There will be Showers of Blessing!

I will send down showers in season;

there will be showers of blessing.

Ezekiel 34:26

I saw first-hand the power of my God and how he will bestow blessings on His children, in His timing, in His way.  I am rejoicing this morning, I am filled with awe and joy of my God, my Savior.  He answers prayer in ways that overwhelms me and blows my mind.  This journey has been spiritually and emotionally exhausting, exhilarating and very enjoyable.  Yesterday was filled with so much joy I want to stand at the roof top and shout How Great My God Is.  Well, let me just tell you how great my God is.

I will give brief details about a child we have been praying about and prayerfully perusing since last November.  She is no one we set out on this journey searching for, and we have come to understand she is everything we want and need!  She has a physical handicap, one that I might add I said NO to in our very first interview with our social worker.  I distinctly remember when the question was asked about this certain handicap if you would be willing to accept a child with this disability.  Shamefully I admit we said No.  I didn’t think I was capable or had the strength, and looking back at that time I wasn’t even sure my faith was strong enough to handle what God was planning.  I have a picture in my mind, of that moment that I was sitting on the couch answering No to that question, I have a picture of my Heavenly Father watching down and shaking His head thinking Oh, my Child just wait, just wait and see what I have planned for you and your family.  Just wait and see the future and child I know you need.  You think you know what’s best for you, but Oh my Child you have no idea.  I really had no idea!

This little girl was brought to our attention by Anna Lee, which is a very powerful story that I will share when we have “officially” been matched with this precious little one.  I have been praying for her so hard and for so long.  The prayers I have prayed for her were all answered in a matter of a 10 minute conversation with our social worker yesterday, and that is the story I want to share.  I will touch on other stories in her journey and ours coming together, but this one is so powerful, so I wanted to share! 

I felt the Lord has been so silent to me the last few months.  He has told me firmly on three occasions this is your child.  Period. Being completely transparent I have questioned God many times over the last few months, why me, why us.  Why not a healthy child?  Lord, I can’t do this.  Lord, find her another family.  Lord, help me because I feel so weak and just can’t do this.  One day He finally knocked me over the head and said your right my child, you can’t do this but I can.  You don’t have the strength, But I Do.  You aren’t able to walk this journey, but I can walk it for you!  The Lord had been silent all that time because He had already told me what I needed to hear.  She was mine, He has this, and I need to quit questioning, quit whining, quit complaining and start rejoicing.  So, that is when my prayers started to change.  I started praying for the Lord to protect her mind, and that he would give her a healthy mind.  I started praying against any mental disabilities.  I starting praying that God would give her joy and peace about her situation, and that He would send people to hold her and love her until we can.  I started praying that she would not be lying in a crib, staring at the ceiling for 24 hrs a day, knowing her disability might have her in that situation.  I just started pleading her case before the Lord.  And He answered.

Yesterday we had our third and next to last home study visit in our home!  Whoo Hoo!  We had given the tour, we had some awesome conversation.  Our social worker met Anna Lee, and she behaved (answered prayer in itself). Although she did tell on Brad for not finishing the last chapter of the book he was supposed to be finished with!  That gave us a laugh.  And at the end our social worker closed her book and said I have something to share with you.  She began telling us she was in Haiti last week, and then she told us some very powerful words...I held your child in my arms.   Tears are still flowing from my eyes now, and they were falling like showers from Heaven yesterday, and I look over at this sweet man I married 8 years ago and he had tears flowing down his cheeks too.  This moment was the sweetest moment from God and it could have lasted for years in my mind.  My social worker, who is sitting at my kitchen table in Rock Creek, Alabama was just in Haiti a few days ago holding the daughter that would be a part of our lives.  How awesome is that?  How cool is that?  It is very rare that an adopting family gets the chance to have their social worker hold their child and reassure them all will be fine.  You see before she came to our house I asked God, God I need to know her mind is okay.  I need to know the extent of what we are getting into.  I need to know she is okay, and isn’t sitting in a crib staring at the ceiling.  Those were my direct prayers.  Our social worker went on to tell us, this sweet baby sat in her lap and played with her hair.  She interacted as most babies do at her age.  She responded just as normal baby her age would, she just has her physical handicap.  PRAISE GOD for protecting her mind.  She went on to tell us she was scooting across the floor with the other babies playing with them.  PRAISE GOD she isn’t lying in a crib starting at the ceiling.  She is being stimulated, and is able to be involved in playing and activity.  She went on to tell us she held her quite a bit.  Remember my prayer that God would provide people to hold her and love her until we could.  PRAISE GOD for giving her someone that would hold her and love on her that day.   All my prayers that have drained me over the last few months were answered yesterday in 10 minutes.  He has been answering my prayers all along, I just didn't know it until He wanted me to.  And how powerful and sweet it was.  God blessed my family in ways that I could not comprehend yesterday.  It will forever be stained on my heart.  Blessings from Heaven were showered down on the Dobson Family, and I can’t stop singing the Praises of my God and Savior.  He provides, He comforts, He answers, and Hallelujah I serve a God that does not give me what I want but what I need!  He knows our future better than us.  Oh, how I love my Father.  He is so good to me!

