Of God, Mountains, and Moving Home (part 3)

I’m ashamed to say that even after all God had done, I still spent many evenings worrying.

Early in September I remember standing in the middle of the ready-to-pour basement walls, looking up at the sky and thinking that we were crazy. Once again we didn’t have enough to buy the total amount of cement needed.

The in-process adoption had drained our accounts again with an unexpected lawyer fee that we thought had been included in a previous payment. We had to spend the money set aside for the next round of cement, and were left scraping to find enough to pour the basement. We ended up dropping the yards back and told them to come pour the smaller amount.

“Okay, Lord,” I prayed, “I know we have piles of building supplies in the barn. I know you have continually led us to move forward. But I am so bound by what I can see. I know it isn’t faith. I know. But I don’t even know how to have faith, really.”

They poured the cement and the last shovel full filled the last form.

Over the next month, God kept working. A group of men put the deck on the house while we were out of town at a wedding. When we arrived home, the walls quickly came together and each time we were ready to raise a wall, there were enough people there to help even though we didn’t call anyone.

It was like God saying over and over, “I’ve got this.”

In the meantime, I was on the phone day after day, trying to set up our first meeting with our new son. It was becoming more real to me that somewhere, a few states away, there was a little boy who needed his family. I started praying in earnest that God would move the paperwork, as He was moving the house-building process, and allow us to bring him home.

We were renting a little log cabin, about two miles from our farm, and I prepared our son’s room. It wasn’t much, but it was an act of faith.

A few pieces of machinery sold, the roof supplies were purchased, and God provided the workers again. On a beautiful fall day, our farm filled with families and the roof swarmed with men. Within a short amount of time, the black tin gleamed from the roof. My husband laughed. “Let the autumn rains come,” he said. And a few days later they did.

We stood inside together, as the rain danced on the roof, and praised God.

I think that was when I first started to actually believe. So like Thomas, I had to see the evidence before finding confidence.

Just a couple days later, we received the final date to go see our son. When I went to write it on my calendar, I realized why that date sounded so familiar to me.

The day we left to meet our son would have been Annie’s first birthday.

The night before we left, I packed my bag and cried—hot, prickly tears. God was doing it again—as He always does. He was redeeming. On a day that spoke of only loss, He whispered into the pages of our story a brilliant scarlet thread of redemption.

On the day we thought we would only ever remember Annie’s death—we now have a memory of new life.

We arrived at the respite home where our son was living, and met the little boy with chocolate eyes and a shaky hope that maybe, just maybe, we would really be his parents and love him.

He came right in the room and snuggled between us on the love seat. We talked. He got to meet his new sister. She was so nervous, her hands were shaking. I totally understood.

Meeting your baby when they are eight years old is a strange occurrence.

At lunch time, he made us sandwiches. He leaned over toward me, “What does Dad want on his?” When I told him, he giggled. “He likes it just like me!” Swiss cheese and spicy mustard. He drew a smiley face with the mustard. It was a happy sandwich filled with hope.

Later, when we were outside playing with the rest of the children, I got distracted and had to be told that my son was calling for me. It registered that he had been saying, “Mom, Mom!” over and over but I hadn’t even heard because I didn’t recognize his voice.

What a strange feeling.

But the strangest feeling of all came at the end of the day, when we were leaving. We needed to go but the paperwork wasn’t through for him to come home yet. We knew that, of course, from the beginning—but hugging him and walking away felt like tearing a part of me off and leaving it behind. He was my baby and I didn’t have the right to take him home.

We drove home and looked at the house God was building, looked at our family that God was building, and knelt in worship of the King who speaks into existence that which what was not there. He was good. He is good.

And He wasn’t done.

Catch up: Part One, Part Two