Miracles

God has been working some pretty incredible miracles in the lives of Sherlyn and I over the last couple of months. When I came to Christ in 2004, I experienced the incredible miracle of Jesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit can transform us into something brand new when we surrender our lives to Him. I’ve also seen many miracles come to pass as this life change has transformed my marriage, my finances, my desires and many other things in my life into something so incredible, that I’m just in awe of His power. It’s actually one of the un-answered prayers or miracles that I want to write about today.
Over the last year or so, my wife and I have been discussing and praying for the opportunity to adopt a child. I’ve had a passion for orphans and the possibility of adoption for just about as long as I can remember. I’ve always felt that adoption was a real possibility for me, even before I was ever married. I would look around at the world and the many things that even before I knew Christ, would disturb my spirit, and think that instead of bringing new life into this dark world that maybe I could bring some love to one of those affected by that darkness. I’m not saying that adoption is for everyone or that having your own child is a bad thing, just that something would tug at my heart whenever I would see an abandoned or troubled child. I just knew that I had something to offer them. My wife on the other hand wanted her own child and I would have liked a little boy or girl to call my own so we began trying (or rather not preventing) to have a baby. One day about a year ago my wife came home crying and began to tell me about a radio interview with Steven Curtis Chatman and how she now had a passion to adopt and really felt that was how God planned to give us children. I was of course excited because I had felt this urge to adopt for many years and her new found desire just confirmed for me that I had been hearing the voice of God all along. It is such an incredible feeling to look into the eyes of the one you love and see that you are both on the same path and to know that path is in God’s will. With her new passion and my confirmation, we began to talk about adoption and the things we had to do to prepare. She spent many hours on the internet researching international and domestic adoption and all the different things that needed to happen to make this a real possibility in our lives. It wasn’t long before we had a plan. The first thing that had to happen was that we had to have a new home. Most adoption agencies require that you go through some type of home interview and many of these agencies also have a minimum square footage requirement. Upon viewing some of these requirements, it was pretty obvious that our over stuffed, run down and abused, single wide trailer was just not going to impress anyone wanting to give us a child. The next thing that had to happen was saving up the money to adopt. Adoption was expensive and we weren’t rich (we’ve recently watched a series from Craig Groeschel called How to be Rich that has shown us that we are rich but that’s an article for some other time). The good thing about all this was that God was in it and we had already started a plan to become debt free. Over the next couple months the signs leading us towards adoption were everywhere. Eric’s message on Sunday would have something in it that confirmed our desires. Roger might say something on Wednesday night that would cause Sherlyn and I to exchange knowing glances at one another. Our budget was working pretty well, things were looking up financially and God was about to give Sherlyn a big promotion with a big raise! By this time, we had let most of our close friends in on our desire and people were beginning to pray for us.
Then... the dream came crashing down around us, I lost my job. How could we ever afford a new home and adoption if I wasn’t earning an income? Or hopes were put on hold and our dream and desires were now that much further away. To be honest, Sherlyn and I haven’t really talked about it much since I was laid off (for that I’m sorry). It has come up briefly when I had a job opportunity a couple weeks ago but I think we both knew our plan for having children was slipping further and further away as each week without a job came and went. Then along came the doubts… what if it really wasn’t God’s will for us to have children? What if it wasn’t in His plans? What if we hadn’t really heard the voice of God telling us to adopt?
Then the other day I receive a phone call. I really can’t go into any details but by the time I hung up the phone, I was sitting in the middle of a pasture with my head in my hands, weeping because of the greatness of God. No, we aren’t really any closer to adoption than we were but what did happen is that God reminded me that with him, all things are possible. That if it is God’s will that we should adopt then it will come to pass. If our obedience and desire, line up with His will, then no circumstances on this earth can keep this from occurring. Regardless of our plans, if God isn’t in them, then they will never bear fruit. I truly believe that God calls us to action to fulfill many of our prayers but I think what we sometimes forget that God only needs our obedience and a willing heart to bring these things to pass. Through a single phone call, God was able to show me a brief glimpse of how easily He can make this happen when the time is right and we are prepared to receive this blessing. While a new home and two incomes might be our requirements to continue to pray and dream of something greater, He need only to speak this into being and it will become a reality in our lives.

Luke 1:37
“For nothing is impossible with God."