How do you know?

Sometimes when people find out about our adoption, they feel like they must answer in a certain way. 

Most of the time they tell us what wonderful people we must be (...uh huh...), or how we are going to be in heaven for sure now (yeah, but adopting isn't getting us there). A lot of the time we hear an excuse like "I have always wanted to adopt, but....".

But other times when people take the time to HEAR our story, WHY we are doing this...

they ask a deeper question. "But HOW do you KNOW this is what God is asking you to do?"

Hmmm.

Good question!

Here is one thing I know: If you never step out in faith... you won't ever know for sure if you HAVE faith.

I think faith is as much a verb as it is anything else. Sure, you can pray in faith, you can live faithfully, you can be faithful... but until you SHOW your faith by DOING the thing being asked... are you really living like you have faith?

If Paul and I had said "Yes, God... we will adopt when you fill up our bank account, give us a bigger house and a bigger car, and make a hole in our work schedules so we can travel...", is that having faith? Or is that putting God in a me-sized box?

So how do we know for sure that this is what God has asked?

We took the first step. In faith. We filled out an application and sent in a fee. Then we waited and prayed. We saw our kids on a waiting child list. We prayed and took another step. We kept praying and allowing God to stop our process at any point. We did not give up with man made things difficult on us... but we prayed that if He were the one shutting doors - that we would see it and heed that direction. We kept moving forward until we heard STOP. We are still listening... and moving forward.

There have been many points on our journey when it would have been easy to say "you move then I respond"  to God. 

It doesn't always work that way. 

God moves on our hearts and in our minds. 

He creates opportunities. 

He opens doors. 

He closes doors.

He blesses the steps you take in faith.

Sometimes... you have to keep moving forward in anticipation of the blessing.

Sometimes you have to be on auto-pilot to make it through a tough day. Or week. Or month.

But always, if you move when the Lord tells you to, you will be blessed.

And sometimes....blessed TIMES THREE! 

We may not pass court today in Ethiopia. They may not hear our case.

They may postpone us till another day or week.

We pray that we pass... but we know sometimes things don't work out the way we want.

We WILL pass court.

We WILL get to Ethiopia to get our babies.

I would LOVE to pass court today and I sure pray it happens.

But if we don't pass...

God is still good.

And we are still on the right path, the path the Lord ordained for us.