Contributed by DeeDee:
About eight years ago, I was asking God if I could have another baby. John was not so sure we needed more than two, our delightful girl, Kristina, and our wonderful boy, Daniel. I took a nap after my quiet time with God, and as I woke up, I distinctly heard, "You WILL have more children."! Of course I didn't tell John that God had told me that. He'd think I was crazy. You might think so too, and maybe I am. But John did agree that another child would be alright.
Fast forward to when our 3rd child, Timothy, was two, and my motherly instincts were again tugging at my heart. Timothy was smart and fun, but God seemed to be reminding me that we could love another one too. I knew there were lots of children out there in the world, needing homes. I kept finding James 1:27 in front of my face, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." It became a source of tension in our marriage. I was antsy. I also felt like we should be serving God overseas. John was not hearing any of this from God.
In a wise Christian counselor's office, we were advised that one of us was wrong! God would not be telling a couple different things about their future. He advised us both to pray for unity and clarity on these two issues. So we did. And God changed my mind. He made me see that, at this time in our lives, we do not need to serve Him overseas. He has plenty to keep us busy right here in Fort Collins for now. But on the adoption issue...I even started asking God to just take away that desire in my heart for adopting a child. But every time I would ask for that, ten minutes later, I'd find myself thinking about how we could make room for a little girl in Kristina's bedroom, or dreaming of Timothy and Daniel playing with her.
John is a good man. He provides for us well, and takes that job seriously, so I can't blame him for being reluctant to add another mouth to feed. He did agree to pray though, and he prayed especially hard on one particular business trip, because he just wanted to get the thing resolved. He was unaware of his little wife at home, asking God to give him a dream to show John His will. (God has done that before, for our family. John had a dream about Kristina before she was even conceived! ) Well, this time, God----- did it again! John's dream was of us sitting in a hall way, waiting. He says he could tell that we were overseas because there was a door at the end of the hall that was raised up off the floor. He is an engineer and these details are important. So the door opened and a little girl was brought in and we were hugging her. Does that sound convincing to you? Well, it wasn't quite convincing enough for John. He thought maybe it happened because he had just been thinking about it so much.
I gave up. "It's in your hands, God, and I'm not getting any younger," I told my heavenly father. I do love the children I already have and they do keep me busy.
So when we went out on a date a few weeks later and John casually said, "I think we ought to go for it," I didn't even know what he was talking about. He had decided that Christians should not make decisions based on fear, and that was what he was doing when he kept saying no to adoption. He told me that he could see that God had put such strong feelings in me that it was as if I was already pregnant, and John just had to decide whether to accept the new addition to our family or not.
Well this has been one looong, expensive pregnancy! Next time, more on our two years of waiting and how we finally got our referral.
About eight years ago, I was asking God if I could have another baby. John was not so sure we needed more than two, our delightful girl, Kristina, and our wonderful boy, Daniel. I took a nap after my quiet time with God, and as I woke up, I distinctly heard, "You WILL have more children."! Of course I didn't tell John that God had told me that. He'd think I was crazy. You might think so too, and maybe I am. But John did agree that another child would be alright.
Fast forward to when our 3rd child, Timothy, was two, and my motherly instincts were again tugging at my heart. Timothy was smart and fun, but God seemed to be reminding me that we could love another one too. I knew there were lots of children out there in the world, needing homes. I kept finding James 1:27 in front of my face, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." It became a source of tension in our marriage. I was antsy. I also felt like we should be serving God overseas. John was not hearing any of this from God.
In a wise Christian counselor's office, we were advised that one of us was wrong! God would not be telling a couple different things about their future. He advised us both to pray for unity and clarity on these two issues. So we did. And God changed my mind. He made me see that, at this time in our lives, we do not need to serve Him overseas. He has plenty to keep us busy right here in Fort Collins for now. But on the adoption issue...I even started asking God to just take away that desire in my heart for adopting a child. But every time I would ask for that, ten minutes later, I'd find myself thinking about how we could make room for a little girl in Kristina's bedroom, or dreaming of Timothy and Daniel playing with her.
John is a good man. He provides for us well, and takes that job seriously, so I can't blame him for being reluctant to add another mouth to feed. He did agree to pray though, and he prayed especially hard on one particular business trip, because he just wanted to get the thing resolved. He was unaware of his little wife at home, asking God to give him a dream to show John His will. (God has done that before, for our family. John had a dream about Kristina before she was even conceived! ) Well, this time, God----- did it again! John's dream was of us sitting in a hall way, waiting. He says he could tell that we were overseas because there was a door at the end of the hall that was raised up off the floor. He is an engineer and these details are important. So the door opened and a little girl was brought in and we were hugging her. Does that sound convincing to you? Well, it wasn't quite convincing enough for John. He thought maybe it happened because he had just been thinking about it so much.
I gave up. "It's in your hands, God, and I'm not getting any younger," I told my heavenly father. I do love the children I already have and they do keep me busy.
So when we went out on a date a few weeks later and John casually said, "I think we ought to go for it," I didn't even know what he was talking about. He had decided that Christians should not make decisions based on fear, and that was what he was doing when he kept saying no to adoption. He told me that he could see that God had put such strong feelings in me that it was as if I was already pregnant, and John just had to decide whether to accept the new addition to our family or not.
Well this has been one looong, expensive pregnancy! Next time, more on our two years of waiting and how we finally got our referral.
1 comment:
Dear Hunt family,
Congratulations and may God bless you all on your journey and bring you home safe and healthy. We can't wait to meet Melissa, and we look forward to checking in on the blog every day. We're so excited for you....God is GREAT!!
love,
the Pehkonen family
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