Enough

So yesterday in church we sang "Enough" by Chris Tomlin. It's a song I've sung many times over. For those of you not familiar with the song here are the lyrics.

All of You is more than enough for all of me

For every thirst and every need

You satisfy me with Your love

And all I have in You is more than enough

You are my supply

My breath of life

And still more awesome than I know

You are my reward

worth living for

And still more awesome than I know

All of You is more than enough for all of me

For every thirst and every need

You satisfy me with Your love

And all I have in You is more than enough

Youre my sacrifice

Of greatest price

And still more awesome than I know

Youre the coming King

You are everything

And still more awesome than I know

More than all I want

More than all I need

You are more than enough for me

More than all I know

More than all I can say

You are more than enough for me

(Deep breath)

I've been lying to God and myself for some time now. I haven't been satisfied with Him. He hasn't been enough. I've been consumed with this adoption process and the desire to have a child. 

Is that desire wrong? Absolutely not,

But, 

It cannot draw me away from my God and Creator. He is the breath if life and all is in His hands. 

I must be satisfied with Him. 

Lord, 

Help me to be satisfied with you. 

Service Plan

This is what our final meeting is about, our service plan. Now, that's just a veiled term for the paperwork where we pick out what we will and will not accept or be looking for in our child.

This is just a little odd for me, and where I would argue that adoption gets harder then normal birth.

We literally have to sit down and discuss as a couple what we want on this form.

White male with zero exposure to drugs/alcohol and no family history of mental illness/disorders.

Black female with little exposure to alcohol (just first couple wks before mom realized she was pregnant) but multiple layers of depression running rampant in dad's family.

Bi-racial male whose mother smoked weed throughout pregnancy cause her life was so miserable she couldn't survive the day without being high and has a history of schizophrenia.

These are all possible scenarios we could end up facing. Is it my job to sit down and put together my wish list? I mean some of it is easy stuff like race and gender. We don't care at all and will take whatever the Lord decides to bless us with. Mental history? Seriously?

I just pray that the Lord has exactly the child we need and that needs us picked out and will make sure our paths cross as they are supposed to. I will need so much wisdom throughout this process and the child's life that I have already begun praying for it.

I ask that you please join with us and praying that the Lord's will be done and we don't get in the way and mess it up.

Update

Alright so I've learned in this process one major thing.





I am not very good at this whole blog thing. I am going to try to be better at it but I will make no promises so that you can't hold it against me later.

Quick update:

We are 2 of 3 meetings done. Our next one is Thur Nov 1. (I will talk more about that in a separate blog) So, if it is God's will we should be officially on the waiting list for a babe by the end of November.

That's just a cool thought.

We are having to get slightly more serious on raising the funds to pay off the adoption when it happens. God is so good and its so neat to see how He works. Through various ways we have already been able to raise/come up with enough money to pay all the initial costs. It is only because of Him and the generosity of some friends.

Thank you for loving us.


-Trev

Breathing

Just letting you guys know that I am.

Struggle

So up until now I had been totally fine but now I am starting to get worn down.

I am supposed to be the relaxed one and the one who Ash can come to when she is freaking out.

I am supposed to be the one who doesn't get ruffled by the time this process takes.

I am the one who doesn't get flustered.

I am the one who is losing it.

I know its His time and His child but could He hurry them along???????

Paperwork

I promised you I'd post again today.

Let's talk about the paperwork aspect of the adoption process. Unless you have ever gone through the adoption process yourself you cannot even imagine the literal mountain of paperwork it takes. Now, remember we aren't even halfway through the process and here is the list (as best as I can remember) that we have had to do so far:

1) Prelim application
2) Formal app
3) Multiple References (2 family, 3 personal, work ones for each of us and a pastoral one as well)
4) The last 3 years tax returns
5) Shot records of the dog!
6) Physicals for both of us
7) Fingerprints
8) Background checks (those will be the most boring checks ever, Ash and I were both "goodie old two shoes" as Jude likes to say)
9) 2 different questionnaires that total were somewhere around 65 questions. One of them was a checklist where you checked the appropriate answers but the other was your own answers and I typed 6 pages!
10)  copies of marriage, birth certs, drivers license, insurance and vehicle registration
11) a personal statement of faith
12) multiple pages that we had to read and agree and sign (policies and such)
13) and various online training sessions and the accompanying workbook pages.

Now I know it is necessary to make sure that the children are going to good homes but I sure wish it was a quicker process. I guess I can know longer complain about having nothing to do with all of those things to compile.


That' it for now. Stay tuned for more ramblings as the process continues. 

Finally

Ok so I guess I am not a very good blogger seeing it has been 3 months since I've done anything on here. Guess I won't be winning any awards for this endeavor.

So, let's catch up.......




We haven't done anything.

<crickets, crickets>




This is a longer process then I was anticipating. I pride myself on being a laid back guy who doesn't really get up in arms about much of anything but I was not prepared for the delay in these initial stages. Now, I was fully aware that there would be periods of waiting, hurry up and wait and then wait some more and then go full scramble mode to bring that baby home.

After getting the initial info meeting out of the way and got the formal application in and we were ready to go. Next step? Meeting with case worker, sweet ok when can we do that? How about 4 weeks from now? Dang! Seriously? Ok let's fast forward. We finally got to our next meeting this past Friday and actually sat down with someone to introduce and get this ball rolling for real.

Meeting went great, met with Kristen who is the SW (social worker) for the adoptive families. She is a pretty cool chick with a great personality. She potentially will conduct our HS (home study) but that is yet to be decided. This meeting was another basic one and the main reason was to pass off another packet of paperwork. Now this packet is no joke. I am going to save the paperwork post for tomorrow (seriously, I promise I'll do it) as it honestly deserves an entire post to itself.

I am just pumped to have something tangible to do. We have to crack out the paperwork and complete some online training sessions which require some reading and then the big stuff starts. Once we get through 4 sessions and write a nice check we can start the HS.

I am just so excited for it to finally be feeling more real. Up until this point I feel as though its been lip service but now actions are needed.


I'll fill in more details tomorrow.