Sunday, March 24, 2013

As Small as a Mustard Seed

I've been putting the writing of this update off because my heart has been pulled in so many different directions I didn't know how to even begin putting it into words.  It's recently become clear how important each of those emotions, along with the experiences that prompted them are.  Every minuet of happiness, and joy; each second of heart wrenching pain, devastation, and loss, all act as little stones building upon one another to create God's path for David and I.  Not one more important than the other, some less desirable than others, but all playing a key role.

Recently we responded to a recruitment email about a precious little baby along with 18 other families.  We thought our chances of getting chosen out of that many families was slim, but sure enough, we were the expectant mom's first choice.  David and I were ecstatic to say the least.  We spent the next 24 hours thinking about our baby girl... what she would look like, how we would doll up the nursery adding pink to the gender neutral decor (okay that was me, not David).  We were so excited, terrified, and overwhelmed at what exactly we would do with this precious little girl once we actually brought her home and began a new chapter as parents! Real, responsible for another little human being, parents!

And then just as suddenly we got a call that the expectant mother had changed her mind about us, she wanted to go with another couple.  Stunned, and having an out of body experience, I have no idea how the rest of that conversation went.  I dropped to my knees in tears, not wanting to tell David that we just lost our baby girl.  After all, she was ours, we were picked, we were scheduled to meet the expectant mom and everything just seemed so perfect.  But she wasn't and isn't ours.  Anger followed the loss and sadness as we tried to figure out and understand what on Earth had just happened!

A dear friend of mine had sent a devotional a few days before about the story of the mustard seed from Matthew 17:20..."If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there."  I could just feel God picking me up and holding my hand.  I remembered a prayer I said after finding out that 18 families responded to adopt this child.  I asked God to open the door if this was the child He had planned for us and to close that door if it wasn't.  Well He answered by doing both, and in a very short period of time.  That's all we needed, just a little bit of faith, that this was part of God's path for us.  Dave and I woke up the next morning with an unbelievable sense of peace.

Over the last few years, God has been slowly breaking us down so He could build us back up into the children He wants us to be.  We couldn't start down the path He had planned for us until we went through some serious changes.  Changes in the way we think our family will look, changes in what we value as important, and changes in our relationship with Him.  And maybe because I'm extra stubborn, a few extra painful "stones" were necessary to make me see the bigger picture.  As David said so perfectly the other day, our family is going to be unique, it's not going to look like what we originally thought. But that's the best part, it is going to look like God's design, and that is more beautiful than anything we could ever hope for!

3 comments:

  1. Stacey, these are beautiful words for an incredibly difficult event. Your and Dave's faith is inspiring. I can't imagine how angry and hurt you were, but there are so many people thinking of you all and praying for you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I truly admire your strength, you two are amazing people that will make incredible parents! It was so great to see you on Saturday!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank y'all for your sweet and caring words! It's overwhelming how many people are following along with us on this journey! It means so much to us!

    ReplyDelete