God's Grace

Grace – it’s a word that means so much, in so many different ways. I’ve often heard the quote: “Mercy is not getting what you deserve, Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.”

It’s here that Husband and I begin the process of adding to our family. With two sons, we’ve decided that God has a daughter in store for us. One who is already here, simply without parents and brothers. B-10 and CW have been involved in the discussion, and are beyond excited about having a little sister, one who they can hug and love and adore.

I often am amazed by how God constantly uses our past experiences to prepare us for our future. Because the caterpillars saw me as a surrogate mother for an infertile couple (I carried their genetic child to term and gave birth), it is completely normal to them to understand that sisters don’t have to come from inside Mums. Sometimes sisters come from somewhere else – and they are still OURS.

I know that through that same experience, God prepared my heart to accept another woman’s child as my own. Fully and completely – with no distinction. What a wonderful God we have.

After countless hours of searching, we’ve tentatively settled on the country of Kazakhstan. We intend to adopt a girl between the ages of 2 and 3 years old.

I’ve spent about 8 hours working on what seems like 6 simple pages of paperwork and one government form. Here is where my heart grows heavy. Can we do it? Can we spend the next year preparing and waiting and waiting some more – just to bring our new caterpillar home sometime next fall? Will we grow weary along the way?

Of course we will. Weariness is normal in any situation that requires waiting. Waiting for the paperwork to be filed and approved. Waiting to get FBI clearance. Waiting to hear what the Social Worker has to say about our home. Waiting to be invited by the Kazakhstan government to enter their country. Waiting to be allowed to travel. Waiting for court dates. Then waiting to bring her home.

But through God’s power, we will do it. And our daughter will come home. Someday she will be our Grace. Our beautiful daughter.

But for now, she is God’s Grace. And He will sustain us through the next year, all of us. The four parts of our family that live here, in the Southern US – and the missing piece of us that lives so very far away.

~Lone Butterfly