The Beginning of Our Story...
Most who know us well know that for years Travis and I were very content with our precious ONLY child. I was kind of drawn to the less chaotic, simple life. It's so attractive to us control freaks. About 99% of the time my house is calm and in perfect order. I don't have but one kid to make a mess and she is at school most of the day so there is little, if any mess she ever makes (plus she loves things clean and orderly just like her momma). Needless to say for several years we battled with the should we have another child question that lingered in our hearts and minds. There were days we felt happy with our little family of 3 but then days we felt like we weren't a normal family and should be increasing our offspring (that insecurity and guilt could be a whole other blog). Finally in July 2012 after lots of prayer and an increased longing in our hearts, we decided we were ready to have another baby. (And so was our persistent ONLY child - who kept praying for a brother or sister every.single.day. Bless her.). I quickly began to imagine our family with a precious new addition. And my heart grew. After a few months of trying to get pregnant and a doctor visit later I discovered I have thyroid issues which direly affects ovulation. So it wasn't going to be as quick and immediate as we had hoped. It took several months to get my thyroid levels normal followed by more months of trying to get pregnant with no success.
But in all that time of waiting and hoping, The Lord began to do something in my heart. I really began to feel the Spirit leading me to a level of contentment and trust in God's plan for my life and the future of our family like I've never felt before. I handed my anxiety and impatience over to Him. Overwhelming peace filled my heart. It's a blessing for sure. Most women deal with infertility and miscarriage and a depth of pain and sorrow that no woman can understand until you've been there. I began to think that maybe we were just supposed to be a family of 3. And I was ok with that if that's what the Lord had for us.
At some point in our journey the subject of adoption kept showing up. Just here and there. I'd see it on Facebook. Meet someone. Hear a story. See a video. Just about every day. I'm not kidding. It was like in.my.face. So I began to think maybe the Lord was trying to get my attention. You think?Travis and I had never thought about or really talked about adoption. I mean we had friends that had adopted but honestly it wasn't ever something we looked at and felt a sense to do. But wow... when you ask the Lord to reveal to you His will and then you clearly see that He's calling you to something... don't ignore it. Pray about it. Ask the Lord for confidence, wisdom, grace and overwhelming JOY - which you will feel when you start following that calling.
So with the subject of adoption popping up everywhere I thought I might as well think about it and talk to some friends about it. So in January of this year I finally got the guts to message a dear friend that had adopted a sweet baby girl 5 years ago. I knew her before they adopted and had watched their beautiful story unfold. We met up and hearing the details of their journey put even more of a stirring in my heart. I learned so much and it was so clear to see the Lord's hand in bringing their family together. I was excited but more importantly, I was so convicted about MY own heart. I realized my desire for an easy, comfortable life had overshadowed the idea of expanding our family OR adopting. And I realized that the Lord had not called us to that. It hit me like a brick. That day was more about the Lord showing me my heart than about us seeking adoption. I was floored.
I came home and talked to Travis about this possibility and to my surprise he was open to it. I began to seek out adoption agencies and was immediately overwhelmed. Ya'll there are so many decisions to make regarding adoption - domestic? international? open? closed? foster to adopt? matched adoption? age? race? gender? SERIOUSLY. One agency I applied to sent us two copies (by accident) of an adoption book that talks about all the different kinds of adoption. It was perfect because Travis and I sat down one night and read through the entire book together. We would stop and discuss what we were reading and that's honestly how we came to the conclusion that 1) we really DID want to adopt and 2) which type of adoption we were going to pursue.
The initial reason we didn't want to pursue domestic or international adoption was frankly because of the costs involved. I have since changed my heart about that and I truly know the Lord would provide every single penny if that is the route he called us to. (There's a whole other story of how he showed me that). Anyway, several things really led us down the option we chose: Foster to Adopt... we are kind of ready to be past the baby stage (keepin it real), I'm turning 40 this year (AH!) and Addie is 5 and we'd love for her to have a sibling closer to her age. All of those reasons sort of made us realize that we could adopt a 3 or 4 year old and that could be an awesome addition to our family. So we began to look into the option of adopting a child from foster care. So let me just say... this is the point where we realized that this whole thing for us was going to be more than just expanding our family. This is where we realized what God was really calling us to. This was going to be a ministry. Our ministry. A ministry that we feel the Lord has been preparing us for long before now.
