Wee One Wednesday: The Decision

We have talked about it for over a decade. 

One vivid memory of one such conversation came over two years ago. I will never forget that moment in the hospital. It was just HOURS after our Harrison had been born. I was holding him in my arms, sitting quietly next to my hub, when he asked the question, "So. When do you want adopt?" 

We put the conversation on hold for awhile, adjusting, and diving in, to life as a family of five, until last December. It was my hub who brought it back up again: We were out to eat, just the two of us, and spent the majority of our dinner talking about whether it was the right decision for us, for our family. About whether we would be good enough parents. About what the future would hold. About the changes that would come. 

We decided to take some time, independently, to pray over it, think about it, journal about it, and consult with others who had been through the process. We took several months, often coming back together to see where the other was in the decision-making process. Meanwhile, I was also investigating adoption agencies and home study agencies, looking at all the process would entail, evaluating the costs, examining the timeline, and reading blogs and articles and any and everything I could get my hands on. Basically, researching everything I could. All while trying to decide if this was the path God wanted our family to take. 

During this time of pause, when we were deep in the decision-making process, a name popped into my head one day. It was a name I had never considered before when naming our three biological children.

Twice over the next month, I would ask God for any sort of sign that adoption was the path we were meant to take. He answered loud and clear: once, during a trip to Charleston, when I took the kids to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. Banks was calling out to their dog over and over, only the dog wouldn't come to him. I stood motionless, taking in what was happening before me. The dog wasn't responding because Banks wasn't calling her by her name. He was calling her the name that had suddenly popped into my head just weeks before, a name that was nothing like the dog's actual name. The name I had already chosen for our fourth baby.

Another day, about a week later, I again asked for some sort of sign to help guide my decision-making. Later that morning, I was talking to my sister on the phone when she asked me to hold on for a moment so that she could respond to a question my niece had just asked her. In her response, she said the name, that same name that had popped into my head weeks before. The same name Banks had called out over and over days earlier. I had never heard my sister utter that name before, but I heard it then, loud and clear. 

Still, though, I wanted to be certain. That I was enough, that we were enough, to nurture another child in the way that she deserved.  

And then, one night, it just hit me. In fact, it hit me like a ton of bricks: 

I knew. I just knew. Our fourth child was out there. And we needed to do everything necessary to get to her, even if that meant enduring many months of intense paperwork, thorough interviews, and extensive training. Even if that meant financial changes, increased budgeting, and creative fundraising to pay for the expensive process. Even if that meant an uncertain future and drastic changes to what I had always envisioned our family would look like. Even if that meant feeling scared and vulnerable and overwhelmed and nervous and excited and joyful and happy and ecstatic all at once. Even if that meant traveling to the other side of the world to get her. 

She was out there. And we needed to do everything necessary to get to her. I was certain. 

My hub agreed.

And so, it all began...

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27.