God-appointed Agency

We have so many options available to us through this whole thing. One option we have is to purchase our home study from Bethany and go to another agency (different programs or prices) or try to do it all on our own with the help of an adoption lawyer. In the evening I was thinking and praying about a couple of other agencies I'd heard about and thought I might do some research, but then never got around to it.

Before bed I was having my devotions. I'm reading Matthew right now, I was on chapter 21. Keep in mind that although I've read this before and I know the overall plot, I don't have it all memorized, so I usually don't know what verse is coming next. I read a verse about children which made me pause and think about the adoption again (just from the topic, it wasn't a directional kind of verse). I prayed that, even though this chapter didn't seem to directly apply, God would use it to show us direction. I thought of the agency option momentarily, ("Hey, God, what do You think about this idea?") and then re-focused to read this:

"Then [Jesus] left them and went out of the city to Bethany*, and He lodged there." (v. 17)

Oh, okay then, I'll quit looking elsewhere. Thanks, God!



*for those of you just tuning in, although Bethany is a town in Bible times, it's also the name of our agency.

Fire update

Well, Bert's called the Fire Marshal three times in the last two weeks and can't get through to schedule the inspection. She intends to try one more time, and if we still can't get put on his calendar, she'll call his boss the Fire Chief and get him to put the squeeze on. She was told when she called that there is only one Fire Marshal for 8 counties, or at least the one that we need has 8 counties, and we have to talk directly to him to get on his schedule... so you could understand why he's been hard to reach.

Adoption Related Prayer Requests:
1. Fire Marshal will answer the phone.
2. He'll have an available slot NOW (though, next week is okay too), or if there's a cancellation they will give us the slot.

I feel the pressure for speed all of the sudden. This could be hormonal, could be part of my previous post about the desperate ache of motherhood needs... but it could also be an intuitive gut thing that I get sometimes that's almost always right and says, "OK... GO!" Therefore...

3. If speed is God's Will, He'll do it fast and now; if it is not His Will, if we need to wait for our child to be ready, that He'll chill me out and calm me down.