Monday, June 14, 2010

his words, not mine


On the morning we were planning to mail our application, Curtis was doing one final run through of the app. making sure all our i's were dotted and t's were crossed, when he got to the last page where we had written in our church's information. He had the thought that since we had our pastor's information on our application, we should probably talk to him about it before we mailed it in. My initial reaction was to grimace at the thought of putting our adoption decision in someone else's hands...giving him the permission to tell us what he thought, lest he thought it was a horrible decision or something (which i knew wouldn't be the case, but still) my first reaction was fear that he'd react poorly and we would have to put our application on hold and re-evaluate.

But, we've grown to understand the importance of submitting to this kind of leadership. It's been a while where we've felt comfortable enough at a church to open up and let people speak into our lives - it's a scary thing sometimes, but a gift we have come to value at the church we now call home. So, while my initial reaction was out of fear, we both knew that he and the rest of our new friends at church would be supportive. They already have been through our struggles getting pregnant. So unbelievably supportive.

So, when Curtis tried to call Darren (our pastor) and got no answer, he wrote him this email. I asked him if i could share it with you because i thought it was a beautiful description of what's in our hearts. That, and they are his words, not mine (for once):

Darren,
I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you something that has been on both mine and Jessie's hearts for some time now, which we feel God has been authoring. As you may or may not know, we have been attempting to become pregnant over this past year and a half and have been unsuccessful. After many doctor visits, we have learned that Jessie has some physical things which may make us less likely than others to conceive. That being said, less likely does not translate to unlikely or impossible, but may take more time. Through the emotions and selfishness we have both experienced, by the grace of God we have been brought back to something which i'm sure most christian couples discuss before marriage, adoption. Adoption not as a second best thing to getting pregnant, but as a first option, just as we are children of God who have been adopted into his eternal family. I can truly say that God has blessed us beyond anything we can think or imagine by making fertility difficult for us, and we haven't even begun the process. We do not take this decision lightly or hastily, and ask for your "blessing" if it were, for us to adopt. As our paster we respect you and want to be sure that we putting ourselves under your authority. To which I have to apologize for not discussing this with you months ago. It something that both Jessie and I have treasured in our hearts, and have just recently began to speak openly about with others. I'm sure it was out of sin, but looking back I think it was mostly out of fear of what others may say or think, and fear that we would not be able to afford such a costly thing. Your sermons over on parables have sent us home every Sunday with a new conviction, a new piece of truth that shattered all of our fears of what the future holds in regard to money, faith, and prayer.
To give you some details, we plan to adopt a boy between the ages of 0-1 from Ethiopia through America World Adoption, a Christian organization who has helped close friends of ours in Dayton adopt, along with their friends as well. The decision to adopt abroad is a lot less complex than maybe it should be, but our decision was based on asking ourselves, "Why not?" followed by the desire to adopt locally in the future if God allows. Jessie has been to Africa on two separate occasions for months on end and myself for two weeks, so there is that connection as well. We hope to hear from you soon so we feel the freedom to send off our application to the agency, that is of course unless you have objections to this, to which we would wait.

-Curtis and Jess

Only minutes after hitting send, Darren responded with an encouraging "Whoa!" followed by this response:

I can't wait to hear more and have no reservations - especially in light of how God's using His Word to enlarge specific faith!

At reading these words, a relief washed over me that just more fully confirmed our decision. And we were both so thankful that we had made ourselves vulnerable to him before taking that first step of mailing in our application.

and i'm thankful that i have the great privilege of walking this amazing road with one amazing man. Actually, i think there may be some guest posting in his future - he's so eloquent with words - and oh so funny on facebook! become his friend on there and you'll see what i'm talking about!

2 comments:

Curtis said...

Wow, your pastor really is one funny Face-Booker!

jess said...

i meant YOU dum dum!

 
Template by suckmylolly.com - background image by elmer.0