November Guest Post #3

Next up in my guests posts for Adoption Awareness month is Amy at Filled With Praise, she is so sweet and has such a heart for adoption and other adopting families. She actually features fundraising families on her blog and that was where this idea blossomed. Thank you Amy for sharing your heart and your story. ENJOY!

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To Allison, thank you so much for sharing our story!  {A big Southern} Hey Ya'll!  to all of Allison's readers.  My name is Amy and I blog at Filled With Praise.

In July 2009, my husband and I had three children; our youngest being only six months old.  We were living life, unaware of how drastically God was about to change all that we knew.  In an instant, our eyes were completely opened to the orphans of the world.  Not only did He open our eyes, but He placed an urgent calling on our hearts to adopt.  After late night conversations and a lot of prayer, we began the adoption process on complete faith that He would provide every dollar needed and that He would lead us to our child. 

Were we scared?  YES!  Were we afraid others would think we had lost our minds?  Quite honestly, many did think we had lost our minds.  We were met with many rude and hurtful comments when we made our announcement and throughout our process, but we knew in our hearts that adoption was absolutely something that God had placed upon us.  We followed Him and it turned out to be the journey of our lives.  At every twist and turn in the road and during every time of wait or delay, we felt His presence. 

Our walk to our son ended in Ethiopia in July 2010, exactly one year to the day that we started the process.  There we were handed our son, Elijah, and we were met with confirmation after confirmation that this was indeed the child that God had chosen for our family.  We also ended our walk through the adoption process completely paid in full through God’s works. 

After being home for over a year, I can tell you that there is not a day that goes by that we do not thank God for the day that He “wrecked” our world and opened our eyes to adoption.  It was in no way an easy walk, but it was oh so worth it!  We have a deeper understanding of God’s love for each of us and the sacrifice that was made through Jesus.  

Elijah is filled with beauty and is a blessing to our family.  I cannot imagine missing the blessing of being his mommy.  He brings joy and laughter to our home and he is adored by his siblings.  I can tell you that we are far from perfect parents, our children are not always angels, our life is often crazy and sometimes hard, but life is so good.  When his name is broken down by meaning, it perfectly summarizes how we feel: Elijah (God is Lord) and Mihretu (God’s grace).  God is Lord and through His grace we will forever be a family.  It does not get any better than that!