A God of Details

I wanted to take a moment to share a few of the details about how we arrived at this point of our journey. I have shared pieces of it along the way, but I think it's a story that I have to share again. So here goes my best attempt.

Almost 2 years ago, Ryan and I inherited some money, unexpectedly. It was the estate of a widow who was a neighbor of my mother's and she wanted a young couple in ministry to have the money. At that point, we began to pray about how God would have us to use that money. We were living in a charming brick house that was built in 1950. We call it our "Leave it to Beaver" house. We loved it and with the money we could have paid it off, sent our kids to college, and traveled frequently- all things we wanted for our family. But, the house had issues. For one, it had a list of weekend projects longer than my arm- not practical for our family of 6 in ministry. Two, it was really not close enough to our church for us to build relationships within that community. Finally, it was small. There was enough room for our family, but adding another child to our family or regular entertaining were really not practical.

We prayed a lot about what to do about the house. We really felt certain that God wanted us to sell that house and find a larger home that we could entertain other families in and where we could be open to growing our family if He saw fit. We felt very strongly that he was telling us that he wanted to do ministry through a larger home. We decided to wait until the following spring, put our house on the market, and go from there. Very soon after that, we were talking with some neighbors who had just redone a huge historic home next door to us and they asked us if we would be interested in that house. They were even willing to purchase our home as part of the deal, which they would then flip. It was very appealing. So, we looked at it. It was gorgeous and had a lot of character. We were interested, but we had some real concerns about taking on a 100 year old home. We decided that since we had never looked at houses in that price range, we better look at what else was available before we committed. This all happened months before we were planning to purchase.

So, that week, we went looking. After an afternoon of seeing what was out there, we made one last stop. And there it was. The house had been on the market for a whole year and the seller had just dropped the price $60,000 dollars- to exactly what we were planning to pay for a house. It had everything we were looking for. A great space for entertaining, the perfect yard, a bonus room for schooling, another bedroom and bedrooms that were large enough for 2 children each. Our realtor insisted that with the price change we didn't have any time to waste. So, we put a contract on the house. It was October 10th, 2007. It was a year to the day that the house had been listed on the market. It was also the day that in a hospital in the Northern part of Ethiopia, our son was being born.

It was several more months before we committed to adopting. We wrestled with the whole thing. We had always had so many reasons why it wasn't the right time. We didn't have the space, we didn't have the resources, we didn't have the time. God had so obviously obliterated every one of those barriers. We faced the topic of adoption everywhere we went during those next few months. Every radio program, magazine article, random conversations, they all seemed to turn to adoption. Finally, Abby our 10 year old put it like this. "Dad, God is telling us to adopt a baby and you're being disobedient." That did it. The next day we started the process and here we stand, amazed again at God's faithfulness and his overwhelming love for us.

Many folks believe in coincidences. I don't believe the October 10th's of our life are coincidences. I would say instead, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28