Part Five

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Part Five:

There have been a few instances in our almost 15 years of marriage that really stick out to me. Instances when something happened and we were forever changed. Instances where words spoken made me fall in love with my husband all over again. Instances where I felt so undeserving of this wonderful man that God allowed to be my companion in this earthly life.  One of those instances occurred on the way home from our first cardiologist visit just a week or so after we returned home from China with our daughter back in 2009. We had just been given news that our daughter was showing signs of heart failure, that she might not be a candidate for surgery because of her pulmonary hypertension and that possibly, if she could have surgery, the only option might be a heart transplant. Our daughter had fallen asleep in the car and I was looking at her precious face and trying not to be filled with fear at the news we had received. I looked at Aaron and asked him, “What are you feeling? Would you do it all over again if you knew this might be the outcome?” He so sweetly, with tears in his eyes, said, “Yes…she is ours. We are better off with her in our lives.” He went on to say words that put things in perspective. He pointed me to Christ and assured me of His great love for us and our new daughter. 

On January 18, another one of those instances occurred. My husband works from home, and on one of his coffee breaks he started talking to me in a way that made me stop in my tracks because I could sense the seriousness in his voice. He asked me if I could really picture us with five children. I said yes, I could, but I was praying that if that was not God’s plan for us right now that He would lessen the desire or take it away completely. He went on to say that he too could picture us with 5 children, and he liked that picture.  He said the only fear he had was regarding the money, but that he knew that fear did not come from God. Then, with amazing love he said he could not allow me to carry the burden any more, that he would rather carry the financial burden than allow me to suffer with the burden of a child that might be missing from our family.

If you had been in the house I’m sure you would have been scared to death. I was a MESS. I cried, I praised God, I jumped up and down like a crazy woman. Of course I said, are you sure?? Really sure?? And he said yes, over and over again. 

After I settled down a bit I asked him what we should do next? You see, three days before that Karla had emailed me that the little girl she had called us about was going to be put on their waiting child website that day. I had emailed her back and said that I really wanted to have her file, but that we just weren’t there…and that I would be happy to see her little face on the website and I would pray for her to find a family. Well, she was not put on the website that day, or the next day, or the next day. I had checked several times each day! So I told Aaron this and he said, “Well you better give Karla a call and find out if she is still available.” Oh my word…I thought I might faint.

Within about 30 minutes Aaron and I were looking at a face that looked so familiar. This little girl looked like our daughter…and not just because she was Chinese. Her name was another similarity…YunYun. Could this really be our daughter so that we would have three Chinese children with names so very similar? YouYou, YuanYuan, and YunYun! That is just hilarious to me.

Things went very quickly from there. By the end of the evening we had heard back from our daughter’s cardiologist and we could see no reason why this little one should not be a part of our family. We prayed about it over the weekend and then on Monday we rejoiced with Karla after letting her know that we wanted to proceed with her adoption. 

We have now been given pre approval to adopt this beautiful child. We are overwhelmed by the Father’s great love for us. He is patient with us when we lack faith. He is full of mercy and grace.

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. 1John 3:1

Good thing I never got around to changing the name of our blog because YouYou is going to have a MeiMei! She is going to have a little brother AND a little sister!!

And here she is…

Praise God for this good and perfect gift!