Blessings, Surprises and Miracles

Each week as I reflect I am amazed - it makes me ask myself what I have been missing along the way? Walking this adoption journey has forced us to rely on God to provide what we need - we've been here before...when I was a stay at home mom there were many weeks that we were held in the palm of His hand to provide for us. But, since going back to work and being a dual income family, it has been easier for us to think we can do it on our own. This has been a good reminder and a great learning opportunity for Megan and Matthew.

This has been a week of blessings, surprises and miracles! Last Saturday we had another yard sale fundraiser and bake sale - mostly we hoped to sell the majority of the leftovers from our June sale. Yard sales are hard work - I could not have done either without the wonderful help of my amazing mom! We both took off last Friday to get everything ready... Some of you remember the goal we set for our June sale and how God provided in amazing ways for our family. We set a goal of $500 for this sale and God again surpassed our goal and blessed us with $700! We had another great day - the rain held off until we were unloading the boxes into my garage at the end of the day. To those of you who helped by baking and donating items for us to sell... THANK YOU! We had quite a bit of stuff left at the end of the day and I was very excited to donate the majority of it to another adoptive family that is having a yard sale fundraiser this weekend - praying for them this weekend that God would provide what they need! 

I've made it quite known that I LOVE surprises - this week we received three surprises!  ( so much fun!) 

We received two surprise financial contributions to our adoption fund - it is humbling and exciting! We are honored that many have chosen to join us in bringing our daughter home. THANK YOU for helping us. One of the gifts was anonymous... You know who you are and we are so grateful for your gift! The final surprise appeared in the form of a FedEx envelope delivered to my desk on Wednesday - all ten of the documents we sent to be certified at the Ch*nese consulate in New York City were returned with a beautiful certification seal! We have spent so much time (and money) getting the paperwork ready, it's an uneasy feeling to ship them to someone we don't know to walk them through the certification process in NYC... I was so happy to have them back home! 

Are you ready to hear about a miracle?? We have tried to explain this away in a logical way... But we have come up with nothing... So we opt to give God the glory and thank HIM for his loving care! Friday morning I was switching the laundry before work - the kids clothes needed to be switched so Matt's baseball uniform was ready for the weekend. As I was pulling out the KIDS darks from the dryer, twenty dollar bills started falling on the floor - what on Earth?? I took all the kids clothes back to our bed to gather all the money... $110... another $20... $130! Ummm... Kids.. Did either of you have money in your pockets... No! Did anyone give you money...No! Are you sure... Yup! Are you really sure...??? You get the idea, this continued for a little while - are you both sure that no one gave you money? Did you feel anything in your pockets? The best logical explanation is that someone came into or house and put money in the kids laundry.... Really?? Who knows... Maybe someone did plant some money on one of the kids, but it just doesn't add up. However it ended up in our dryer, it's a gift from God and we are so grateful!

It hit me yesterday morning after receiving all these blessings this week... This is really happening! We are bringing a little girl home to our family - God is making sure of it! That makes this mama cry some happy tears!