I watched the sun and clouds shadow the mountain as the morning rose up from the night. Praying as I watched for the clouds to stand aside so that I could see it all. But, not to see the mountain this time, covered with oaks, pines, and cedars. This morning I longed to see passed the clouds of uncertainty.

It was his words that triggered it all, his remembering days of loneliness and the days he cried alone in a Ugandan orphanage. And though he is only 5 years old, his words spoke a volume full when he said to his new mother, “I was crying and you weren’t there.” I remember Psalm 68:6: “God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing.” But, a secret that I never knew before is that He causes a family to be lonely for the ones He plans to set among them.

And I feel the words stirring me. And the question pressing hard on my heart, “Is someone crying and I am not there?” And do they know that I am crying for them, too?

But those pesky clouds; always descending on me, always blocking my view of His will. Causing me to look through the mist and wonder what it is I exactly saw before, back when it was lightening clear? And I imagined that Mary wondered too. She was full of the Spirit’s plans for her, full of this divine DNA stretching at her abdomen, reminding her daily that she was set on a course beyond her own imagination. But surely people looked at her and wondered if she was “one of those kind of girls”; a shame, a disgrace. And Joseph might have thought so, if not for a dream. Did she always believe that she carried the Liberating King in her womb and at what moment was she seen as fully legitimate in all the eyes around her?

And I long to feel legitimate here in my little cabin, sitting at my computer, watching for the bread crumbs to continue to drop and lead me inch by inch on this journey of adoption to it’s glorious conclusion. You may be carrying a dream as well, something uniquely your own, birthed deep inside your heart/womb. No, not as grand as Mary’s, but His plan anyway, and all those hours and mornings before all is fulfilled we wake up and go about living with the “life” growing in us, affecting our choices and behaviors, our thoughts and our plans. And I suppose the temptation to be afraid, or to doubt the plan doesn’t change it, just steals the joy from the journey–just lays a wedge between us and Him.

So here in the black and white I speak softly. With the black and white keys I peck out a confession to the bright white screen. “I feel like a mother full with child, but such a strange gestation it is! Because if I am to hold my offspring in my arms, I must follow a path of uncertainty, filled with questions, with governments, with forms, with deadlines, and with astonishing price tags. This journey, already taken by others, has sometimes ended in failures, heavy financial losses, disappointments, yet also with great success. I feel my abdomen stretching and I pray to see it all through to the end.”

And to my cry to feel “legitimate” as a prospective adoptive parent to dark skinned beauties far away and across an ocean—he seemed to answer me with 10,000 God “yes-es”. He took away a bit of the “shame” of not knowing how a girl like me, and an already full family like ours could even begin to afford an impossibility like this. All of the the “yes-es” were in the form of dollars and each one provided by way of the new job that the “man of this house” secured just a short while back; a company reimbursable grant for adoptions for up to 2 children and up to $10,000. They were 10,000 reasons to keep trying, to keep praying for miracles, to keep hoping for more.

So during this gestation period where fear sometimes grips, and uncertainty sometimes clouds my view, but where hope keeps pulling me up and forward I am asking Him for more “yes-es”.

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I’m Rhonda and I live in a house full of “menfolk” on a small hobby farm in the Ozarks. My husband and I have been married for 22 years and have four sons ranging in age from 12 to 21. I tiptoed into the land of blogs in the spring of this year after immersing myself into the stories of some amazing people and writers that were willing to share their lives in very generous, sacrificial, and honest ways on their personal blogs. Most were telling of the miraculous ways in which they entered the realm of adoption and followed it to a life changing conclusion. My family felt the call of adoption tugging at our hearts and I wanted communicate about it as well. I am yet amazed by the people that I have met through this new venue and hope to always follow their example of sharing from a heart of gratitude and ambition to encourage others along the way.