It seems as if God continues to prepare our hearts. This past month has been a busy and stressful, but it has also been emotional. When Brent and I first started this blog we wanted the title and the content to be glorifying to the Lord, to share with our friends and family how God has led us to adoption. Ephesians 1 really spoke to Brent when I first approached him about the possibility of adoption, specifically verses 3-7. The Lord really pressed these verses on our hearts to gain an understanding that we are adopted by the Father through Christ Jesus, we were chosen to be His children by His glorious grace! It just seemed fitting to title our blog "To the Praise of His Glorious Grace." In the beginning of March our pastor began a sermon series in Ephesians. The first sermon addressed verses 1 and 2. The second sermon addressed verses 3-6, the sermon title was "To the Praise of His Glorious Grace." This title certainly had our attention! To hear our pastor teach and preach from these verses filled our hearts with joy. Not only because we had begun the adoption process but to explain God's grace and love through adoption. Check out the sermon from 3/17/2013.
The home study process actually went very well. Brent and I each met with our social worker at a coffee shop in Belmont separately, two days later together, and finally a week later in our home. Much of the process is answering questions about our families, our childhood, relationships with our families and friends, our marriage, our motivation for adoption. Our social worker knows everything about us from our medical history, finances, marriage, our strengths and weaknesses, how we handle conflict, stress, and grief. It was a very humbling and at times overwhelming experience. After the first meeting I left Belmont to go back to work in Gastonia when all of a sudden I was exiting on interstate 485 going toward south Charlotte! Needless to say I was a little flustered but, finally got turned around in the right direction and made it back to work.
We have also began to prepare our minds. We are currently participating in a 10 hour online training session for perspective parents of adoptive children, reading books and viewing DVD's to educate ourselves on bonding, eye contact, healthy touch, learning about sensory integration, and developmental delays. Brent's personal favorite is a DVD titled, "Baby Baby Oh Baby: bonding with your brilliant and beautiful baby through infant massage :) All jokes aside we really are having fun learning and preparing for our baby!
Part of the home study obviously is to inspect your home to ensure safety and adequate space for a child. It is one thing to prepare and clean your house to have friends and family over to hang out but it is definitely different to have a social worker come for an inspection. All week long we prepared with replacing batteries in our smoke detectors, placing medications and cleaning supplies behind locked cabinets and out of reach of a child, cleaned, and organized closets and cabinets. Then there are our two dogs Hank and Ellie. They are kept downstairs in our unfinished basement in a bathroom during the day while we are at work. Their dog beds lie on sub-flooring which over time has become more difficult to keep clean and are kept in the room by a door without a door knob! We just kept putting off this project of replacing the flooring in this bathroom. So Brent with the help of our brother-in-law Ryan ended up replacing the door, adding a door knob, and adding new sub-flooring and also laying a laminate floor. They really did a great job! We felt proud of all our hard work and felt we had accomplished our spring cleaning and had finished another house project. At the conclusion of the home inspection we walked with our social worker toward her car, saying our goodbyes when she turned to us and said, "I didn't even see your basement, but I don't really need to since you all don't live in that area of the house anyway." She drove away and Brent just turned to me, smiled and said, "Really, did that just happen." Hank and Ellie love their new and improved room!
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| Brent and Ryan Before |
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| After |
Love,
Beth
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