The day it all turned around

From September 2012 to February 2013 we lived with anguish, confusion, anger, fear…lots of negative emotions.  We knew we would not be able to adopt Bella and we had no idea what that meant for her future.  We prayed constantly that God would bless her with Christian parents that know and love Him and would teach her His ways.  We prayed that the family she would go to would be Americans who would want continued contact with us.  But we had NO guarantees that He would answer these prayers.  In a season of lots of unanswered prayers, we held on to a mere thread of hope and faith.  This family could in all reality, be from anywhere in the world and it was entirely possible that after her adoption we would never see or hear from her again.  It was possible we might have to return to the States before she was adopted, forever closing to us any knowledge of where she’d gone or by whom she had been adopted.  It was possible that this family would not know Jesus at all and would not want anything to do with us.  These possibilities seemed so cruel and living with these unknowns was like torture to our souls.

Ultimately we knew we needed to submit to Him and whatever He had planned for us. 

 

At the end of February, we were given a clearer picture of what He had chosen for Bella.  I showed up for a meeting at the orphanage and the foster director told me that Bella was matched with her family.  They had sent her a package.  In the package was a letter and at the end of the letter was printed her parent’s names.  I called Mark in between finding out this news and the meeting.  He began an online search for them.

When I came home I immediately began, in a rant of tears, venting how I was feeling so sad and even angry at someone else calling our daughter theirs.  Mark was nodding and then said, “Erika, I found them and I think they are believers.”  What?  Really?  How could he know?  He said he found them on Facebook and he knew it was them because they had posted pictures of Bella that we had taken.  Shortly after that, we found their blog.  We wrote them a letter and introduced ourselves and explained that we were caring for their daughter.  We told them we had wanted to adopt her and that the government wouldn’t allow it.  We told them we hoped we could be in touch, both before her adoption and especially afterwards.  And then we waited.

About five hours later, we got their response.  They had been praying for their daughter’s foster family and the possibility of meeting them when they were here adopting her.  They had no idea that God would be so gracious to place their Chinese daughter in a loving, Christian home with American parents!  Their words brought healing to thirsty souls… “You will always be a part of Bella’s story and we want her to know that”… “We definitely want to stay in touch.  We want Bella to know Emma and Elsie”… “We really just want to be your friends.”  They acknowledged how heart breaking it must be for us not to be able to adopt her.  They were gracious to read our blog, feel our pain, and understand our suffering… even as they rejoiced in their own exciting news.  In God’s amazing love and gracious gift of choosing this family for Bella, He wiped away all of the fear and dread and so much of the anger and frustration we had felt.  In a sea of unanswered prayers and months of hardship, when we felt at times like we were drowning, we had just been thrown a life saver.