So We Got Busy
One day Travis saw someone with a Covenant Kids shirt on. He told me he thought that was an adoption agency and I thought he was stupid because that was probably just a church group and then BAM the next morning I heard a Covenant Kids commercial on KLTY. Yeah, that's the stuff that just kept happening. Covenant Kids is a foster/adoption agency. I pulled up their website, applied and then realized we had a mountain of things to do in order to get licensed to adopt a child in foster care.So we got busy. In July we took a whole weekend and attended half of our 30 hours of required training. They handed us a big fat black binder. The sessions were long and emotionally draining. My heart began to BREAK for these children who are taken from their homes because their mommies and daddies are struggling with things/sin that most of us will never deal with. After that weekend I realized those 15+ hours scared me to death. I had to walk away and put it on hold because frankly I just wasn't sure this was for us. Anytime I talked to anyone about us adopting I almost didn't believe myself that we were really going to do it. We took a few months to take a step back. I even quit (brace yourself) praying about it. I just needed a moment. How precious and patient is the Lord. He loves us so. He knows our human hearts and our weaknesses. I love Him for that. I told the Lord that after Addison's 5th birthday (Sept 2nd) I would get back to this adoption thing. Isn't it funny how we tell the Lord OUR plans?
Low and behold the very morning of Addie's birthday I see a Facebook post from a friend. The very same friend who I first talked to about adoption. Their family had recently decided to start pursuing adoption again. A miraculous miracle happened and just like that they had a precious baby boy in their arms.
So now you are kind of caught up to where we are in this story that God is writing for us. We spent all last weekend in the 2nd half of our required training classes. Again my heart was overwhelmed and burdened. There is so much to do. There are so many rules and regulations that go along with foster care. It's parenting like I've never known it. CPS is going to take over our life and our home. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be hard. But we are praying for God's grace.
I get all kinds of responses when I talk to people about us adopting. Sweet friends are concerned for how this is could affect Addison. You know what we feel about that? The Lord has been preparing Addison for this since before she was born. She was made for this. Even more so than her, we have to think about these children who need a safe place to go. They are the kids who we should be concerned about. They are coming from abusive, scary, hard places. I am more than excited to rock Addison's perfect little life. I want the Lord to stretch her beyond anything any of us adults could imagine. I want her to have a heart for people and children. I want her to know what adoption MEANS...how the Lord adopted US as HIS children! And how we are going to give another child a home that really needs one.
Another response I get is how am I going to handle it if we get a child and after some time they are taken back to their biological family. It's because I know the Lord has been preparing even me for this that I can say that this whole thing is not about me or my feelings. This is about the child we are going to open our home to. This is their story. It may be hard and I may eat my words, but I HAVE to trust the Lord in this. He's calling us to this. Why would he not take care of every single detail of this situation? We are fully trusting him. We are fully seeking him. We are not asking for the easy road, yet for the refining one. He is our all.
Every night our family prays for our future kiddo. We ask the Lord to protect our future child. He/she is somewhere in this world going through what could be a very traumatic experience and we beg the Lord every night that He will be gracious to this child and protect him/her. Will you pray with us?
What's Next
I have turned in a little over half of our required documents. We still have to have a home study. We are still working on getting licensed and once we do we'll be waiting for the phone call for a child that needs a home. We really have no idea when we will have a child. We just take it a day at a time and trust the Lord for what he is preparing us for.About a month ago Travis and I both had someone randomly tell each of us (separate conversations) that the Lord had put on their heart and mind this journey we are on - they both explained just about the same exact analogy of us climbing a mountain and that we had everything we needed in order to climb that mountain. All we had to do was just keep climbing. Keep trusting and eventually we were going to make it to the top and it would be awesome and beautiful. It's those stories my friends that the Lord keeps writing for us Bensons. He keeps showing himself to us in crazy fun ways like that.
So stay tuned...!
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