It's Official!!!

Yep...

We're adopting again!!!!

Yippee!!!

More kiddos!! Yay!!

More paperwork for me to do....sigh.

Y'all, I hate paperwork. My brain doesn't do paperwork. 

It is single-handedly my GREATEST fear...my greatest mountain to climb. But somehow God got me through it last time.

So we'll do it again...me, God, and all the people I have to enlist to help me decode questions. :)

Here's ONE example of my paperwork nightmares:

Me: Hey, what does nationality mean? Do they want to know my nation? Do I put "American" or do I put "U.S."? Or should I put USA?

Hubby: Seriously, Lisa? 

Then he sighs and says, "What would you do without me?"

Nothing. The answer would be "nothing." See? I know the answer to HIS questions, but not the adoption agency's!! 

So here's the story in a fast re-cap:

I thought I was done. (Don't ever tell anyone you're done...and don't tell God you're done either.)

Then one day it happened. I turned around in the car (see last post) to see who was missing. It felt like someone was missing from my vehicle even though I could clearly see they were all there. That may sound bizarre, but it happened ALL THE TIME before Johnny and Lily. Someone was missing...but both my kiddos were in the car...and now it was happening again.  I dismissed it even though I recognized that oh-too-familiar feeling. Anywho, I started reading blogs again, looking at photolisting sites of children from China again. I was being drawn like a moth to a flame!!! Ugh!! What was happening to me?

I kept ignoring my familiar feelings.

And then one day my husband was preaching and asked how many people read a chapter a day in Proverbs. He said to just start reading the chapter with whatever day we happened to be on in the month. I thought, wow, I haven't done that in awhile, so that night I began reading...then I got to Proverbs 24 (so it was Nov. 24) and I got to verse 11 and 12 and I started to bawl.

vs. 11 Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

vs. 12 If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay everyone according to what they have done?

The emphasis to me was on verse 12. My eyes have been opened and I could NOT pretend I didn't know there were children going to bed at night without a mother or father. 

Without a family. 

You may say that verse 11 doesn't apply...that they're not staggering toward slaughter. Umm...have you been to other nations? Where there is no joy? Where God is not allowed?

Their faces are empty. Sad, blank, and empty. They have no hope.

Yes, they are like a group of people...staggering...with no hope.

I had tried to go back to my old life of being blinded to the plight of the orphan...and I just could NOT do it. God would not let me...he was holding me accountable to act...to respond. I tried to tell God I'd pray for them. I would tell others about adoption. 

But that wasn't enough.

I'm supposed to do it myself.

Adopt.

Again.

We will go back to China for two more. :) I'm at the very beginning of this process. I may be the only person who took 18 months for our last adoption and I'd really love for it to not take that long but I'm not holding my breath. My home study took double  the time, my LOA took double the time, paperwork got sent back, yada, yada. I'll just trust God on His timing this time around because not ONE thing went faster because of all my ranting to God about it.

Patience.

I will learn patience. :)

(Yeah, right.)