Overwhelmed

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps” Ps 16:9

This past week we have been overwhelmed.  The adoption process begins with the preliminary application followed by the formal application.  Those are followed by the infamous home study, which is more paperwork about finances, medical history, family relationships, marriage, and a measure of the ability to be parents.  After writing all of this down for someone to comb through, then comes hosting someone in your home on multiple occasions to interview you about all of these personal details. She determines if you and your home are fit for children. Last week we had two home visits, where we felt a little overwhelmed.

These home visits and interviews lead to more and more questions about the future: are we really ready for this?  How completely are our lives going to change?  Will we be good parents?  What kind of man or woman will child grow up to be? What challenges are in store? Will he or she follow Christ? Will there be any medical or behavioral complications some day? Like many other expectant parents, the questions are endless; we end up spinning and utterly overwhelmed.

There is then the added burden to figure out how to make adoption work financially. There are very real costs involved in adoption that unfortunately insurance does not cover, which leads to (you guessed it) feeling overwhelmed.

Yesterday, everyone we saw greeted us, with “How did the garage sale go,” with excitement and anticipation in their voices. We can honestly answer by the grace of God, our garage sale and pancake breakfast fundraiser was an amazing success.  We can never say thank you enough to all of the people who took part by praying for us, giving of their time and effort to help set up and clean up, donating enormous amounts of furniture, clothes, household items, and used (although never used as much as one intends) exercise equipment.

So many people came to eat pancakes, pretending they were better than ones made out of the box, buy stuff they probably didn’t need, and make overly generous donations in support of our adoption.  Because of your support, we were able to raise a little over half of our entire goal in one single day.  We are overwhelmed.

As we sit here this morning looking back over this past week and weekend, all of the tedious paperwork and interviews behind us fade away. All of the unknown steps and waiting to come seem to be irrelevant as we are overwhelmed by the love and support of so many friends and family who we recognize are in this with us.

 Most of all, we are overwhelmed by God’s assurance, confirmation, and provision for this adoption to which he has called us. Thank you for being the avenue in which God is affirming his will for us as we seek to obediently follow after him.  And thank you for being excited for us as we anticipate meeting our precious baby. We are overwhelmed.

“My cup runneth
over” Ps 23:5