Written: July 2018
All who know me know the word faith anchors my soul. It resonates deep within me and gives me hope for the future. My first bible that I purchased for myself was wedding white and it’s the bible I still use today. I purchased it right before Darin and I got married and it is filled with over 5 years of tears, prayers and heavy usage. Faith has always been the cornerstone of our marriage and still is today. Faith ends a lot of our worry (2 Cor. 5:7), faith allows us to be the assured for that we hope for when we can not see what is ahead (Hebrews 11:1) and although faith doesn’t make everything easy, it will make things that are important to God possible (Luke 1:37).
Three day before we got married, Darin and I tried on our wedding bands together and could not believe that we would soon be married! I remember Darin laughing and thanking me for the “surprise”. I was very confused and had no idea what he was talking about. He began to take off his ring showing me that the inside of his wedding band had the word “FAITH” engraved on it. I was shocked! The crazy part was that neither one of us had the ring engraved. At that very moment, I knew God had chosen us to be together for a purpose that he had already so sweetly designed.
Throughout our marriage we have learned very early on that we are usually prepared with willingness rather then readiness. We got married when Darin was still playing professional baseball and we spent more of our time apart. People have questioned our readiness but we were more concerned about our willingness to make it together. Hudson was born while we were living on the road with no home base and we were practically living out of our suitcase, we loved it! Even when Darin’s baseball career was ending and it was time to step into a new chapter of our life, we definitely were not ready. We were however willing to allow God to prepare the way for us. It has definitely been a sweet ride watching Him pour passion into Darin’s heart through a new career!
In the first 2 years of Hudson’s life, we moved 10 times. It was exciting but our mission together never became established. We were living for the joy of off days, exploring new areas and meeting new people. It has always been clear to me that God designed me to nurture the fatherless. Scripture makes it clear that we need to care for the orphans and widows in distress (James 1:27). I was just not certain how the desire He put in my heart would “fit” into our marriage and our family.
In 2017, we opened our hearts to fostering. We found a great agency in Pennsylvania to work with and completed most of the paperwork. We were excited to start our journey together as a family. Shortly after, Darin was offered a job in Kansas and we decided that it was a great opportunity. Fostering was put on hold, we packed and we left our Pennsylvania home.
I’m boasting only in weakness when I tell you that I volunteered in many soup kitchens, trained to mentor pregnant single women who needed guidance and held many bible studies all of the state and even world. I always had to leave the soup kitchen early for one of Darin’s baseball games, never seeing the last person fed. After training to help women know Jesus, I never followed through due to the fear of connecting and having to pick up and move again. Throughout my many bible studies, I never once invited someone who didn’t know Jesus. I was becoming the servant who does nothing out of the fear of messing up. Francis Chan made it clear in his book You and Me Forever, “people are paralyzed by fear of failure. They are so afraid that they might do the wrong thing that they do nothing.”
When settling down in Virginia, we started to revisit our mission together in marriage. We could visit orphans on a mission trip, we could defend the fatherless through fostering or we could commit ourselves to adopt a child. For 6 months we prayed and researched. We went to foster care meetings and we talked to friends and strangers who adopted. During those months, we learned more about ourselves than anything about our mission. We came to the conclusion that we were not ready. We should wait until we had the money to adopt, we should wait to own a home to have space to foster children and we should try and expand our biological family before we started any other journey. I wish I could tell you that in that moment I felt relieved but I didn’t. I felt sad and anxious. I would spend sleepless nights reading about orphans in China who needed love. I am talking about hundreds of thousands of orphans who do not know anything about love. I couldn’t even go about my normal day without crying and feeling passionate about helping these children. One day as I was journaling, I looked back at old entries. On June 17th, 2017 I wrote, “Let me be more like you Lord and help me care for the fatherless”. Not only was He opening my heart to adoption, He was literally breaking my heart for what breaks His. The same power that raised Christ from the dead was living in me (Romans 8:11) and it was powerful and evident.
One night, I had a vivid dream. I was in the Holy Land and everyone around me was flustered, running to an empty house. I followed and bowed down as I arrived. Looking up, I saw Jesus. He was powerful, strong, loving and comforting. As He walked by, I touched His robe. The feeling that came upon me was unforgettable and indescribable. I felt the power of the Holy Sprit and didn’t want to leave. I woke up sobbing uncontrollably. I heard Jesus that night “be doers of the world, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).
The next day was filled with willingness. Looking back, Darin and I built our marriage on willingness and not readiness so why should that change now? Darin and I had a serious conversation that day about faith and allowing God to provide for our mission. We started our adoption journey that day with confidence that the favor of the Lord our God will rest on us, establishing the work of our hands (Psalm 90:17).
I want to use our journey to give the glory to God. We want to share with others that the desires that God places in our hearts can be made possible with willingness. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have (2 Cor. 8:12).
Thank you Jesus for restoring to me the joy of your salvation.
Psalm 51:12