An Adoption Story: Allison & Matt
GOD’s faithfulness in adoption: PART ONE
Immediately upon meeting Allison & Matt it was clear that they were ready to jump all into to their next adoption. After experiencing one successful adoption years earlier, they were positive, hopeful, and mostly rooted in the belief that Christ would carry them through this next adoption. With every adoption, the uncertainties and unknowns and can be so incredibly challenging for everyone involved. Allison & Matt maintained steadfast faith every step of the way, keeping their eyes on Christ and how he was guiding them to serve others through adoption.
This adoption story is a little different, written by the two of them, broken up into two parts it highlights how God’s faithfulness has carried them through both of their adoptions and the lessons they learned along the way. I pray you find it as impactful as I do, seeing these two lovely people grow their family to a family of four and keeping God first always.
Our journey to parenthood was not one that was easy and even one that sometimes I look back on and say, “Wow, this story only makes sense because of the hand of God!” You will see as you read how I now have two adorable and amazing kids because of God and His faithfulness to us. There were times when the journey was hard but God was our rock and our strength and He carried us through. There were times when the journey was lonely but God was our ever-present help and friend. There was time and time again where we couldn’t help but stop and praise the Lord for his provisions. And despite the hard, the sad, the lonely, there was and is great joy in our story! I hope as you read that you will hear of our wonderful and loving Heavenly Father who truly does what Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
Adoption--welcoming and loving a child who is not yours by genetics but is yours in heart and mind. The love is joyful, the love is intense, the love is a love like no other. God adopted us as His sons and daughters through the death and resurrection of His only Son, Jesus. He has welcomed us with open and loving arms. God receives us as sons and daughters with no limitations and He holds nothing back from us. We are heirs of His. This is a beautiful picture of adoption and one that has played a large role in our hearts for adoption!
Each adoption story is different and unique. Matt and I both knew that we would one day like to adopt children to grow our family before we even started dating. God had brought together two individuals with a heart for adoption. What we did not know at that time was how God would orchestrate the story of our family through two completely different adoption journeys. Our first adoption journey was a 3+ year journey which included paperwork, home study, a lot of not being the chosen family, a miscarriage, and finally the gift of a precious baby boy! During this part of our journey Matt was in seminary and a tire delivery guy and I was a school teacher. When looking at the financial piece of adoption you saw that it was only God who provided. Without the Lord’s generosity through friends and family supporting us financially we couldn’t have made it happen. As I look back to this time I truly don’t even remember where or how we got all the money, all I know was each time money was due we somehow had the exact amount. I know that wasn't a coincidence but instead God saying, “here I am, I am supporting you during this time, and continue to walk faithfully through the door that I have opened.” Our profile book was shown who knows how many times but lots, there were months we were shown numerous times, there were months that went by of silence. There were so many ups and downs. During this time I took a pregnancy test. I’d taken many in the 5 years we had been married never to see the positive answer.
So on that Wednesday afternoon afterschool when the lines immediately announced pregnant, I couldn’t believe it! We were having a baby! Well, we got to be excited and dream about this bundle of joy that was to come, our first child, for exactly 8 days. The following Thursday we lost the baby. This was hard, we didn’t understand why after 5 years we were finally having a child to only lose them after loving them for 8 days. While we still grieved the loss of that baby we clung to the hope that we had knowing that God was going to give us a child through the gift of adoption. We continued joyfully on the adoption journey. As you can imagine the months ahead our desires to have a baby were even stronger. But God provided joy, God provided hope, God provided strength, and God carried us through.
During the winter of 2018, I am doing my Bible Study and as I prayed that day I was really letting God know the pain and the hardness of waiting for the child that He had for me. Well, my reading in the Bible that day was when Elizabeth and Zachariah found out they were pregnant with John the Baptist. In the commentary I was reading it shared of the long wait they had had to become parents and how hard that was but it also shared something that gave me tremendous hope and encouragement. They couldn’t become parents before this appointed time because God had great plans for their son, he was to prepare the way for the Messiah. John the Baptist’s time and work on earth was not ready before then. This gave me a new perspective on things. God has great plans for my children’s lives just like He does for you. He knows the day that you are going to enter this earth and the work that He has for you to do while you are here. While my children are not preparing the way for the Messiah, I do trust that God is going to use their lives here on earth to accomplish great things. So I clung to this that when God was ready for our child to be on this earth He would give us the gift of a child. It would be their time and our time!
That following May we got the phone call we had been waiting 3 years for, we were matched!! A baby boy was going to be our son! We soaked in every moment of our new family of three and the love that was instantaneously there! God had given us the desires of our hearts and answered our prayers. His adoption story is another testament to God’s goodness and faithfulness. One where we were reminded time and time again that God’s timing is not our timing and that God’s timing is perfect. While it is often hard to remember this truth we can look back at the long wait to bring our son home and see what God was teaching us during that time as well as how our son was the perfect child God had chosen for our family.
We felt that the Lord however was not done growing our family through adoption but surrendered our hearts and time table to Him.
