He's Always Been Faithful

Today at church, in the midst of a praise service program titled "Age to Age," we were blessed with the opportunity to share a bit of our story about adopting Lindsey. Incorporating many of the great old hymns, and narrated between songs by one of our associate pastors, this program was a big celebration of how mighty and holy and faithful God is. The choir and orchestra gave a chill-bump inspiring performance, and I can't imagine that anyone left there without feeling God's presence.

In the middle of the song, "He's Always Been Faithful," we shared an ad-libbed version of this, with Ken and I each telling part of the story: 

God laid this idea on my heart years ago, but for a long time, I forgot about it. But He never forgot, and eventually brought the idea back to the surface. After I introduced the idea to Ken, we prayed about it, and both felt the Lord leading us to adopt an older child. We didn't know specifics, other than this would not be a baby, and that we would adopt through the foster care system.

The approval process was painfully slow. Our paperwork was misplaced, and it was months before we even knew about it. We were very frustrated, but we knew God had a plan, and felt that this must be because the child He'd chosen to add to our family was not yet available or ready to be adopted.

We met a young little brother and sister we hoped to adopt, and we were disappointed when their caseworker chose another family for them. God used that situation to teach us some things, and to make us really examine our hearts about why we were doing this.

We prayed that we would know when the right child came along, and that God would show us this by cutting through the red tape and making the process relatively speedy and easy. He did!

Our caseworker sent us a flyer for a 14-year-old girl named Lindsey. Her caseworker felt that we'd be a good match based on the fact that Lindsey wanted a Christian family, involved in their church; we have a younger daughter, and she loved kids. She is interested in photography, and we are professional photographers.

We met with our caseworker to review Lindsey's file, and teleconferenced with Lindsey's caseworker at that meeting. Just two days later, we met Lindsey for the first time. Friends from here at our church, and from Lindsey's church were praying that the meeting went well, and that there would be excitement but not awkwardness. We couldn't have imagined that a meeting like that could be anything but awkward, but both caseworkers said it was the best, most comfortable first meeting they had ever seen. Kathryn and Lindsey hit it off right away, sharing a chair and whispering like they were already sisters.

The next week, we went out to Lindsey's foster home and spent the day. The next visit, originally planned as a day visit, turned into a weekend. The following visit, planned as a long weekend, became a week, then forever. She only went back to her foster home to collect her things and say goodbye. We signed the necessary papers and moved her in. This was not the usual timeframe, but was the Lord doing exactly what we'd asked, making things as quick and easy as possible. Lindsey's caseworker said it's suppose to be hard to place a teen for adoption, but that wasn't the case here.

At Lindsey's age, she had to give consent to be adopted. That was a hard decision to come to, but God put her exactly where she needed to be. She came to know Christ in the church she attended with her foster parents, and the pastor's wife, who was herself adopted at age 12, helped Lindsey make that difficult decision. God always has a plan, even when we can't see it.

People have asked why we would want to do this? We've been asked why we would take on someone else's problem? The answer is because of God's command in James 1:27, and because this is a picture of what God did for us in adopting us as sons and daughters, making us co-heirs with Christ. We all—including Lindsey and our other kids—know without a doubt that God is in this. He has worked out so many challenges and so many details. He is in the BIG things and the little things! We know, as with anything in this life, that this may not always be easy, but God will not leave us. He has always been faithful, and He will continue to be faithful.

As much as I try not to, I still care what people think of me. I was happy that today was a good hair day.  I was glad we didn't say "um" at least one-hundred times as we talked. I was thrilled I didn't trip up the stairs to the stage. But beyond all that superficial junk, what I really hope is that people there heard God in our story. That it glorified Him. That maybe they are challenged to something a little scary, if it's something He wants them to do.

I have more news to share, another example of God's faithfulness: After we got home from rehearsal on Wednesday night, we got word from Lindsey's caseworker that he would be getting what he calls the "Let's get this train rolling" paperwork signed to move forward with the finalization of Lindsey's adoption. Her caseworker came to the service today (wearing a tie with a train on it!) and gave us a copy of that paperwork. We will give this release to our lawyer to move forward with requesting a court date, etc. Based on the "norm," this is about 3 months sooner than expected, so we are delighted. It is yet another example of things going more smoothly and more quickly than the norm. God has always been faithful, and He always will.