It Is Easy To Forget

I believe in the power of prayer. That is one reason why I am quick to ask people to pray for all kinds of things. It is easy to think of things to ask people to pray for. Even when God’s answer is no, or not yet, God responds to our requests. This past week I was reminded how easy it is to forget to take the time to thank and praise God for all the ways He answers prayer.

It is for that reason that I want to take some blog space to honor and praise God for some of our answered prayers. I am thankful that He has brought us this far in the adoption process. I am amazed that we are where we are in the process, I sometimes can't believe we are waiting for a court date . I sometimes think that I might actually have gained a half-of a smidgen more of patience than I did before we began adoptwaiting. I am thankful for the support and encouragement of our family and friends, it has been priceless.

We prayed that my fingerprints would be readable and not need to be re-done. I did not have to have my fingerprints redone, what an answer to prayer. When Jeff and I were working on our dossier we were getting some of our final paperwork notarized because we wanted our dossier to go to Ethiopia as soon as we had our I-171.  I never prayed for paper as much as I did when we were working on our dossier. We had our I-171 verification form signed and notarized before we received our I-171 form. I thought I was being so on top of it. When we met with our adoption worker, she asked me why we signed and dated it because it had to match the date on our I-171 form. I started to panic, I thought it will take days to get the new form notarized and sent to our adoption worker. We had met between her office and our home. There was nowhere to print a new form. But as we looked at our notarized form and our I-171 form, the dates matched! We had our form signed and notarized on the day our I-171 was issued! Only God can orchestrate such details. Of course there was another form we filled out wrong. We needed a new one. I prayed that the Starbucks we were having our meeting at let me use their computer to print a new form. Stores do not usually want their patrons to do such things. However, this Starbucks did and I was able to print a new form so we could re-sign the necessary form. We left our completed dossier with our adoption worker that day. What an answer to prayer.

We met a couple that lives in our town that adopted a 6 year old girl who was on a waiting child list, our boys were waiting children. This couple had been praying to meet someone who was adopting from Ethiopia that they could support and encourage through the process they had just completed. We had been praying to meet someone who had adopted from Ethiopia who lived close to us. When we went to our next adoption group meeting, we met this couple. What an answer to prayer for both of us.

I participate on an Ethiopian adoption forum. As a group we have been praying for families who were waiting for embassy dates who had them and are now home with their children. We have prayed for families: to receive referrals, to get submitted to get assigned a court date, and that they would have all the correct paperwork so they would pass court their court date. It is amazing to think of the many prayers we have seen answered. 

These are just a smidgen of thanks and praise for the answered prayers that I have witnessed as we have moved forward in our adoption. I would love to hear how God has answered your prayers.  Please comment and share how God has answered your prayers. If you are unable to comment publicly please email me and share.

I am so thankful for the many ways that God has answered prayer. But I am also keenly aware of the requests that not yet answered. I found encouragement from this post from Streams in the Desert as I continue to wait on God for some of our prayer requests. Hopefully, you will too.