Overwhelming Peace

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,

by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Oh, friends! I have missed you all. What a wonderful and much needed rest we had while visiting family. It was amazing to spend time with our extended families and have some quality time with just the three of us as well. God always knows just what we need!

I am sure you are wondering about our meeting on the 15th. There is so much that I would love to tell you all, but until we know for sure what is going to happen I have to keep quiet. Believe me, it's so difficult! However, I will say that overall the meeting went surprisingly well. I had no idea what to expect as we began, and quite frankly, I'm sure that no one else in the room did either! The hand of God was so amazingly clear that day though. As we began to talk to the parents of this sweet child it was clear that one was not fully on board with the idea of us adopting their child. However, as we gave honest answers to some really tough questions it was so incredible to watch as God worked to change the heart and mind of one of the parents. Despite my own misgivings I found myself genuinely connecting with this birth parent. What an amazing relationship that may potentially grow there! That, dear friends, is the kind of thing that only God can do!

Strangely, one of the parents decided to take a nap during most of our meeting, but even that seemed to be orchestrated divinely. The two birth parents have a hard time communicating with one another (which is why they are no longer together) so it was actually a blessing to get to speak with the parent that we hadn't yet had the opportunity to talk with. Plus, the parent who left the room was already on board with the idea of adoption.

After about 6 hours (most of which were spent talking with the birth parent about the adoption, etc) we were ready to leave in high spirits since it appeared that we could call a lawyer and start the process! You can imagine our shock when the napping parent emerged and stated that there had been a misunderstanding and if we were going to keep the child (instead of "fixing" the child and allowing the birth parents to re-adopt their own child) then we needed to rethink the situation. Oh how our hearts sank in that moment. So now we are back to the beginning, but we are not without hope.

You would think that at this point we might be discouraged, but honestly Ben and I both have such a peace about the situation. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can tend to be a little uptight and easily stressed about things. And I would normally feel justified being stressed about this situation. However, it is so apparent that we have wonderful people who are praying for us because we are overwhelmed with peace and not anxiety. For this I can't thank you all enough. The verse that I posted above is the perfect description of how I feel right now; overwhelmed with a peace from God that I can't even begin to understand.

So please, keep the prayers coming! Pray for this child, for both of the parents, for the guardian that the child is currently living with, for Hunter and Ben and I as we wait and see what God has in store for our family...

Thank you for the prayers, and please know that they are working!!!

Love,

B, E & H

p.s. While I ask for prayer for Hunter as well, please know that he is unaware of this situation. He was with us as we met with the child and birth parents, but he had no idea why we were there. One positive note is that he had a blast playing with this child who could be joining our family - what a blessing! Hunter is well aware that we are adopting, but we don't want to get his hopes up about a particular sibling until we are certain that things will work out :)