Why I Gave Up

Funny story… so in January 2017 I shared with you all we were wanting to adopt. I was excited about adding a young school aged boy to our home. We prepped Eli’s room with bunk beds and got “brother’s bed” ready.

Then the paperwork.

50+ pages of information and questions.

And rules.

The rules freaked me out.

I was all for adopting until I started reading the pages and pages of “rules” it takes (foster to adopt) that would very much disrupt our lives. I KNOW that is selfish. Even typing it is super embarrassing, but I’m just being honest and sharing my crap with you all – because why not?

I can’t leave my kids with several family members due to past legal issues. I can’t travel to see my parents on a whim (because they are out of county and that takes prior court approval). I can’t use our trusted Youth Group peeps to babysit anymore. And so on.

I didn’t like that. Not to mention the amount of “all-up-in-yo-business” questions that range from how often do you and your spouse fight (and how do you fight) to how “sexually compatible” me and Justin are.

So… I gave up. This was too much work. Causing too much “unknown” for my overly-planned out heart.

THEN, we started listening to some stuff by Francis Chan. If you don’t know him, watch and read all his things. I’m pretty sure it is completely impossible to walk away from anything he presents and not feel some sort of conviction.

He was talking about marriage and how people say things like “We could never do XYZ like you”.  And he said neither can he! It’s by the Grace of God he gets through things. It is our job to make the leap and let God fit together the pieces.

I don’t like that. I like knowing what’s coming. I like some semblance of control. YES I know this is NOT the right attitude.  Hence the conviction.

So here we are, app in hand (making Justin refill the whole thing out since I threw away the first one) and we’re going to go for it.  So, pray for us (me) please.  If God wants us to welcome anther kiddo into our family, then pray for peace for me to go with the flow and take it all one manageable chunk at a time. If it isn’t His plan, pray we find out soon so I don’t have this looming uncertainty that I super-duper hate (but that’s probably the lesson I need to learn regardless of the outcome).