Blessed.

I spoke with our social worker Wednesday and she recommended living in my grandmother's empty house instead of my parents. This will allow us to avoid them having to have backgroud checks, and the possibility of that holding us up is just not an option for me. So, next week we are gonna get hard core and start cleaning out my grandmother's and packing up my house. It's going to be a blast (haha)! Really though, I'm getting super excited about everything, but with that excitement comes the super nervous part of me!! I'm praying everyday, and I keep handing it over, but then taking it back. You would think I would learn to just let Him have it!! I am still in awe of how everything has been provided. I'm such a blessed little lady!! I keep thinking about what our little one is going to look like. I have no idea, it's going to be such a surprise to see if it's a boy or girl, black, white, hispanic, asian...I just don't know, but that's somehow becoming a really nice thought to me.

 I feel like God has taught me so much over the past nearly 4 years in this journey. Soooo, I thought I would share :)

1. God sometimes gives us pain to reveal our hearts. Not because He's mean or wants to test us.
2. God doesn't reveal the whole big idea, the whole picture, the step by step plan of how it's goinig to work because He wants us to keep coming back to Him for the next piece of information we need. If we had it all, why would we need Him?
3. Sometimes, the pain that we endure is prolonged because He has the absolute perfect blessing waiting for us in the end.
4. We are not in control. God uses circumstances in our lives to remind us of this. Infertility is mine. Adoption is mine. It can be the death of a loved one, or the loss of a job. When we think we are in control, it's just an illusion.
5. I have some friends who are well off financially, they conceive for free. It's not fair. We aren't rich, we get to adopt. I know the blessing of adoption will far outweigh the cost though.
6. God is good. No matter what. His timing is perfect, and mine is not.
7. Adoption is expensive. I didn't think we could afford it. But when you lay it all at His feet, and let Him have control, He will provide. It's amazing to watch Him work in a way that you know is humanly impossible.
8. When God moves you to do something, don't wait on all of the details, don't wait to plan it all out. Stepping out in faith is scary, scary stuff, but it's the most rewarding stuff you will ever do!
9. Just because I'm adopting, doesn't mean I don't ever hope to conceive, but because I'm adopting, I'm okay with never conceiving.
10. The past year of preparing for adoption has been the most scary, awesome, nervewracking, humbling, uncomfortable experience ever, period, the end.