$7250!!!!

God is truly AMAZING!!!!!  I know that the Bible tells us over and over that His heart is for orphans and widows but now we have been able to experience this for ourselves!  Since my last post, we have received $7250 in donations!!!!!!!  WOW!!!!!!!!!  $7250, can you believe it?????????  We are so thankful for all of our friends and family who have donated!  Thank you for helping change an orphan’s life!  We love you and are so grateful for your support!  When we started this process, I remember wondering how in the world we would come up with the money to do it, but somehow we knew God would provide it for us.  We felt sure that He was leading us to adopt, and He would give us the way to do it.  Money has been our biggest obstacle so far during this process.  It just costs so much and we don’t have it!  I just had to keep handing it over to God and reminding myself that God equips us to do what He calls us to do!   At the beginning, we wondered if we should wait to start the process until we had the money.  We felt like God was calling us to step out in faith, believing that He would provide.  I have kept going back to a story in the Old Testament when the Israelites were crossing the Jordan River on their way to Jericho.  In Exodus 3:13 Joshua told them “as soon as the priests….set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.”  They were going to be able to cross on dry land.  So, of course in verse 15, “Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest.  Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the waters edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing….”  The part that stood out to me was that they had to obey God before He parted the waters.  He could have parted it as soon as it came in to view and it would still have been a miracle but instead He required them to act on faith and put a foot in.  I can just imagine walking toward that huge river wondering how it could actually be parted, but I bet they just kept reminding themselves that God said He would do it so they stepped in on faith.  So many times I need everything to be in order or make sense before I act.  This time He called us to obey based only on faith that He would provide. Once again, I can’t believe that He is giving me this opportunity!  My relationship with Him has grown deeper and deeper through this process.  We started this journey to bless an orphan and God has blessed us far beyond what I could have imagined!  I am so thankful that God has already provided so much of the money that we need!  A few verses earlier in Joshua, God explained to the Israelites that when He parted the Jordan for them, it would be a reminder that He would conquer all of their enemies.  Later when they experienced more difficulties and doubt they could look back on this miracle and be encouraged.  It was a reminder that this was God's plan, not theirs and He would work everything out how He had planned.  We know that there are many obstacles that we will still have to overcome but I know that this will continue to be a reminder to me that God is in control and that He is going before us to prepare the way.