Cheyanne

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I realized we were missing someone in our family.

I would do my regular head count in public to make sure we had everyone.

One, two, three, four....

Oh ya, we only have four.

I was always looking for someone else.

This feeling was very overwhelming at times.

Then we met some dear friends who were in the process of an international adoption. I started wondering if we might consider adoption. We had talked about it briefly when we only had our first two children. A cousin's children were possibly going to need a permanent home. They ended up with their mother which was fine with us, but I knew that Dan had been open to it back then. Back then, we only had two children, but now we have four.

What would he think now?

I didn't want to influence him about adopting beca

use I didn't want to push for something that wasn't suppose to be.

(Ladies, we have a powerful influence that we have to be careful of.)

So I prayed.

I prayed that if this was something we needed to pursue, then would God please move my husband that way. Otherwise, I asked for contentment and that God would remove any desire for more children.

Little did I know that Dan was thinking the same thing! He wasn't sure how to bring it up to me because I would be home with them the most.

All that to say, we decided we should pursue adoption.

We decided to go through the state to adopt foster children. It is the least expensive and I felt a connection to foster children because my brother and I were both fostered as children.

(He with the state and I with family.)

I ran into an old acquaintance who just started fostering her infant granddaughter. She told me the child would be going up for adoption eventually. I mentioned we were working on our home study to adopt.

That started a long relationship.

She was a single women in her early 60's, so she asked me if we would do respite care for the baby. (Basically babysit for free that included a weekly overnight stay.) Dan and I discussed it and said yes

So our family was introduced to baby Cheyanne.

We got to spend a lot of time with Cheyanne. We all fell in love with her. We got to see many of her 'firsts' because we started being involved with her when she was only three months old.

During this time or home study was finished and we started sending it in for many different children to be considered for adoption. We hoped we would be able to adopt Cheyanne but the way the state works, it's not a guarantee. We just put our faith in God, that he would bring just the right child into our home. We wanted Cheyanne in our family but only if God wanted it.

After being closely involved with Cheyanne for 11 months, our family was considered with two other families before a committee of state workers. The other families didn't know her but had been chosen for consideration by her case worker.

Regardless of our history with her, we weren't chosen to be the adoptive family.

That...was...hard.

It's still a little painful to talk about it.

We were never chosen to go to a committee for any other children either.

This all occurred over the last two years. Our home study expired a few months ago and we have let it sit there. We could renew it anytime but we just aren't sure if that is what we are suppose to do.

Ultimately, I don't feel that our time was wasted.

I was sad to say goodbye to Cheyanne but a little relieved too. I felt a peace about the whole thing. I knew we hadn't been chosen to raise her because that wasn't God's plan for her or us. We were allowed those 11 months with her and that was very important.

I have to say, though, that this little girl took a piece of our hearts with her.

This time was a faith building, family bonding time for all of us.

I was amazed to see my oldest, who was 10 at the time, grow in her faith so much. Don't be nervous when your children pray for something that you aren't sure of the outcome. Regardless of the answer, God will grow that child's faith. I use to be scared when my little girl asked for more babies in our house, because at the time, we weren't going to have anymore. I didn't want her to be 'disappointed' because God hadn't answered her the way she wanted. He did answer her prayer in Cheyanne.

Faith like a child is so much different then ours.

It is innocent.

Trusting the Father to answer and allowing Him to heal when it isn't what we thought it should be. It doesn't shake a fist at Him.

We are all called to such a faith.