Bryan and Joy plus three

Thursday, August 6th at 7:49 am in St. Paul, MN, Bryan was packing some last minute items into the family car. I was scrambling to get the kids dressed and Grandma Julie was tag teaming with me to get them fed. It was the much anticipated day of the year that we would caravan over to Green Bay, WI to participate in the 25-year-old Wedan Family tradition of attending Packer's Training Camp.

Thursday, August 6th at 7:49 am in Augusta, GA, our third child was born.

It wasn't until Saturday around 10 am that I discovered I had missed a phone call from An Open Door. Odd. We hadn't heard from them since Brett's adoption was finalized. There was a voice mail, but I couldn't retrieve it due to being out of my area. My mind raced. Was something wrong with Brett's birth mom? Was she interested in more contact? Was she pregnant? It took us an hour to figure out how to retrieve the message, and when it was from the director of the program telling us to call her on her cell phone over the weekend, our sense of urgency heightened. Bryan got ahold of Debbie at An Open Door and she informed us that Ms. April had given birth to another baby boy and chosen to place the baby for adoption. Would we be interested in adopting him?

Wow...at that exact moment we were trying to juggle feeding our 20 month old and 8 month old in a restaurant without being too disruptive and also eat ourselves (eating is only a means to an end, we stopped enjoying it a while ago).

How could we? But then, how could we not?

The rest of the vacation was pretty much a blur as our hearts were heavy with the decision we had to make. The kids had fun at the water park and in the arcade. Brett had his first experience at Chuck E. Cheese and riding a horse. Lydia rode a merry-go-round. And the whole time we were thinking, "How could we do this with three?"

We returned home on Monday. By Wednesday, we pretty much convinced ourselves to say "no". But something stopped us from making that call.

Matthew 14:29-31 says:

"Come," [Jesus] said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

I recall a message I once heard on this passage. The speaker shared that when we take our eyes off Jesus and focus on our circumstances, we begin to sink. Our anxiety gets the best of us and our faith is squelched.

Thursday morning, I woke up to an email from Bryan that said, "What is God leading us to do?" and an e-devotional:

Psalm 121:1-2
I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD

I took the kids for a long walk around the neighborhood and this time instead of trying to figure out an equation with too many variables (How important is biology? How do I go to the store with 3 babies? What kind of crazy configuration is two bio adopted brothers with one bio daughter? etc.), I just prayed, "Lord, is this baby our son?"

No, the clouds didn't open up and a voice from the heavens did not boom, "YES". But I began to realize that our fear was not a good enough reason to say "no".

Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Thursday evening, we attended a dinner for a missionary our church supports. Walking out of the dinner to go pick up our kids from the nursery, Bryan grabbed my hand, and said, "Let's do it." And Friday morning Bryan called Debbie.

I used to believe in coincidences. Now I mostly just believe in miracles.

We have three of them.