much as I can.
Joe is so sweet to feed my love of farmers markets, craft shows and shopping at Goodwill or GW as we like to call it!
My BFF, who has adopted 2 children, told me you don't adopt on accident...it is a purposeful journey. Its not a sprint, its a marathon with a great prize at the end. And this is such a true statement. Even with the ups and down, Joe and I have always found a lot of life to make us laugh and most of all we have found a deeper love for each other. We are truly blessed!
We ask that you continue to pray for us, we know that God has a great plan and we must wait on His timing. We know that we will be matched and at the end our blessing will arrive...but until then, we pray, we live a great life, we laugh (a lot) and we love....each other and the life we have together!
We are still fund raising. Please visit our fundraising site and donate. Every dollar helps us to get to where we need to be in order to be able to bring our blessing home!
http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/karen-joe-s-adoption-journey/62934
Peace and Blessings to all!
Karen
