Mission Accomplished.

Normally, I am of the opinion that it is a little pretentious to blog about one's possessions or the amount of money in a person's bank account.  That said, I hope that this post doesn't come across as bragging because this is not a story about our hard work or savvy money-saving skills; it's really about the generosity of people and God's provisions to our little family.  

Somehow, we've come up with enough money to pay for this adoption.  

It's crazy to think that we began this journey just three months ago, and our needs have already been met far beyond what we ever could have imagined.  I can't even explain how it happened.  

The garage sale that we had this weekend was the perfect example of how everything has fallen into place so beautifully as we have been waiting for our baby.  It rained for two days straight this week, and the weather is looking uglier again today.  But for the two days of our garage sale, the sun came out, and we had a high of 75 degrees.  We sold 90 percent of our stuff on Friday, and Saturday was almost as successful.  This whole process has been that way.  Things that have been completely out of our control, like having great weather on the two days of our sale, have just happened.  No reasons, no explanations.  It's as if, in the midst of our doubt, God smiles down on us at exactly the right time and says, "You don't need to worry about this."

Do you ever hear those commercials for medications that explain all the benefits of taking a certain pill and then hurriedly rattle off 500 side effects, one of which is always death?  If you were to only listen to the side effects for those medications, you would never take the pills!  Adoption is sort of like that, too.  We knew how expensive this would be, and for awhile, that is the main thing we considered.  "This is impossible for people in our financial situation," we thought.  (Okay, Andrew didn't think that nearly as much as I did, but he isn't nearly as much of a control freak as me.)  Then our friend, Andy McDonald (who has adopted three children), told us that "if you wait until you have the money in front of you, you'll never do this thing."  In that moment, I knew that we just had to trust beyond what we could see and believe that, if adoption was the right thing for our family, we would be okay.  Clearly, adoption is the right thing for our family.  

You, friends and family, have been a huge part of all the good that has happened to us in the last three months.  You have wrapped your arms around us and shown us what it means to love and to give selflessly just for the sake of giving.  Thank you for joining us as this amazing story unfolds.

The thing I keep coming back to is the fact that we don't deserve this.  We're just two people who make a lot of mistakes and have a lot to learn.  But God "makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."  Praise Him, for His grace rains down on even me.

Garage Sale Day