our first possibility

reality hit hard and fast. the years of paperwork and wanting to love others, but wondering how the hours of working for southernsavers and mounds of paperwork really were ministry were gone in a flash. we got our first possible child presented to us. it all became very real.

during the last meeting for our homestudy, our caseworker asked us if we were open to adopting a child that was the result of incest. (it was one of the questions on our "type of child desired form" that we had checked with a maybe.) there was a brother and sister. the sister was pregnant. they were younger than 15. after i got over the icks, i was so grieved. how does that happen? where were their parents? their mom seemed unfazed by it all. was the father of this baby really the brother, or was he just the fall guy for their dad. how? why? and...

how do you begin to tell a child you have adopted their story when THAT is their story? jon and i prayed. i made phone calls to doctors to find out the medical ramifications. we learned about genetic testing that could be done after birth. we decided after gathering our info that we would be willing for them to view our profile. willing to consider it with the contingency of doing testing after birth. everything we were hearing was that everything could be fine, or could be a mess. and really, isn't all of that brokenness such a mess?

we began to pray for that family. pray for redemption. pray for healing. pray for massive, massive change. and we waited to see if they would pick us.

they didn't. i honestly cannot remember if i grieved or not. i think i did a bit. we had invested our hearts in prayer and our time in research and love had begun to grow. at the same time, with it being the situation it was, we were fervently praying for God to make it clear if this is where He wanted US. He said, "no."

so we went back to waiting.