Listening to God

When we first began this adoption adventure, and really, we are still in just the beginning, we knew what we wanted. We wanted a cute little girl with some repairable medical problem: a cleft palate, even a heart defect that was operable. And if you read some blogs from people who adopted from the list of waiting children, many say the same thing, they went into this knowing that they would get a child with as minimal problems as possible only to have God place a child with them that was completely not what they "knew". But how could we?

I mean, we have 6 kids, right? How could we add a child with severe problems?  Like brain cancer that could come back or a heart condition that could end their life in a couple years? Or how about a child who has been blind from birth?

The more I look through the available children, the more I'm drawn, not to the perfect little baby girls who need a couple minor surgeries....but to a baby boy who is blind. Another boy who is a little older and blind in one eye. An eight year old boy who has been blind since birth but who, his caregivers say, never complains and is very bright.

Now I'm not sure what God has in store for us. We are only beginning, we still have our homestudy to do, we still have months of paperwork and visits. So we will just wait and see. Waiting on the Lord. We will know in His time and we will know who.

Until then, could you please pray for M, the boy who is 8, A, who is the very young baby who is blind, and J, who is a little older and blind in one eye. Thank you for praying for them and thank you for praying for us.

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for these precious boys. We don't know your plans for them but we know that we can love them even from here and pray for their families. We don't know if one of these boys is our son, we will wait until you place that clearly in front of us. We are scared, Lord, of what it will mean to have a child with significant medical or emotional needs in our home. We don't know how this will change our family. But we do know that, once that child whom You have chosen is here, our lives will be richer because You gave him or her to us.
Thank you for taking us on this journey that has made us more compassionate. While first we were gushing over the sweet little baby girls, we are now praying with tears in our eyes for those children who may graduate out of the orphanage without ever knowing a real home. We again, Jesus, promise Your Name will be the first thing our baby or child hears from our lips. You are all who matters.
Thank you Jesus for every thing You give these children and we thank You for All Gods Children and all they are doing to try to help this orphan crisis. We especially, God, pray and thank you for those selfless, compassionate and amazing parents who have taken in a child with a significant medical issue. We pray you bless them and watch over them and guard their hearts. We pray for all the children in the orphanages in China and around the world who can not see, or have to endure painful surgeries or procedures, the ones that don't have a mom and dad to hold their hands and tell them they will be ok. We can only be one, we pray more families come forward to take these children into their homes.
In Your Precious Name, Jesus, Amen.