Please continue to pray for our family and this little girl.  Pray that God will protect this little girl just for us!  We need her more than she needs us!

Ask and it will be given to you...

Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  So in EVERYTHING, do to others what you would have them do to you, for these sums up the law and the Prophets.  Matthew 7:7-12

        It’s been a while since I sat down to write…what that really means is it took God a lot longer this time to get a hold of me.  The common theme of this journey for us and me is Change.  Just when I think there is nothing else I can change or get rid of, or I think, Lord, how much more do you have to teach me? He peels back more layers and low and behold there is something else He wants pruned from my life.  This time it seemed like a never ending battle between me and Him, the Lord that is.  A battle between my stubbornness to hold on to what I thought and what I needed, and His gentle nudging for me to let go, and let Him completely take control.  I pray each day…Lord take control of my life, Lord lead me in the direction You want, Lord point me down the narrow road…and so on.  And what I really mean is, Lord take control of my life, but control it the way I want You to, and Lead me in the direction you want, but Lord don’t make it too hard, and Lord point me down the narrow road, but make it wide enough that I don’t have to sacrifice too much.  Make this relationship fun and easy.  Make it exciting and new.  Make it ever changing, Make it everything I want it to be.  Well, it is fun, exciting, new each day, ever changing, but one thing it is not is easy…and when I find it easy I find myself not where God wants me.  Nothing about Christianity should be easy.  Nothing about the cost of being a disciple should be easy.  Most often than not, the paths the Lord has for us to walk are not easy.  I am learning to rejoice in the hard things, because that is exactly where the Lord wants me to be…completely dependent on Him. 

        When we first started this process “officially” back in September I remember sitting in one of our first home-study meetings and our social worker rattling off a list of what we were willing to accept in a child and what we were not willing to accept.  It almost felt wrong answering some of those questions, and passing on others.  To be completely honest and transparent, I had the mindset that if we were going to take in an orphan, it’s okay that I have some say in who that child is, or what is wrong with her or what we are willing to handle or capable of handling.  As Brad and I sat next to one another on that couch and answered those questions about our future child, I imagine my Heavenly Father sitting on His throne looking down on us and shaking His head thinking, “O my child, just wait, just wait to see who I have picked for you.  Just wait to see who I know your family needs.  Just wait and see the child I have set aside just for you.” You see, there is this child that has come across our path, whom we have been praying for since November.  She is everything I answered No to in that first meeting.  She is everything I thought I couldn’t mother.  She is everything we thought as a family we couldn’t handle.  But as I am slowing and stubbornly learning, my thoughts, our thoughts, our feelings don’t really matter if the Lord isn’t controlling them.  It’s my Father’s thoughts that matter.  It’s the one sitting on the throne shaking His head at me…it’s His feelings that matter.  You see He already holds our future in His hands.  When I was being formed in my mother’s womb, I was being knitted and wired for His purpose.  I was being wired for just a time as this.  When Brad was being formed in his mother’s womb, he was being formed for such a time as this.  When Anna Lee was being knit together in my womb she was being formed for just a time as this…so much more about her makes sense to me now might I add.  When this new little girl was being formed in her mother’s womb in the country of Haiti, she was being formed for such a time as this, to enter into our family, to change our world, to show the Love of a Heavenly Father that transcends color, that transcends physical limitations, that transcends everything that makes sense to us.  She points us right back to the throne where there is a Heavenly Father that knows what we need more than what we think we need.  You see I have been seeking the Lord, I have been asking the Lord, I have been knocking on the door, begging the Lord to show me His way in this process, show me the child He had picked for us.  Show me the path you want us to walk.  He did multiple times, but I was too stubborn, too scared and too self-absorbed to really grasp hold of His plan, His will.  I was too busy making excuses, of why I couldn’t, instead of why I could. It isn’t going to be through our strength that we walk this path called adoption anyways…it is only in HIS.  Hopefully we can share more details very soon…keep us in your prayers.