I Should’ve had a V-8 before starting the IA process!!

I just crack up at the new V-8 commercials where someone is bopped in the forehead for not having their vegetable servings for the day. I especially love the one where a man is feeding his veggies to a Golden Retriever under the table. After the secret hand off, a paw reaches up & taps the guy on his arm. He looks under the table and one would expect to see a drooling mess of a dog begging for more. Instead, the dog bops him on the forehead as if to say “Duh!” instead of “Gimme more!!”. I laugh at this particular V-8 commercial the most because in our house, it would just NEVER happen. Never! There would be no pleasantries from our dogs, no thank you, no subtle reminder that we should have eaten our veggies. Just that drooling mess of a dog that I mentioned above.

So anyway - - over the past few days I’ve been consumed with thoughts on how exactly we can finance our adoption journey. Initially we had two main courses of action, neither of which is working out quite like we had hoped.

I’ve been focusing on the negative side of this whole thing, and wondering if somehow I’ve gotten this all wrong. It sounds silly now, but admittedly I did start to question whether God intends for us to adopt, or maybe we aren’t supposed to adopt internationally. All kinds of irrational, negative things have been running through my mind over the past few days. At one point I thought that perhaps we needed to pull out of this before we ended up getting our hearts broken yet again on our path to parenthood.

Then, one morning this week after taking a shower, God placed me in my very own V-8 commercial. It wasn’t one of my dogs bopping me in the head for giving them veggies. No, instead it was Him walloping me in the head telling me to relax and let Him handle things. I realized that perhaps, just maybe, He has a better plan for financing our adoption if I would only let go and trust Him completely.

Even as Christians we shouldn’t expect things to just be handed to us. It’s never that simple! There is a certain amount of work that we need to do on our end in order to get the results we want. I think this is one of the most difficult things that new Believers and non-Believers have a hard time understanding. I also think it is one of the most difficult things that seasoned-Believers have a hard time explaining and sometimes dealing with themselves. Just because God has called us down this path doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen. We have work to do – lots of it! – from completing paperwork, to getting fingerprinted numerous times, to seeing different doctors, to writing checks, to preparing and educating ourselves and our pets for the arrival of a little one, to now trying to find creative ways to finance our child’s future. Is it difficult? You bet! Is it worth it? Absolutely!

This journey while at times frustrating and nerve wracking, has already allowed me to grow in so many ways as a Christian, a wife, and a mom-to-be. I can only hope that by reading this blog and watching this miracle unfold, there are others who will also grow to know God and the awesome, amazing things that can (and will!) happen in your life as you learn to place your trust in Him.

So now I invite you to go grab a few V-8’s of your own – literally or figuratively - and continue traveling with us to our little one(s) waiting in Russia!

In Him,
Kar