Throughout the summer and fall of 2005, we slowly came to realize that the Lord was calling us to open our hearts and home to another child with Down syndrome. Over the next year and a half, there were many times we doubted the Lord's plan, and several times we detoured down a wrong path, but each time the Lord was faithful to confirm His call in our hearts and get us back on the right path.
Finally, in January '07, we received a call about an unborn baby boy who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. His Christian parents were having serious marital struggles, and not knowing where else to turn, his mother made an appointment for an abortion....thank God she was unable to follow through with her plans! They eventually decided to explore the possibility of placing their baby for adoption, hoping to find a Christian, rural Midwestern family who would lovingly embrace their son’s disability. We prayerfully consented to be considered, and when the adoption worker called a week later to let us know the parents had chosen us to adopt their baby, our hearts were filled with joyful anticipation!
Over the next few weeks we communicated directly with the birth parents, but unfortunately, things took a bad turn around the middle of February, and on March 1st, our adoption worker broke the devastating news that the birth parents had chosen another family for their baby.
During the next 6-7 weeks, feelings of desperation filled our days. We believed we had "messed up" the Lord's plan for our family by being insensitive to the birth parents' anguish, and now we needed to "fix" it. We spent hours upon hours searching for another child to adopt, but one day in mid-April, the Lord showed us that our endlessly obsessive searching was taking a huge toll on our family. When we finally made a commitment to leave our family's future in the Lord's hands, His peace flooded our hearts.
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