John's Thoughts

I wanted to share some parts of God’s word that have really come alive through the adoption process for both Carter and Gracie Lin. There are references (Jeremiah 1:4-5 for example) that talk about how God loved us even before we where conceived. I used to have problems with these types of statements. Sure you could love a baby that is growing in the womb, but a baby that isn’t even conceived how do you do that? I took these things on faith but would scratch my head. When Paula and I first decided to have a family we said, well if it happens great; if not, that is okay (boy was I wrong). We didn’t know how many kids we would have, but our thinking was maybe 2 would be nice. For me, the aspect of loving them started once the pregnancy test came back positive (for Parker). Then we were unable to have any more children, we started the adoption process for little Gracie (5 ½ years) and we have loved this little girl ever since (long before she was born). Over the last 5 ½ years we have been on this journey to adopt a little girl and over the last 5 ½ years my love for this little girl, who only turned one 2 weeks ago, has grown to the same level as Parker & Carter.

The power of prayer! I remember when we told Parker that we were going to adopt a little girl asked if we could adopt enough kids to fill every seat in our Expedition (5 more). We kindly informed him that we would adopt a little sister for him. He promptly told us he would pray for a little brother and sister. We said “that’s nice but a little sister is what we have planned” …. Boy where we awesomely wrong!

Then when we decided to adopt domestically, we were getting a little discouraged about the whole adoption process. About that time we heard a sermon about praying to God for encouragement. Before we went to bed Paula and I prayed together for encouragement – 3 days later we were holding Carter in our arms. Through the whole adoption process I see God’s ultimate plan for us – if the China process had not taken this long we would not have our wonderful tornado. We are about to adopt our second child - this is similar in my small mind to what God has done with us.