It’s difficult to believe that nearly four years have passed since we welcomed home our joyful, energetic, fun-loving, and outgoing daughter Emma-Kate. The way God has supernaturally grafted her into our family is evidence of how close to His heart adoption truly is. When I see her snuggling up with her Daddy or dancing on the stage of our living room floor or hear her singing (loudly) the lyrics from this summer’s VBS or feel her climbing into our bed too early in the morning to burrow underneath her Mommy, it is clear that she was meant to be ours. Some days I forget she was not always with us.
Don’t get me wrong, adoption has not been an easy process. Four years ago, we were longing to be on this side to be able to tell the “good” part of the story. But the “hard” part is just as important to the story. So on the days when I am forgetful, the Lord reminds me of ALL that He has done and is still doing in our family. It was through the painful, dark and agonizing 15 ½ year wait of infertility… the tedious, intrusive, “labor pains” of home studies and paperwork… the enormous financial expenses… the disappointing heartbreak of a failed referral… the scary journey across the world and living for a month in a foreign culture… the return home to face months and years of attachment challenges, sleep deprivation and special needs surgeries. No, adoption has not been easy. But would I do it again? Absolutely, in a heartbeat!
Grace Klein Community has been an instrumental part of God’s provision for us. In October 2010 when we were struggling to meet the financial requirements of our adoption, GKC sponsored our family with their very first ADOPTION YARD SALE. In a moment of discouragement, I had wondered to myself whether it was even worth having the sale since we had only a few, seemingly worthless items to sell on our own. But then the “love” started pouring in… in the form of donations. GKC workers delivered truckloads of toys, clothes, furniture and appliances to our home in the days leading up to the sale. When the date arrived, we had more stuff than we ever dreamed possible! What a blessing it was to have the support of GKC and friends from our church small group to help us raise funds toward our adoption. We were thrilled to realize that the total amount raised was enough to cover our next adoption payment!
We are so grateful for the ways that God continues to provide for us financially and in every other way. When those ways are totally unexpected and unconventional, His creativity and abundant love for us is clear.
Acts 17 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
