GratiTuesday-

As I sit ready to write this post, I’m having a hard time getting started.  Not because I don’t have anything to be grateful for, but because I have SO much to be grateful for.  So, as I shift through what to write about today, I think I’ll begin with God’s plans for our lives.

Throughout the entire foster-adopt process I used the scripture Jeremiah 29:11 as my mantra.  “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”.  You see, we were only supposed to have my daughter for the weekend.  We were to provide respite care for another foster family.

Let me start at the beginning:

My husband and I began to fill called to do foster care about 3 years ago.  My husband and I are rarely on the same page, so when we both felt called we knew this was God’s work.    We started the process, by meeting with our foster agency, and had no expectations at all for the outcome.  While getting licensed our agency recommended that we get licensed for foster-adopt in case we got a child who needed a forever home.  They asked if we were open to adoption.  My husband was the first to say what I was thinking, “We don’t want to limit God, this is His plan, so yes, we’ll get licensed for both”.

We went through Pride classes, and already knew things were different.  The other families that we were going through Pride with were all set on adoption, many having some infertility issues.  We figured we would be the one family out of our classes to strictly foster, since there were so many wonderful couples who couldn’t have more children for one reason or another who wanted to adopt.  We don’t have an infertility issues, just felt called to help kids in the system.

Throughout the process of getting licensed there were many ups and downs, each I could write a post about (maybe I will!)…  One particular Wednesday I had prayer at the church.  I was scheduled to be at the church for silent prayer for an hour.  I had so many things going on I didn’t even want to go, but I had committed to being there, so I went.

As it turned out the other person who was supposed to be there didn’t make it, so it was just me and God in the sanctuary.  I sat in silence for a while, then I started praying and basically telling God about all of the problems that were arising through the licensing process and asking Him if this was His will or mine… 

I told Him I didn’t want to be on the Semalee Train, only the Jesus Train

I sat in silence for a while longer and then opened the Book of Common Prayer.

I opened it right up the page for the “Prayer of Thanksgiving for an Adopted Child”.

Um….. Ok….  There was my confirmation that this adventure was in fact, God’s Will, and not ours……

To be continued…..

This post is linked to Heavenly Homemaker for GratiTuesday