I have been pondering God's blessings over the last year. In Acts 3:26 its says
God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you
by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.
Did you get that? Read it again.
We are blessed by our salvation.
We are blessed by what He did to cover our sin.
We are blessed by new life in Christ.
By how He removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.
If He did NOTHING else for us, we are BLESSED.
But He has done so much more for us.
We are exceedingly blessed.
We are abundantly blessed.
I'm not boasting--when I say WE I mean you too. Think about it.
What other blessings do you have beyond your salvation?
(Ok, I have narrowed my conversation with those who are followers of Jesus, so if you don't follow Him, I think it is interesting you are even parking yourself at my blog for any amount of time. Interesting.)
Carry on.
So I have been pondering His blessings in our adoption over the last year. And I want to be very careful about how I say what I say because I do NOT believe if you follow Jesus you will be blessed with health, wealth, and happiness. I also don't believe that if you follow Jesus everything will be fine.
(well, I take that back a little because when Jesus comes back, everything will be fine, but I'm talking about here and now before He comes back.)
Sometimes things are not fine.
When we started out almost a year ago, we had no idea how we were going to pay for this adoption. We also did not know if we would even make it this far....there are so many approvals you have to get along the way. We just knew we had to start walking in this direction in order to follow Jesus.
Approvals required along the way....
Finding an agency that is accepted by Colombia and that would accept our unique situation---I knew going into it I needed to work with people that would come behind us and support us as well as lead us in the process.
Homestudy--approval received at the end of October. REALLY? These people find out everything and they STILL approved us.
Next is the Dossier which included a Psychological Evaluation for both Jeremy and myself. If the homestudy people missed anything it sure comes out in the psych eval!
Approved.
AMAZING.
And yes it did confirm that we are in fact, crazy.
After our Dossier is approved, we get the next one....the Referrals.
EASY PEASY. ....how quickly can we say YES to these kids??
Immigration--approved. YAY.
That brings us to the present. You would think that after all that, it's smooth sailing from here. There are more hoops even when we get to Colombia---bonding week and court.
That means....keep praying.
So last August, we decided to move forward. God is big enough (sovereign) to shut any door along the way if these are not our kids.
(oh my, the wheels are turning in my brain---
another post about God's heart for the fatherless
and our response as followers of Jesus....um, that may be a long one.)
So back to how He has provided for this adoption in very tangible ways...Honestly we didn't have all the money in the bank to say, "Sure, let us adopt these 4 kids and get them home. No problem."
But God....
...and His heart for the fatherless.
I am not saying that He only cares for the fatherless,
but if WE don't care for them like He does,
we miss out on some of the "exceedingly" part of being blessed.
Exceedingly blessed means we have the privilege to know and love and care for these kids and introduce them to their Heavenly Father.
Exceedingly blessed means dear friends join us in bringing these kids home by their generous financial gifts.
Exceedingly blessed means clients who we have worked with share generously with us out of their abundance to help us grow our family.
Exceedingly blessed means complete strangers who we have never met, spoken to, or even know their names give to our family in a way that we can ONLY give GOD THE CREDIT. How else is this possible but only for God's glory?
Exceedingly blessed means the God of the universe who made heaven and earth and knows the number of stars in the sky and the very number of hairs on my head, allows and even asks us to join Him in His work.
We are exceedingly blessed.
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