we’ve been prayerfully considering adoption…but we are both still wrestling with a lot of fear and uncertainty….I know God will provide, but I really don’t know how to move beyond this place of fear.

The same words have been parts of other messages from other women. The same words had been written on my own heart years ago.

I remember when our family story began. Mark and I met at Young Life camp right before my senior year of college. Only 3 months later, after only phone calls and emails (which was nearly brand new), we started talking serious, and I knew where we were headed. After one of those late night phone calls with Mark, I called my mom, and I cried. I was scared out of my mind. I knew he was amazing and that God was leading and I was following — all good things. But, I was so uncomfortable and scared of the unknown and the commitment I was likely to be saying yes to soon. Fear and uncertainty filled me. My mom said something seemingly not all that brilliant; yet, 15 years later, here I am with her words still playing over in my head. They were words that quieted me and helped me move past my own self in spite of myself.

Kelly, I’d be worried if you weren’t scared.

Here’s the thing. Adoption is a big deal. And, wrestling with fear and uncertainty is right where you should be. It’s all part of the adoption journey. If we take that lightly and not wrestle with it, well, that’s when I’d be concerned.

It’s really not about having the best parenting skills or being able to stay at home or knowing all about attachment or all that we can wrongly claim as making as fully able and therefore ready. It’s about discerning if God has called you to it and if He has, if that timing is now. Even after we discerned that ourselves, I still battled fear, fear that literally took me prostrate to the ground at times. Some days while we waited, I wondered if we were making a mistake. I wondered if I forced something and if we were headed down the wrong path, if I’d be able to cut it, if I could really love a child who wasn’t “my own,” if I was motivated by the wrong reasons. But, God wouldn’t let us not do it. So, we pressed on. It wasn’t the easiest road–the wait, looking over files of very real children, traveling across the world, coming home with a toddler who was now our own, the grafting process. But, I know that right here is where God wants me to be, even when I’m overwhelmed by my inadequacy and wondering what He’s doing.

No one is “perfect” for this journey. But, He is and the journey itself is when He has called you to it.

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Forever changed by our experience of being adopted and adopting, Kelly is a stay-at-home mom/manager to 4 children and a professional juggler, juggling her calling as wife and mother with her secondary callings (editing and serving adoptive families through The Sparrow Fund). You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed, and what life for them looks like on their personal blog.