Thursday, January 24, 2008

Broken Dreams

During our two month wait for the first baby to be born, we talked to Paul's cousin (who had worked for an adoption agency for several years) about other available options. He strongly discouraged us from pursuing adopting through the foster-care system, due to all the miles of bureaucratic red tape we'd need to wade through.

Instead, he encouraged us to contact an acquaintance who had a facilitation ministry helping connect birthparents with adoptive parents. The best part was, she didn't charge anything for her services, which would fit very well into our extremely limited adoption budget. We attempted to contact her, but when she didn't return our calls, we were almost ready to give up hope.

Finally, in late August we decided to try one more time, and if we weren't able to connect with her, we would know the Lord was leading us in a different direction. Much to our surprise, after two months of leaving messages but never receiving a return call, she answered the phone! She had been planning on calling us that week about a new situation she thought might fit our family. As she shared the details of this young woman's circumstances, we became more and more discouraged, because the situation didn't sound at all like what we'd be interested in. But we finally agreed to pray and seek the Lord before making our decision, even though neither one of us felt this would be "the one".

The very next day we received word that the first young woman we had contacted had delivered her baby son and was determined to keep him, even though her circumstances were very dire. We were heartbroken, and didn't know what purpose would God have in leading us to this baby just to leave our arms empty? If we went with this new situation, there weren't any guarantees it would work out either. How many disappointments would we have to face before the Lord would bless us with another child?

Thankfully, the Lord used Fernando Ortega's "If You Were Mine" to soothe our wounded spirits, and once again, we committed to follow the Lord wherever He would lead.

No comments: