Monday, October 27, 2008

Mysteries Revealed, Part 3

Asked by a sweet friend, Katie, whom I only knew a short time before she had to move away.  : (
What are my best money saving tips? What questions did we ask ourselves before adopting? What are my best recipes?

Answer part 1: Money saving tips? Being that I am a great lover of all things shopping, and Steve says we should put on our bib overalls and live off of the land, I'm pretty sure I should refer all money related questions to somebody far better at it than me.... Dave Ramsey. His system takes some discipline, but really, truly works.

Answer part 2: Questions we asked ourselves before we adopted: 1) Could we afford it? 2) Could we TRULY love a child not bone of our bone? 3) Could we TRULY loves a child of a different race? 4) Could we TRULY love a child that may have some "needs"? As it turns out, all of those questions were completely irrelevant. No matter how God places a child in your arms, his manner of growing your heart to love them remains the same. I will say that becoming a transracial family makes you a little conspicuous. We had never really been noticed before. Adopted a child from another culture requires you to be willing to become part of that culture. Adoption IS expensive, but in our case The Lord took care of the money issues in truly remarkable ways. Once you see that little face, all of your questions are irrelevant (or at least were for us). Once you see the need.... well, then you know the truth.... there is ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE!!!! I would say the only question that truly needs to be asked and answered is this... what would God have you do? Our answer came in this verse:

James 1:27
27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

(Katie, I do not really LOVE to cook, beyond LOVING to eat, and LOVING to feed my family. I don't have any remarkable recipes, but when I come across some, I'll be sure to post them, okay?)

4 comments:

angela said...

Okay, thought of one this morning for you... how do you divide up chores and household duties with the kids?

Katie said...

Thank you so much. :)

Megan said...

Hey Heather! It's Megan B from church. I came across your blog from Facebook. I love it! Your kids are so precious. I love them all! They are so cute!

Laurel said...

Love this post. Yes ... the questions are irrelevant, when God calls you to do something.

It's funny ... we don't even notice the "transracial family" part of our adoption. With 10 bio kids we have always been stared at for years, so it's nothing new for us to be an oddity in this world. :)

Money? God dropped $15,000 in our laps by an anonymous donor. Wow! With 10 bio. kids and Papa being a school teacher, we knew that God had to work something amazing in this area.

LOVE the pics of your little ones. I was a mother of preschoolers for 22 years straight. Now ... my 2 youngest are 6. I do homeschool, though, so I get them home with me still.

Blessings to you and your family!

Laurel :)
mama of 13