Thursday, July 5, 2012

God's Provision

Today, as I was heading out to do errands, I saw the mailman walking down the sidewalk and decided to wait for him so I could save him a few steps in this heat.  He handed me a stack of mail that was mostly things destined straight-away for my recycle bin, but since I had an appointment to catch, I threw them on the van seat and headed out.  While waiting for a rather long red light, I flipped through the mail quickly to see if there was anything of interest.  There was.

Two letters down was a letter from Show Hope, which, if you have done any reading of my blog, you know is the place that cared for our Liliana for about eight months.  We had applied for a grant from them, even though we were sure there were plenty of other grant applicants with at least as much need as we had.  A few weeks after we applied, they blessed us with a bunch of resources for our adoption preparation and lots of resources from Karen Purvis (another great person I have blogged about here).  I had told B.J. at that time that if that was all we received from Show Hope it was more than blessing enough.

I opened the letter, preparing myself for a 'We regret to inform you...' opening.  Show Hope has many, many applicants and can usually, at best, only fund 50% of the qualified applicants.  Here is what the letter opened with:

Dear William and Rachel,

On behalf of Show Hope and the donors who make our grants possible, 
we rejoice with your family as you step out in faith to experience the miracle of adoption.
(It really is a miracle by the way!!!)
Thank you for allowing us to be a small part of your adoption process.
 We are pleased to inform you that you have been awarded an adoption
assistance grant in the amount of  $......

WOW!!!  Show Hope gives grants that range from $1,500 to about $5,000 and while we didn't get a huge amount, every little bit helps when you are trying to figure out where $28,000 or so is going to come from.   It was such a bit of encouragement and such a huge blessing.  

To be honest, there are times when you just have to wait in the adoption process.  There is nothing you can do but wait.  There are also lots of times when I look at the total amount we need for this adoption and I really wonder where it is going to come from, but God so gently reminds me over and over again that He is the one who called us to this adoption and so I can trust Him to provide the resources it will take.  It is so good to rest in His arms and it is also really cool to see the different ways He is choosing to provide.  Show Hope is now one of those ways and we are again blessed by their ministry and the way they are caring for the least of these and fulfilling part of James 1:27.