The Adoption Decision- mvt II

Note: mvt I to this story starts below, and will make more sense if read in order.


FAQ- How did you decide to adopt?
Well, it goes a little something like this. Chris and I had been in China for about 4 months, and my eyes had been drawn to four beautiful babies that I had met through church friends in that time. The first was Paul, whom we met at the airport that first day, when our dear friend Tracey so kindly picked us up from the airport. She was helping care for him as his Healing Home until he was adopted. Later at church at met two other families who had Chinese babies through the same foundation as Paul came through. (Paul has since been adopted by a Canadian family!). My dear friend Suzanne had already adopted two sweet little girls, after having two bio sons, and my awesome friend Brynna was in the middle of her daughter's adoption, after having 3 bio kids. So this concept of fostering, which I later learned was termed 'Healing Home', which I'll explain later, was very intriguing to me. One night when Suzanne and her lovely family had us over for dinner, I brought up some questions regarding adoption and their girls' foundation and was entranced. This was awesome! Well, Chris...not so much. "I don't want to adopt. I'm not interested at all, but if I were to adopt, it would be a boy."  Wait, what?  He said 'if'?  That's very interesting. We'll, it was still a curiosity to me at that point.  I wasn't instantly "sold" on the idea, although it didn't take long. The idea of adopting a Chinese baby (and well, Chris said boy), so Chinese baby boy kept popping up in my thoughts...like almost obsessively. Where was this coming up from?  I mentioned it to Chris, but nope...not interested. Alright, well I can respect that, and I'm certainly not going to try and force this type of decision on him, but those thoughts would not. go. away!  So finally I prayed about it, and yep- That's what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to adopt!  Wow!  Really?  Ummm...Have you met my husband Chris, who is a good man, but cannot be persuaded easily once his mind has

been made up (I can totally look back and see Heavenly Father saying, "Just you wait and see what I 
can do. Lol"). Okay, maybe He wouldn't say 'LOL', but you get the point. So every nice in a while I 
would bring the topic up again, and Chris had the same response. Oh goodness...How are we supposed to do the Lord's will when my husband isn't in board with this. I kept praying over and over to see if we were really supposed to adopt when one day I was reading in my scriptures and something big hit me. I'm not going to go into the details here, because its so very personal, but I realized that I was praying for the wrong thing. I already received my answer, loud and clear, so why did I keep praying to find that out!  So I realized, I need to change my prayer to ask for my husband's heart to be softened and to get the same answer I did, even though he wasn't praying about it. (Remember, he wasn't interested). So finally it was on one of our weekly date nights, and we were out walking, when I brought up the topic once again (He was so patient with me, even though I could tell he was getting tired of me bringing this up again and again). He had a business trip coming up that next week, so I just asked him to take a little time just to think about it and pray about it while in his trip. "What if the answer I get is a no", he asks. Whew!  Sweating time and a leap of faith. I 
responded, "If the answer is no, then we won't adopt, and I'll leave it alone; however, I need you to 
truly be open to Heavenly Father's answer to you and accept it if it is a 'yes'". Fair enough, and we left it at that. Chris left on his business trip, and I prayed so hard, this time for the right thing, for his heart to be softened and for him to receive the same answer I KNEW I had received. 

So this is when the tears come in, even when I type this. Chris comes home from his business trip, everything seeming normal, until the kids are put to bed, and we sit down on our couch. Now, Chris is not a man of many words, and certainly not a man to begin many conversations, so when he looks over to me and says, "I need to talk to you about something", I was immediately focused and curious as to his conversation starter. "OK". He goes on, "I was laying down on my hotel bed at the end of a busy and exhausting work day full of meetings and presentations when I started thinking about adoption, as you requested. All of a sudden I heard a voice saying 'trust your wife'. I was laying there taking that all again when the voice out loud repeated it a second time a couple of minutes later.

'Trust your wife', and I knew in that moment that we needed to adopt."  Oh my goodness!  Did he really just say that?  Did he really just tell me that he got his answer with an audible voice?  Who hears a voice?  I have only heard a voice similar to that at my best friend Amy's funeral telling me that everything was going to be okay, back when I was 20, but when I get answers to my prayers, it's in another way completely. After crying and hugging, Chris was totally on board from that moment on!