His hand in all things

When I was little, the thought of being a mom was ever present. In helping care for my other siblings and babysitting younger children in my neighborhood allowed me to form my view and excitement for the day when that would be my role. In Young Women’s you learn and prepare for that as well. Every aspect of growing up as a girl and as young women, in the church, is in preparation for and in helping rear the next generation as a married adult. When that day never came I questioned my worth and all my faults. Year after year and doctor after doctor I was getting tired and weary. Scott, I’m sure, was getting tired of my fanatical melt downs, although he was ever sweet and comforting. I knew I needed to keep my faith and knew that the Lord has His hands in all things. I had seen the evidence of that in my life in the past and I knew in the back of my mind that it was sill true now. I remember getting a call from a brother in law announcing the anticipated arrival of their fourth child, a call from a friend later that week who was expecting her third, and paperwork left and right from our agency letting us know we had forgotten a few things to fill out here and there. I was through! I was spent and past weary. I had a broken spirit and asked the Lord to take this burden away from me; I couldn’t carry it any longer. It was affecting my attitude and my daily life. I pleaded more for that relief then for anything else in my life. This was in June.

August 28th was our first email from our birth mom. You cannot believe the utter excitement we experienced as we continued our correspondence back and forth with this beautiful young woman, our Angel! The Lord had heard my prayer for relief and was granting me a season of joy. On the days we didn’t hear back from our Angel was agony. Not knowing her thoughts or how she felt about us ate me up. At times it was more agonizing then at other times. These were the times that the Lord allowed me to reflect on how hard this must be for our birth mom! She was making some very important and difficult decisions in her life at that moment and I needed to be aware and sensitive to her situation. At this time we weren’t even sure if she was going to pick us to be her baby’s parents. We continued our correspondence……

September 23rd was life changing for us. We received a beautiful email from our Angel asking us if we would be her baby’s parents. She wanted to make sure her baby had both a mom and a dad who would rear him in the Gospel and she knew we were the ones to take on that task…Forever! Again, tears flowed freely but this time these were tears of joy! We continued our correspondence. …

On December 26th we take off to Chicago for the arrival of our baby boy! Throughout this new, exciting, agonizing, terrifying, and most anticipated life changing ordeal we have seen the Lords hand guiding us through. We know He will continue to do so and throughout the rest of our life.

Merry Christmas!