When you want to quit
I've been thinking a lot lately.
Mostly driving myself crazy with questions about my baby sent from the stars. Sometimes do you ever just get so tired that you want to quit? Or have someone tell you that maybe you just weren't meant to have a baby. Those words really start to sink in when you work so hard to try and do everything right to have a baby and yet you still are told that you aren't good enough.
It was hard taking the phone call from our adoption agency that is doing our home study. I heard the words that we "just didn't have the finances to be able to adopt and that we had to be able to prove to a supervisor that we could afford this".... blah blah blah... I heard nothing after that. My emotions rocked my mind and body and heart and tears burned my eyes. I choked out something stupid like, "so you're saying that because we don't have enough money we can't.. can't get a baby?" She assured me in her most professional voice that this wasn't a non-approval it was just a "you need to show me how you can pay for this."
Well, I hate to break it to you but Jason and I both work 40 plus hours a week and I HIGHLY doubt that we are going to be getting a raise anytime too soon. We do our best. We have a savings account that we are faithful to and we do fundraisers, but we do not have 10,000 dollars. I told the social worker that we are 23 years old and can't have a baby and that's all we want. We'll figure out a way to get the money when we need it but for now could you just see that we are a loving, safe, educated-about-adoption-issues family that just wants a baby?? I told her that we were planning on doing this adoption the most inexpensive way we could and trust God to provide the money. She told me she couldn't write that in the home study.
Sometimes you feel so defeated that you just wanna lay down and say, "yeah go ahead and just walk all over me. It's okay. I'm on the ground anyway."
You wanna quit.
But you know that would be ridiculous. Stupid. Lame. So you slowly get back up again, brush off the dirt and get back in the game. The game of trying to find a baby. It's hard to get back in the game once you've been embarrassed even humiliated. We're not worthy of becoming parents because we lack the finances... You know, when you find out that you are pregnant and you realize that you maybe don't have the money to do this, you make it work. You find ways to come up with the money. You scrounge you work extra jobs. YOU MAKE IT WORK. That's the way I feel about his whole thing. We will make it work. You don't know how it will happen and it's not something that you can calculate on paper. It just happens and life goes on. I think character and love and nurturing are all a little more important than money. I know that money helps, but it is not the main thing and it should not be the only thing that comes between us and our baby.
Maybe this wouldn't be so frustrating if we hadn't already paid this agency 1500 dollars plus 250 dollars to take required adoption classes. When every dollar that you can put aside into an adoption fund is precious, losing this money will be devastating to us. All I can do is continue to pray.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." -Romans 8:28
Mostly driving myself crazy with questions about my baby sent from the stars. Sometimes do you ever just get so tired that you want to quit? Or have someone tell you that maybe you just weren't meant to have a baby. Those words really start to sink in when you work so hard to try and do everything right to have a baby and yet you still are told that you aren't good enough.
It was hard taking the phone call from our adoption agency that is doing our home study. I heard the words that we "just didn't have the finances to be able to adopt and that we had to be able to prove to a supervisor that we could afford this".... blah blah blah... I heard nothing after that. My emotions rocked my mind and body and heart and tears burned my eyes. I choked out something stupid like, "so you're saying that because we don't have enough money we can't.. can't get a baby?" She assured me in her most professional voice that this wasn't a non-approval it was just a "you need to show me how you can pay for this."
Well, I hate to break it to you but Jason and I both work 40 plus hours a week and I HIGHLY doubt that we are going to be getting a raise anytime too soon. We do our best. We have a savings account that we are faithful to and we do fundraisers, but we do not have 10,000 dollars. I told the social worker that we are 23 years old and can't have a baby and that's all we want. We'll figure out a way to get the money when we need it but for now could you just see that we are a loving, safe, educated-about-adoption-issues family that just wants a baby?? I told her that we were planning on doing this adoption the most inexpensive way we could and trust God to provide the money. She told me she couldn't write that in the home study.
Sometimes you feel so defeated that you just wanna lay down and say, "yeah go ahead and just walk all over me. It's okay. I'm on the ground anyway."
You wanna quit.
