Making a Way (AJ #38)

Well, last week was our little girl’s birthday. We had a great time celebrating and tiring ourselves out. (And we haven’t even had the party yet). Her birthday week was a source of great joy in our family. Not only were we celebrating her birthday, but we received notice from our attorney that an adoption date has been set (June 1st). Now we have begun to countdown to the day when this amazing chapter will end in grand fashion and we will move into a new chapter in the life of our family.

This week also brought other good news into our lives. One month ago, Mandy lost her job. This was a blow to our family’s income and potential income. We decided to be patient and not look for another job. We weren’t sure how we would manage, but God had been faithful to us through this whole process and we knew it would work.

Let me explain. I am not from the “let go and let God” school of theology. Yes, I believe that God is sovereign. However, I also believe that as a being crafted in the image of God that we must take personal responsibility for our actions. There is an inherent danger in expecting God to act outside of Biblical principles. That being said, I do believe that when calls a person, or people, to act that He makes a way for His will to be done. Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Israelites, Joshua at Jericho and more examples throughout the scriptures teach of God providing opportunities for those He calls to live out faith.

This process has been such an example. When we finished our home study and foster license procedures we were narrowed (by the county) to whom we could look for in our adoption process. We had originally been led to a child 0-5 years old, but were narrowed to a child 0-2. We decided not to fight this hurdle. We talked and prayed about it as a couple and were convinced that God had a child prepared for us. We also knew that, should the child He prepared be outside the 0-2 range, God would make a way. We figured we would get a call that went something like this…”I(the county social worker) know you were looking for a child 0-2 years old, but we have a X-year old that we were wondering if you would want to hear about.” We knew if we got that call then we were hearing about our child.

As things work out, the call didn’t go something like the above. It went exactly like the above. Within a week after our homestudy was finally submitted we got that exact call about a three-year old girl. Mandy took the call and after hearing about this, unknown, little girl her response to the social worker was, “she sounds perfect.” Mandy was right.

Later we came to know that had our homestudy been completed on time (it was about 4 months late), or had our training not been interrupted (we missed the first possible training date and had to wait 6 months) we would have missed the match God had prepared for us. While we waited God prepared us. We read up on various issues, we were able to impress upon others the importance of foster care/adoption and we were able to spend quality time together (always with the thought that it wouldn’t be long and who knows when we might get to do this or that again?).

So, when we lost a little over 25% of our income (even after unemployment) we were concerned, but not afraid. We dealt with it as a serious matter and tried to readjust our lives, yet we did not allow it to trip us up. Sure, I kept wondering how we were going to pay our student loan bills (which seem almost un-payable during the best of times), but we trusted. We had hoped to be able to afford for Mandy to work fewer hours in order to be home more with Summer, but did not expect it in this way. However, one month later we have seen that it was the right thing for our family. Summer is happy, Mandy is happy and I am happy to see them so. Yet, money was still a factor.

The answers came in two ways. First, social services (without knowing about our financial needs) increased the monthly stipend Summer receives for services and needs (a rate she will receive until she is 18, even after the adoption is final). Second, after working to 50% adjunct jobs in two different college districts, I was offered a full-time faculty position on Summer’s birthday. These new developments have taken care of our financial needs and still allow for Mandy to spend the time with Summer that they both desired.

I don’t write this to say that God will relieve all financial burdens. Nor, do I say that this process hasn’t been hard and extremely stressful. It has taxed our resources. Mandy’s job loss is directly related to her needing family leave to bond when Summer was placed with us. Also, I don’t adopt the “all's well that ends well” view of life’s circumstances. What I do believe is that when God calls He provides a way, and we do believe we were called to this journey. If Mandy and I have learned nothing else, we have learned this.