Our first "deeper" conversation was right after JR was born. The expansion of the CEO during business structure was enough for me. I was ready to cap our business at 2 openings. Big J agreed and took care of the production process, if ya know what I mean. In making this pretty permanent decision we set "adoption" out on the table. If we BOTH felt we wanted to expand again we were open to this option. With this little seed planted it really began to stir around in my heart and never left. At the end of 2014 officially any chances of opening our business were finished. That again really started to toss adoption around in my mind.
In January of 2015 we both put "Adoption" on our goal's list. We wanted to look further into this. No permanent commitments but good intentions. We attended Passion in Atlanta, GA. With in the first 10 minutes Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 was read and used as our first activity. It was verse 12b that knocked me off my feet. "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Now before you go dissect all the verses and say well when you take this verse by itself, blah blah. The point is in that moment the Lord opened up the adoption box. It was pressed further into the take action zone and less of the looks good on my New Year's goal list.
On Fall Break in 2015 we had a stay-cation. Yes, 10 months later! The idea was to do activities around home. We were blessed with amazing weather so we went to the park. Part of our family conversation was once again about adoption. This conversation involved names. Obviously before you make any big decisions you have to have a name! Clearly a J name to go with our marketing theme. So thanks to the gift of google we were looking up J names and debating our best options. After playing at the park for a little we decided to go on a walk. When we got to the bottom of the stairs we found this...
It's was a pink balloon with a pink ribbon. Ironic because at the time we were talking about girl names. The boys were so excited that we found a balloon! A treasure! They immediately named it SISTER! What? I swear not making this up. So with the new found "Sister" we continued our walk and discussion of expanding locations. It was a great initiator in taking our conversation to another level with the kiddos. Again another nudge from above to get moving on the adoption research. It was October and we'd done a real good job of procrastinating. We were feeling the nudge but not doing anything about it!
To put us over the edge we wrap up with one more little story. In the fall we did a church wide study called "Life on Mission" by Tim Harlow. Big J and I are both small group leaders. We lead different groups so we work at our studies at different paces. Traditionally we do not do the same study together but in this instance we were. One of the chapters had a couple pages about orphans, adopting, etc. My book was lit up with highlighter! Anyway Big J and talked one night. One of asked if there was anything in Chapter 9 that stood out. We BOTH responded with YES! It was time to Get UP! or Shut UP! The section about adopting had stirred official action in both of us. Here's a little glimpse of what's highlighted.
"The Bible is very easy to understand, but we pretend to be unable to understand it, because we know very well that the minute we do, we are obligated to act accordingly."
- Soren Kierkegaard
Skip down two short sentences and it reads, "Let's stay on the subject of our moral obligation to serve children, specifically."
BOOM! Hit right between the eyes! The subtly of verses, ironic situations and such were not enough. But some very convicting writing and words were! There was two months left to get to work!
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