Does Anyone Say No?

It's been a mix of emotions this week - we have experienced joy, excitement, and sorrow. God is faithful - he is with us - he is our provider, sustainer and he has us in the palm of his hand. He sits on his throne and he is in control of everything. We trust in God...with everything that we have.

Wednesday late afternoon I received a phone call. It was 5:15pm. I looked at my cell phone (as it nearly went tumbling into the sink full of water) and I saw the caller ID said Bethany Christian. This was a call from our agency! Now I don't get too overly excited when they call - I have a relationship with them outside of our adoption. Orphan ministry work with Passion1.27 and Bethany go hand in hand and we talk frequently about different ministry things. I answer the phone and it's our caseworker.

She asks  how I am - and I am figuring it is a call about an upcoming seminar or something that we are doing. We chit chat for a second and she says to me, "Kristin, we have a referral for you guys." I said, "Shut up. Are you kidding me?" She says no - we have a referral for you. Some more conversation and I said, "Will better just get home. Let me call him and I will call you back." So I hang up and I call Will. He answers and I said, "Where are you?" He said, "about to get the lettuce you asked me to pick up." I said, "skip it - come home. I got a call and we have a referral." He said, "What? Ok. I'm on my way. Oh, do you want the lettuce?" I said, "forget the lettuce. Just hurry home."

Will got home, we got on the computer and we called our caseworker back. We talked, Ethan wished her a happy New Year...we were waiting for the email with all the info and paperwork to come through. Our hearts were pounding. My legs were shaking, and I my knees were knocking. I was crying too. (for a woman who doesn't cry too much, I sure have been doing a lot of that lately!) This is THE CALL that we have been waiting for! Oh my goodness - I can't think straight.

We are talking and she tells us that the child is a girl...her birthday is a few weeks after Ethan's. We were a little surprised that it was that close to Ethan's. (Ethan, by the way, is 2-1/2 years old). Our preference is for a child younger than Ethan but more than just a couple of weeks. So we keep listening while we wait for the email. Then it comes. We open it and we read the information and then we see her precious picture. She is adorable. She is a healthy, beautiful little girl. She looks a bit taller than Ethan and she looks a bit older.

We get all the information from our caseworker, details, etc...etc...and we have 14 days to review the information, talk to our pediatrician and then sign and return the referral letter. We hang up the phone and we look at each other. We look at the paperwork. We begin to pray.  As we read more, we know that the bone scan done of this child reports that she is 3 years old. We continue to read about her development, her skill levels, etc...and we can tell that she is clearly a solid 3 year old, not an almost 3 year old. This is outside what our preference is. Birth order is important to us - with adoption and no biological children, we want to maintain birth order for our family. So this went outside that. And we aren't sure about it.

We talk. We pray. We don't sleep. We pray. We weep. We pray. We pray. We made a phone call to our pastor and asked him for prayer. We are struggling in our flesh and we know we have to take our flesh out of it - and we surrender all to God. We are here to do God's will - whatever it will be. We wait to hear from God. God, if this is the child you have chosen for us, please break our heart and let us know that this is where you want us to go. Where you go, we will go. "Be still...and know that I am God" rang through my ears.

As we wrestled to sleep Wednesday night, we laid in bed, praying and leaving everything at the foot of the cross. Two words I heard over, and over and over all night..."birth order". Nothing else. Just "birth order". That could go either way - birth order matters, or birth order doesn't matter.

We talked Thursday morning...Will asked me what I heard. I asked him what he heard. I said, well, there weren't any billboards or flashing signs - just two words. He said he didn't get anything definite. We cried some more - our hearts were breaking but not for the reasons we had hoped. We continued to pray throughout the day on Thursday...we talked again at the end of the day and we cried some more and we talked some more and we prayed some more.

Friday morning came. We looked at each other. We had our answer. We heard from God. We made a decision. Mid morning we got an email from our pastor asking us how we were and he offered words of encouragement. Can I just tell you how merciful and awesome God is? He confirmed what we heard through the email from our pastor. Every single thing that we said we heard from God, was written in that email. But the email came in while we were at the bank having our referral letter notarized. We didn't see it until after I got home. We made a decision after bathing it in prayer to our Lord. We signed our referral letter declining the referral of this precious little girl. I have tears running down my cheeks as I right this. I have peace that only God can give that there is a better family for her. I am struggling with the feelings of having to say no...to a child who just wants a family. But I know that for her, God has the perfect family. And God has a child for us...birth order is important in our family, confirmed by God.

This is the hardest decision we have ever had to make. It hurts. A lot. More than a lot. We advocate for orphans every. single. day. of our lives. Sure we have asked God why he'd place this before us. To say no to a child? He can do that. He's God. And he is in control. Not us. He has reminded me again that this adoption is bigger than us. There is more to it than us just adopting a child into our family. His plan is bigger and we can't wrap our head around the whole thing. He is using other people in our story. He is using us to carry out his plan. He is using this heartache to draw us ever close to him. To remind us that he is in control. And he is saying, Trust Me.

So why did we choose to share this when we could just keep it quiet and to ourselves? Does anyone ever say no to a referral? Difficult, but yes they do. We did. You may agree with all this or not. If not, that's your prerogative. But when you seek God, hear his voice, and follow him - he can take you down a road that you didn't expect. And it's ok to say no, as long as it follows God's plan. We also want to share this with other families so that if they come up against it, they know that others have travelled the hard road. Talk to other adoptive families. Talk to those who have traveled the adoption road and who have experienced the same thing. We thank God that he has brought us such great adoptive friends who we have been able to talk to about this and they have been an awesome support to us. I can't tell you how much that support means - it has made a huge difference in how we are walking through this time. We want to share that God is in control of all things and that he can do what he wants, when he wants and we have to trust him. Remove ourselves from the situation, draw closer to him, and listen. He never said that this would be easy. No, God does not call everyone to adopt. Not all at the same time anyway. :) Your time may come sooner...or later. When it does, check everything you think you know at the door. Check yourself at the door. Trust God. He brought you into it, he will see you through it.

We have had heartache back to back. But God is on his throne. He is sovereign and he reigns. We trust him...this plan is much bigger than us. And we know that he has prepared much joy for us. Our family is created by God's design - we have nothing to do with it. We simply trust God and we walk in confidence knowing that he has a family for this precious little girl...and he has our child...and we will be a family soon. Thy will be done, oh Lord...