Surrendering a Title

We sat on the deck in the warmth of the May sunshine. I held our second son, Caleb, just weeks old, gently against me as we watched our first born, Jacob, playing in the backyard. A thought had been on my mind a lot lately and so I turned to him and said, “Wouldn’t you love to adopt?” It had been an especially hard recovery from this birth and my husband turned to me, gave a gentle laugh and replied back, “Ang, I think we should get through this little guy being so tiny before we start thinking about more children.” And he was right. It was way too early to be thinking about adding more children to our little brood when we still hadn’t gotten the hang of even having the two little ones gifted to us biologically. But oh my, somehow, someway, something had been stirred in me. Our conversation that day, although it continued, was short lived but in essence Brad said if that’s what God wanted us to do, he’d be all in. I tucked that (promise?) away in my heart.

Fast forward about 18 months and there I was driving the car with a 3 year old and 18 month old, often thinking about that day and wondering what I had ever been thinking because having these two little ones was MORE than enough. I was listening to our local christian radio station, the Sound of Life and it must have been November, National Adoption Awareness month, because almost everything it seemed had to do with adoption and now someone was on talking about their family’s adoption story. I wasn’t listening for more than a minute when I felt that old familiar tug at my heart strings for the fatherless – and it jolted me out of my driving daze. I looked at the radio, turned the station, and said out loud, “Nope. I’m done with that.” So here’s the part when God was up in heaven enjoying a hardy laugh at my expense. He knew the work that had to be done to reignite that flame in me and He intended to do it. But me? I like to be the sort of girl who’s hard to get. (ahem) I’m sure there have been many, many (manymanymanymanymany) times when something that would’ve taken anyone else a simple eye-opening revelation (and shazam! a changed heart), takes me a good 2-3 years to get…….at least.

The story obviously doesn’t end there. We’ve been on the waiting family registry in Bulgaria to adopt 1-2 beautiful little creations (who will be wearing pink!) for a little over a year now. Between that day in the car to now, two more little boys have been born into our ever growing testosterone-filled family. I have been enjoying my reign as sole princess in a house full of princes. I always get the role of queen in our living room stories, certain things cannot happen at the dinner table because, in the words of my husband, “there is a lady here”, I always get the compliments and stares of 4 little boys (and one big one) when I walk in a room looking “pretty” – which means dressed up in more than a pair of jeans – because to be honest, in this house, it’s just…..different. Being a girl, I mean. :) So they are just as excited as we are giddy to have some other pink floating around this house. Yes, I will lose my title as the one and only princess but I’m totally willing to surrender my crown and place it on the head of our daughter……one day……soon.

Join us? As we journey this adventure? I’ll be posting updates and links in our preparations for bringing our princess(es) home. My heart bursts at the idea because I can’t wait to see how God moves mountains to make that happen because at times that’s what I feel like we’re staring at. But the Truth of the verse that just two weeks ago I was teaching to a classroom of kindergartners and first graders at our church, echoes loudly in my ears and heart: “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

{Blessings}