We’re heading to India for a mission trip March 29- April 7! And we are excited to fundraise for this trip by selling our new BLUE Chosen T-Shirts! We can’t wait for the chance to minister to and learn from the beautiful people that our baby comes from. This mission trip to India will be such a special opportunity for us! We are even hoping to stay for a few days after our team leaves to VISIT OUR BABY BOY in his city!!
Shirts available for purchase until MARCH 10th, and orders will be shipped directly to you (AFTER March 15th.) Thank you for your support!
💙THIS FUNDRAISER IS NOW CLOSED💙
It was the day we got our CARA Approval. I was laying in bed that night, praising the Lord for this blessing of approval after 15 difficult weeks of silence. I was thanking Him and praising Him for the day’s good news, writing down all the joyful emotions, and I wrapped up my journal entry with a heartfelt prayer for my baby. Though it’s something I had done many times before, I had never before used gender specific pronouns. We went into this process open to either a boy or girl (heck, we went into the process open to multiples! Whatever the Lord wanted to give us, we were open to!) Well, I sat there, propped up in bed and penned this prayer:
I found myself asking the Lord to watch over HIM. I used a few more He and his pronouns, shut my journal, and paused for just a moment- questioning where that had come from? I smiled, took the deepest, most cleansing breath, celebrated in my heart again what had happened that day, and then I slept like a baby. The deepest and most satisfying sleep I had had in many months. And I awoke the next morning to a phone call- about a baby boy.
It was Wednesday morning when we first heard about him. As I described in my previous post, the feelings that I was dealing with included a paralyzing fear. His medical needs intimidated me, and I knew that we would have to spend a lot of time in prayer and seeking professional opinions to assure me that he was ours. I was guarding my heart, and this was not feeling as good as I had imagined. As I shared in the last post, the days and weeks ahead were stressful and pretty lonely for me and Steven. We felt the weight of this tremendous decision on our shoulders, and we wanted to do the right thing.
Only a few people in our lives knew that we had gotten a phone call that morning. We shared NO details, not an age nor gender nor medical needs; we simply asked for prayers as we considered the file of this child. We went to bed with heavy hearts on Wednesday night, but the next day brought the sweetest message our way. Our best friends were praying for us the night before, but they hadn’t shared our news with anyone. It stopped me in my tracks when I got this text from my best friend that afternoon. We’re so close with their family that their sweet kiddos call us Aunt and Uncle.
Their 5 year old daughter had dreamed that we GOT OUR BABY?! Wow. Wow. Wow. I was speechless when I read this message. I even thought, She has no idea! The beach is our place and would totally be the place that we would be celebrating such special news!! 🎉 However, I guarded my heart from this preciousness at first, not wanting to celebrate anything too soon. We were still far off from a decision at that point, BUT once we knew that he was ours and we moved forward with the match, it was SO sweet to look back and see how God had planted that little promise in our hearts just one day after we had heard about our little guy. (Now, if I can just convince Steven to make good on the beach part of that dream! 😏 Time for a babymoon! 🏖)
The incredible confirmation stories don’t end there. Do you recall the special painting that I shared about in our post titled “Why India?” (Check out the incredible timing of this painting in our lives last spring as we prayed over the adoption decision and specifically which country. God used this painting and those Indian elephants to help confirm the country of India for us- something that we were specifically leaning towards and were asking God for clarity on, though no one knew it!) 👇👇👇
Well, as I looked back at the date that this precious painting was given to me, I discovered something wildly amazing:
I received this painting on April 29, 2018, and our son was born in India the very next day.
God has chosen, once again to use this painting to speak sweet confirmation and a very personal love to us in this journey! What. a. gift.
We were sitting at dinner together at one of our favorite Thai restaurants, Tuk Tuk. It was a belated Valentine’s dinner date, and some much needed time together. It was the first time since we had signed the paperwork that we could just slow down and have some quality conversation. We needed to choose a name. We hadn’t agreed on anything up to this point, and as we finished eating our meals, we just began looking through lists of boy names together. We searched Christian boy Indian names (curious to see if they were any different than the Biblical names we were so used to hearing here in the U.S.) Much to our surprise, we immediately stopped and reacted at the same time to a very interesting name near the top of the list. We looked at each other, said the name a couple of times aloud and then we turned off the phone. We both knew it. We had chosen his name. As different and unique as it may be, we knew this was the right name. And his middle name was easy to assign after that. It was the only name that had been on my heart for the previous 3 weeks. The name that Steven couldn’t quite get on board with as a first name. And now I know why. It was meant to be his middle name. We knew in an instant that this pairing of names would become symbolic and prophetic for our child’s life.
Pronounced like "arrow"
Variant of "Aaron" meaning "mountain of strength"
Psalm 127:3-5 “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”
On the ride home from our special dinner date, I asked Steven if he had ever heard the song “Like Arrows”? He said no, and I immediately looked it up and played it in the car as we drove home, holding hands, tears gleaming in our eyes.
“To the ends of the earth they will take this light
Like a torch that's flying through the darkest night
Lift 'em up, pull back the bow
Say a prayer and let 'em go like arrows
Send 'em out like arrows”
And little did we know- there’s a movie, too! This song was actually written for the Christian movie “Like Arrows”, and it focuses on being an intentional parent for the Kingdom of God. We found the movie on Amazon and rented it and watched it, and we HIGHLY recommend it to any Christian parents out there that desire to raise their children in an intentional way that would lead them on a God-honoring path with great purpose for their lives!
Funny enough, when I looked it up to see when the movie was originally released, the date was May 1, 2018- one day after our son was born!
We will continue to pray big things for this child’s life- and the future God has in store for him. Just as our agency has led us to pray for this entire journey, we now pray by name these powerful words:
"Would the Lord be so mighty and big, that our son, Aaro comes to follow Christ and that God uses him to reach the unreached of India?"
Isaiah 6:8 “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”’
Here's a look at our remaining steps ahead:
Lord, give us all that we need to wait patiently on your timing. We trust You.
Comments
Post a Comment