Gensis 22:14 The Lord Will Provide

I was planning on writing a blog today about my son's love story. My desire is to honor him and Mallory and the way that they have walked out their relationship. Also to brag a little about what great kids they are. I will have to do that on another post. This next post is a long one but if you need encouragement concerning the financial aspect of adoption, please read this.

Today I want to brag on my God!! From the time that I accepted Christ back in 1994, God has continually blown me away with His provision for us. This started almost immediately. When we first began following Christ, we were so far in debt that we could barely pay the bills with both of us working full time. As we began to read the scriptures we realized that we needed to tithe on our income. I remember fighting this so strongly but Doug stepped in and said that this was what we were doing. At the time, our pastor told us that he really had no idea how it worked but he saw time and time again where people stepped out and tithed in faith and God provided. So we jumped right into the deep end of the pool. I would have started with 2 or 3% but Doug insisted on 10%. From that day forward, we never missed a bill. Not only that, I was able to quit my job and stay at home with my children. We got into military housing with only a 3 month wait. It normally was a 2-3 year wait. We also paid off all of our debt.

So you think that right there would have convinced me that God would provide. Unfortunately that was not the case. God had put on our hearts in 1994 the desire for more children. It was not a possibility for this to happen physically without a surgery. Through many tears and years of laying it down, God provided a way for us to add to our family. This came through the foster care system. There is so much to that story but right now I just want to focus on God's provision. When we were getting ready to finalize Faith's adoption, I had to go to a meeting through the county about receiving a subsidy. At the beginning of the meeting I raised my hand and explained that we probably did not qualify for a subsidy because we had a healthy , Caucasian baby. The leader asked me a few questions concerning Faith's birth family. Because of their history, Faith qualified as special needs. This totally blew my mind. We then found out that we would receive a monthly subsidy for her until she turns 18. This also just so happened to be the year that the adoption tax credit would be applied to special needs adoptions. Therefore, we didn't have to pay a dime to adopt Faith. We would get a monthly subsidy and we would also get a tax credit of around $12,000 spread out over about 4 years. Unbelievable!!

Fast forward to Noah's adoption. When we started this adoption, we only had enough money for the home study but we knew that God had called us to this. We knew that He would provide but had no idea how. He provided every single penny through so many different ways. People who hardly knew us helped in ways that blew us away. We are forever grateful for all of their sacrifices for us. God used a hail storm, a fund raiser, cookbooks and a grant from Show Hope. Now we just found out that the tax credit has been increased to $13,170 and instead of being spread over 5 years, we will get it all back when we file our 2010 taxes early next year. So all this to say! God is the one who came up with the idea of adoption. It cost Him the life of His son in order to adopt us! I can say with no hesitation that my God WILL Provide!!!