Joy Through Obedience

Hi all. Stand-up Dad here. Sweet Momma does most of the blogging for us - and she does a great job. But every once in a while I feel the need to blog. This is one of those times.

If you’ve read our blog, you know that we just received our court date - October 29th. This means that unless we hit a snag somewhere, we should be traveling to Ethiopia very soon. Also, if you’ve read one my early posts (ok, my only other post), you know that for me, the decision to adopt was largely one of obedience. I did feel God calling us to adopt and even though I had many fears and questions, I knew it was the right thing to do.

It has now been a little over a year since that decision. Over that year, God has been doing amazing things in my heart. My feelings quickly changed from obedience to excitement, at least for the two kids we would be adopting. I always knew that once we received our referral, I would fall in love with whomever God had chosen for us to adopt. That has certainly happened. But what I didn’t expect is the burden and love that God has given me for a country and for a people. This is now larger for me than adopting two kids; our family has adopted a country.

I don’t know what the future holds and this trip to Ethiopia may be our only visit. I hope it’s not. I hope that we can return to Ethiopia in the future both to visit the homeland of our two new children and to do missions work - helping out in any way we can. My children are saving money (and raising money) to give to the orphanage where our children currently live and we plan to sponsor one or more orphans at that orphanage. Love can do amazing things.

My reason for blogging is much more than telling you my story. I’m writing to encourage you. God may be calling you to do something in your life - whether it be adoption, a missions trip, witnessing to your neighbor or any number of things. Sometimes when we feel God calling us to a task, we resist. We think we are just not equipped to carry out that task. We believe that somehow, God chose the wrong person. He didn’t. Maybe the first person he is trying to help is you. For when we are obedient to God, even when we don’t want to be and even when it doesn’t make sense to us, God can do amazing things through that obedience. And I think you will find, as I did, that God can take that obedience and turn it into joy.

Stand-up Dad