"Don't you have enough challenges?"

At a recent specialist visit, one of the doctors asked me this question. Hmm, I thought, what exactly is 'enough challenges'? Sometimes getting up in the morning is a pretty big challenge, after being up through the night with a little boy who decides that singing 'Hey Jude' at 2 am is a good idea. And then there's getting dinner on the table, getting caught up on the wash, and running errands. How about food shopping for a large family...challenge enough?

It really made me think a lot about how the world looks at the 'perfect' life. It would definitely be a good job, health, a good home, and money in the bank. The world looks at families like ours, and frankly, they scratch their heads. The idea of adopting one child, after having four birth children, was crazy. So crazy, in fact that many people, even in our own families, barely acknowledged that we were doing it. Once Sophie came home, however, the story changed and they loved our  little Henan spitfire. We actually had PA for Shane before we even traveled for Sophie, but did not tell our families until we came home with Sophie, to help the whole acceptance process. When we did tell them, it was easier for most people to understand, as we were doing so well with Sophie's transition.

Life with 6 kids sure has its challenges, whether it is homework, cane skills, or care packages to college kids. And yet, without these 'challenges' what would we have? A life without our kids, our family? Dinners for two, an empty house? I think not. More than 26 years ago when Matt and I were married, we knew we wanted to have a large family. Matt used to kid around that he wanted a baseball team, but after five years of infertility, I used to tell him we would be lucky for a solitaire game. And then, God blessed us with four children in seven years, and now our two little ones from China. Amazing, really. A lot of work? Absolutely. Challenging? