Wisdom

Haggai 1:5
"Now, this is what the Lord Almighty says: Give careful thought to your ways."

Proverbs 16:3
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

A decision

So the question then was where was Andy in all of this... on board he was, but waiting for the same clear confirmation. He went to New Orleans on a mission trip in March and during that month leading up to it, it about did me in to keep my mouth shut in asking him what he was thinking. Before he left, I asked him, "When do you think you will know if you are ready to adopt?" He said in all out manly fashion, " I will give you an answer when I get back." I said, how do you know you will know then?" He said, "I just will."...

Andy listened to a sermon in New Orleans at 7 am by a preacher and twenty minutes was about adoption--adopting people in your life, community, church. There were so many drips ((a saying coined in the movie "Amazing Grace" where the butler asks William Wilberforce (the man who Andy did his seminary thesis on), how do you know God is speaking....He describes it as not a flash of lightning, but drippings)).

The culmination of all our "drippings" was when Andy came home and said, "I am ready to adopt!" Yiphee...

The Big Picture

During these few months, one weekend in February, I spent the weekend watching my sister's two little ones and Andy was out of town. I had 30 minutes of time to myself and I was at the end of my rope. I sat down and printed out my Bible study from church. This weeks lesson that I printed was titled "Adoption by God". The week before I had prayed for God to confirm it in Scripture that we were supposed to adopt. This same week, I stumbled upon my journal from 3 years before, opened to the page where I had written about my experience in Boone.

As I went through this study I had chills the entire time. I had always asked myself, "why would I adopt?" "Was I doing it to try to rescue someone that I may not be able to help in the end or was I doing it to make myself feel good?" or was this something God was calling me to... Lots of questions flooded my mind as I was searching this out.

The study progressed to paint the incredible picture of how God adopts us into His family. It struck me in my own life and my relationship with God that God only adopted me into His family because He loved me, not because of anything I had done or deserved; therefore the ONLY reason I could adopt is because God would give me the love to adopt. I wouldn't have that love on my own. I am too selfish, I am too sinful. It was then that I realized, I didn't need to have all that in my heart, that God would give it to me. I couldn't do anything good for God--it was just God in me leading me to do it.

The last verse in the study was 1 John 3:1, "How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God--and that is what we are." It all clicked in this verse because I had never read it in this way before..... it just happened to be the verse in Andy and my wedding bands...