How Will I Know?
January-March 2006
Since January, once our boys have been tucked in for the night, Jeff and I have been fervently searching online about adoption agencies, reading every adoption story there is including the “adoption nightmares”, you know the “could happens”, and silently questioning if this is what the Lord has for us . . . to risk our family’s present state of happiness as well as finances to adopt a forgotten child. Still . . . we pushed on with the research– reading about foster care, domestic, and international; both of us are very much still drawn to China. I try not to dwell on the dream I had two years ago, but the face of my daughter is permanently etched inside my mind. I can still hear the echoes of the slamming bathroom doors as I frantically looked inside each stall. On March 1, 2006, we apply for the China program through Holt International. That same day the application was put in the mail, I began to grow you, my daughter, in my heart. Little did I know that you had been there much longer then I remembered . . .
Soon after . . .
My mom quietly listens as I begin to tell her about the dream I had two years ago; my dream to adopt a little girl from China. The words just poured out of my mouth as I began to tell her about the time I sobbed all the way home from work after hearing a Dr. Dobson’s radio broadcast about Chinese adoptions. I, then, told her how in January 2003, after finding out that I was carrying my sweet Jonah, the Lord quietly spoke these words, “Why do you assume that you will only have two boys? Adoption, Jenni.” Instantly, my tears cascaded down, watering the rose colored quilt that I had planned to use for my little girl. I, then, waited for my mom to advise me of the dangers of adopting–the risks that were involved for not just our boys but for Jeff and I as well. But, they never came. Instead, mom told me of the three China magazines that she had recently received regarding adoption; she had no idea why they came in the mail. She went on to tell me how there were only two years that I did not play “school” in my room. For two years straight, after coming back from Bible camp, I would play orphanage in my room with my stuffed animals and would consistently say that I was going to go to another country to help kids.
Apparently, our destiny to adopt you had already been decided long ago. Knowing that the Lord grew you, my daughter, in my heart twenty five years ago is comforting. It is true–I knew you before you were born and have waited all my life, for you, Juliese.
Isaiah 43:1-7
