Monday, February 24, 2014

a good place to start

I have to be honest with you…I’ve wanted to make this little story of ours public for some time, but I haven’t known where to begin. To start a blog about adoption and our life in general felt daunting to me- when there are so many great, well-written, hilarious blogs these days, what do I have to add to the mix? I most definitely do not have all of the answers to adoption (or any answers at all, really), but since we all have to start somewhere, this seems like as good of a place as any to let the world on in. Maybe our story will one day encourage someone else to start their own journey...to write their own story.

Our story actually began before Erik and I got married. As we were dating, I would bring up the subject of adoption fairly regularly. Mostly because I wanted to make sure E was on board with adoption before we got too serious, since it has always been on my heart to adopt. Apparently, it had always been on his too. We knew when we got married that we would definitely adopt at some point, maybe once we had two or three biological kids in middle and/or high school, and for sure not until we had more financial resources to put into an adoption.
I can just see God laughing about that little plan of ours back then. What a different path we would end up walking in the years to come.  
Three years and four heartbreaking miscarriages later, here we are, doing what God put in our hearts to do so many years ago, just a lot sooner than we ever thought. God has so sweetly carried us through the past two very painful years, knowing long before we did what a beautiful future He had planned for us. He is so faithful!
I have no doubt I will share the first few chapters of our story in more detail at some point, but for now I want to focus on this exciting part in our story- the beginning stages of our adoption journey! In the weeks to come, I hope to explain the part of the adoption process we’ve already flown through, and lay out what is to come for those of you who are following along with us, or want to know what the process is like if you are personally considering adoption. I am also blogging for my sweet kiddos-to-come, so that they can one day read about our exciting adventure to becoming a family!

So this is us. Two crazy kids, determined to fulfill God's call on our life by adopting a precious child (hopefully, siblings!) from Ethiopia. The wait-time is predicted to be long, and the international adoption system is not exactly stable or inexpensive. These facts truly do not phase us. We just know that we know that God is in this, and He that began a good work in and through us will carry it to full completion. I cant wait to see what that looks like, and how He will grow us in the process.
xoxo,
Lori