At the Age of 25

This post was in my head in February. With the Silent Auction and then the home study, I never had time to finish this one.

So many thoughts and so little time to write them all down! I have had it in my head to write an awesome post about turning twenty-five. As some of you know, the biggest reason we've waited until now to start the adoption process is because we were told that both of us needed to be 25, and at the time, I was 23. I was heart broken. It was hard to realize that God was making us wait to put us in a better circumstance, in so many ways. Once we realized the wait was going to be a blessing, we decided to make the most of it and prepare ourselves as much as we could, financially, emotionally, and physically (as far as our apartment is concerned). We moved, bought furniture, began hitting our student loans as hard as we can, and overall just started building our home into a place we could welcome children in easily.

I sat at the Russian Philharmonic Saturday night and thought of all the philosophical thoughts my brain could handle and realized that without the conductor, the individual instruments probably still sounded good, maybe even great, but with the conductor leading and molding the musicians into his vision for their gifts, the sound is indescribable! Even mistakes can be covered by the beautiful sounds of the orchestrated plan of the conductor.What I'm trying to say is that God puts us in a place where we can not only use our gifts, but contribute and uplift others while we're at it. The body of Christ never made more sense to me than when I was sitting there listening to that music. Understanding that we can put everything we can into our part, and we're going to make mistakes along the way, but God will perfect it. Using other musicians to correct us, using other instruments to support us. As long as we play our part to the best of our ability, God can make good out of it.

As long as we play our part. It breaks my heart that there are so many people out there that are not playing their parts. Making excuses for why they don't have a ministry (that was me for a LONG time). I know that not everyone is called to adopt. That is David and my ministry right now. BUT there are many people who are called, and they say "later." They answer "my finances aren't good right now" "I have too many problems myself" "I'll have my own kids first and then think about adopting later." I've heard and made all the excuses myself. David and I really struggled with the fact that we live in CHINA and wouldn't have all the ease of adopting as traditional Americans would, either from foster care or abroad. We struggled with the fact that we still have SO much debt from college. We struggled with the fact that we are still so young. If you feel called and something is holding you back, ANYTHING, please ask someone about it. Express your doubts. I can guarantee that there is something that can be done. What it boiled down to for us, despite all the possible advantages and strategies we could use to make this happen, was that what if God said "it's too costly" "I don't have time for that right now" "I'd rather just have my own kids, then think about having more later"? Where would that leave us? We would still be orphans.