And Now A Moment of Insanity

My husband and I are in the process of adopting a baby. To clarify (because it definitely is confusing), there is no baby yet. In common adoption parlance, we are "pregnant by adoption." We have been through all the preliminary steps, we've been analysed by everyone who matters including 2 social workers, first aid instructors, parenting class teachers, and 4 references we had to provide on our own. All we're doing now is waiting. And waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

However, recently we were actually matched with a little girl. We were presented to a matching committee and they chose us as a potential match for a 1-year-old girl. Her social worker called our social worker and we went to what is known as a presentation. At the presentation, we were presented with all the information available about this little girl and her biological parents. As for the little girl herself, there were very few things that concerned us. She had some developmental delays that were the result of lack of stimulation in her environment. They were all very normal things we would expect to see in a child who had been in foster care since birth.

It was her birth parents that had us concerned. Both of them were schizophrenic and were institutionalized because of it. Now, we found out that if one parent is schizophrenic, there's about a 10% chance that the child will be. If both parents are, it's about 50-50. We also found out that it's something that can show up 20-30 years down the road. So we had to think long and hard about whether or not we were equipped to deal with this sort of thing and how comfortable we were with the chances that this little girl would develop mental illness later in life.

Now, run with me for a little bit because this next part is going to sound a little crazy. I was in the shower the afternoon of our presentation and I heard a voice in my head that said, "This is not the right one."

Okay, before you judge, let me digress a bit. I'm a Christian. I have been my whole life. And when I entered my college years, I was gifted with the Gift of Prophecy. The point of this entry is not a discussion about Spiritual Gifts, but let me give you the short version. Prophesy is not divination. It is not telling the future. In magical terms, Pagans call it Sight. Some people may call it intuition. Other people call it a gut feeling. It simply means that God speaks to me a little bit more loudly than He does to others. I don't know why. The "why" is not something God has shared with me. I believe it's how God speaks to me. Sometimes it's through music, sometimes it's something I read, sometimes it's a vision, and sometimes a voice like this time. The thing they call have in common is something I call a "feel." When the message comes from God, it has a certain feel. I can tell it's Him. Usually other sources are all from myself. I have a tendency to do what my therapist called "living in my head" which means I frequently listen to my own internal monologue more than I listen to the outside world. This makes it difficult to interpret Prophecy sometimes, but it's a personality quirk, and we all have those. I frequently allow Prophecy to help me make decisions, and I hoped desperately hoped God would give me something good this time.

And He didn't disappoint. Not only did He tell me, he also told my husband. And because the voice was from God, we knew it was the right choice to say no to this little girl.

That does not mean we didn't have issues with the choice.

The first was that we never thought we'd find ourselves turning a child down. We really had hoped we would be a forever home for whatever child may come across our path.

The second was that in some small way we felt as though we were punishing this little girl for something that wasn't her fault. Jesus said the sins of the father should not be visited up on the son. Who are we to say that we don't want this child in our home because we're afraid that what happened to her parents would happen to her? Who gave us that authority?

The last was the fear that this beautiful little girl would end up being raised in foster care because no one else would be willing to take a chance on her.

And yet through all of this, we knew the best thing for her would be to put her back in the pool and allow the right family to find her. Maybe we weren't the right family, but the right one would come along.

Last week, our social worker told us the very next family to hear about her accepted her. And so the Plan goes on. I don't claim to understand it, or even my own role in it. But the Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love Him, and here we saw it happen. She found a home, we're back on the list, and we now have the conviction that when the right comes along, we'll know. Immediately and without question.