But you know that would be ridiculous. Stupid. Lame. So you slowly get back up again, brush off the dirt and get back in the game. The game of trying to find a baby. It's hard to get back in the game once you've been embarrassed even humiliated. We're not worthy of becoming parents because we lack the finances... You know, when you find out that you are pregnant and you realize that you maybe don't have the money to do this, you make it work. You find ways to come up with the money. You scrounge you work extra jobs. YOU MAKE IT WORK. That's the way I feel about his whole thing. We will make it work. You don't know how it will happen and it's not something that you can calculate on paper. It just happens and life goes on. I think character and love and nurturing are all a little more important than money. I know that money helps, but it is not the main thing and it should not be the only thing that comes between us and our baby.
Maybe this wouldn't be so frustrating if we hadn't already paid this agency 1500 dollars plus 250 dollars to take required adoption classes. When every dollar that you can put aside into an adoption fund is precious, losing this money will be devastating to us. All I can do is continue to pray.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." -Romans 8:28
Comments
Do NOT be discouraged, that is the devil playing with you. Put your full trust in the Lord, live in the here and now and treasure every moment of the present, let God take care of the future, leave it in His hands. But keep on praying...be like the woman in Scripture who kept pestering the judge and finally he gave in and granted her wish (can't remember the exact details). Be faithful to our Lord and He will be faithful to you.
setting the tone:
imagine me 19 pregnant. The love of my life hiring an expensive lawyer ( a really good one like $500 an hr) to take my baby from me once he was born. I had been working for his mom so i suddenly didnt have a job. A home. My heart was breaking into millions of pieces... every single milasecond... I had no savings. I had to get a lawyer to represent me by a certain date or i forfieted my rights and agreed to whatever He was demanding. It was $100 just to get a meeting with the lawyer then $2500 to get him to represent me. I had like $45 dollars. I was desperate. what was I to do. what could i physically do to secure what i desperately needed. I was desperately seeking God.
I made the meeting anyways and used all my faith to defeat my doubt and just let God have the rest.
My mum calls me the day of the meeting... she was crying.
Dee harnett was just at home in salem prayin the morning and the Lord spoke to her...Do you believe and have faith in me ? yes she replied. Will you do what i tell you to? yes she said again. If i put a hundred dollars in your hands today will you do with it what i tell you ?... yes she said now feeling the holy spirit heavy around her. If i gave you one thousand dollars today ... would you do with it what i tell you to.. would you give it away. she said at this point she thought ... hmm a thousand dollars... that's a lot of money... but yes lord. God told her what i give you today give to aly winstead. and that was he end of him speaking. Later that day she went to the mail box and there, inside was a hundred dollars ... she was not expecting a hundred dollars, it was a surprise... and little did she know i was only a couple hours away from needing a hundred dollars exactly. let me just tell you this naomie... I still to this day cant figure out home i got the money to pay for the divorce and custody battle ... I really have no idea. And that first lawyer actually took over three thousand dollars from me with out doing anything but writing a letter of representation. and i had to then get another lawyer because that guy decided he was unfit for my case... no money returned. Money may be A BIGGG deal to us.. but to god .. pfsh its like making a mini toothpick fence and expecting that a wild stallion is going to be contained by it... NO WAY that stallion does not even notice the boundary ..
Have faith.. and be delighted in what the lord is doing... you have a baby right now .. in your home in your arms. Maybe God is saving you money ... Maybe an adoption agency is your plan... not God's.
i love you guys :]
cant wait til tues !
Aly, if you come back to read, thank you for sharing that incredible story. Love you girls!
It's hard to explain, but I do not feel rushed to get this home study so maybe that is all God's timing.. I am believing for baby K, but at the same time I cannot plan him into my life forever until I know..
And that could take years.
I think that is the hardest thing for me right now. I know that God can come thru and do what he needs to, it's just frustrating to lose precious money that so many faithful friends and blog readers donated. It just seems so unfair to them.
Aly your story was incredible though and did boost my faith. It's hard having children ripped from you and you can actually know how that would feel. I don't want it to happen to me again. It's happened twice too many times... A heart can only endure so much.
I am trusting God though...It is the only thing I can put my hope in because the agencies and systems only bring heartache. God has to move to bring my baby. But I can't just give up in other areas just because I have baby K right now. That may not be for forever... I sooooo wish I could say that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be mine for eternity.
So excited for Tuesday! =)