Our Checklist

We're making a list. They're checking it twice. They're going to find out if we're naughty or nice!

Do you see this list?! We're almost to the point where we are merely waiting to be selected for placement left! We're so excited to be nearly through our home study requirements! Three things remain before our home study can be completed, evaluated, and (Lord willing) passed: background checks, interviews, and a home visit!

Tyler and I like to joke with each other, “When you want to get pregnant, you only have to get naked in front of your spouse. When you want to adopt, you have to get naked in front of the whole world.”

All jokes aside this home study step has, thus far, been the most demoralizing for us. We've had to submit physical examinations, mental/emotional analysis, financial assessments, academic history, personal references, photographs of our home and pets, descriptions of our extended families and daily activities, memoirs about our most traumatic past experiences, answers to questions about how we would parent in various circumstances... We totally understand why there are so many hoops to jump, and we would want it no other way in order to keep all of the sweet little ones safe. Yet, this process often has us pondering whether we are fit to be good parents. Is our apartment big enough, new enough, home-y enough? Do we make enough? Are we healthy enough, stable enough, smart enough, wise enough, happy enough, exciting enough, attractive enough...?

Are we enough?

All of this has keeps us on our knees, reminding us of the true things God has said about His children. We are loved (Isaiah 43:4; Jeremiah 31:3; John 4:10). We were made intricately (Psalm 139:13-15). We were made purposely (Jeremiah 1:5, 29:11; Ephesians 2:10). We have provision (Philippians 4:19; Hebrews 13:5). We are securely upheld (Isaiah 41:10; Romans 8:37-39). We are known (Luke 12:7). We are radiant (Psalm 34:5). We have strength (Acts 1:8; Ephesians 3: 17-19; 2 Timothy 1:7). We are otherworldly (Ephesians 2:19; Philippians 3:20). We are chosen (Ephesians 1:4-5; Colossians 3:12; Peter 2:9). We are sacred (1 Corinthians 6:19).

So...are we enough? I think the simple answer is, "no." But, our Jesus is. And we have Him. Or rather, He has us.

Please, pray for us, that we would remember this truth. Pray that our thoughts would be guarded from the unflattering lies that the enemy screams at us from every direction, that we would take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. If you don't know the words to say, use these from Ephesians 3:14-21:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Thank you for your thoughts, your encouragements, and your prayers. We truly do thank our God upon every remembrance of you.