I never, I can't........

I'm sure I could not begin to know how many times over my lifetime (and I've got a lot of years behind me) these have been my answers to God:

I "never" heard you
I "can't" do that:  I don't know how, I will feel embarrassed, I will be out of my comfort zone, I'm too busy, I'm too young, I'm too old, I.....you fill in the blank

So God knows he has to knock really loud for me to hear.  I think I started to get a little better at listening when my grandma died in 2000.  After her funeral, I had a 70 minute drive home all by myself and was pretty sad.  About 20 minutes into my drive I started heading directly into the sunset.  It was the most beautiful purple and pink sunset I had ever seen, in fact, I had NEVER seen a purple and pink sunset.  This was significant because my grandma's favorite color?  PURPLE!  I was immediately at peace and watched this for the remainder of my drive home, how cool was that?!  God was letting me know that my grandma was with Him and was happy!  You know another time I saw this beautiful sky?  The morning that we were driving to the hospital for Big J to be born!  And on what day?  Grandma's birthday!!

In the summer of 2009 when I was complaining to Tim about how long it was going to take before our turn in line arrived for us to receive a referral from Ch *na, Tim tried to be optimistic.  The next night he told me though that he thought I was right, that it probably would be 3 or 4 or 5 years but he had come up with a solution, we should adopt from Ethiopia WHILE we waited.  Whoa.....was he forgetting who he was talking to, miss practical.....was he forgetting how old we are? that it costs a lot of money to adopt? that it costs a lot of money to raise a kid? that there is no way I could stay sane with 3 kids?  I mean, these are all very logical, practical thoughts right?  Well, God knew what my reaction would be and started giving bombarding me with signs that this is what he wanted us to do.  I'm ashamed to say that this was probably the first time in my life that I took that leap of faith and said Ok, I get it and I'll do it (but it isn't really practical)!  We went to a picnic that our home study agency holds every summer and there were families who had not one, not two, not three, but oh my goodness had large families, even one single mom who had 3 girls adopted from Ch * na and two boys from Ethiopia.  Ok God, I get it, if they can do it, I can manage 3.  Every step of the way, God kept reassuring me always when I needed it most.  I love this one, the morning after we received our referral for Little J, I turned Dora on for Big J.  The episode??  Dora becomes a BIG SISTER!  HA!  (And I've never seen this episode repeat).

What does this bring me to?  I mentioned in my initial post to come back in February to learn about the title of our blog.  Four plus one more. No, it does NOT mean I am pregnant!  I can't believe my aunt, who KNOWS how old I am thought that!  It DOES mean that we will be finishing our Ch *na adoption through their waiting child program.  At the end of that Dora episode, Dora gets to meet her new sibling, a sister (Little J) AND a brother! Big J has told us all along that she wants a sister AND a brother.  So, probably this time next year, we will learn what God (and probably Big J - she has a pretty strong connection to the man upstairs because of her grandma) has known all along as to who that special kiddo is.  Everything "logical" in me says all the same things, we can't afford the adoption, we can't afford raising 3, I will go bonkers with 3, blah blah blah.....maybe all true but we DO have the love for three and I am having faith in God for the rest.  I can't even begin to tell you how much God blessed us for taking that leap of faith with the addition of Little J (well, I will try and tell you sometime this month since we will celebrate her being home with us for ONE year!)

Here is a pic of two of the cutest, smartest, big sisters to be ever!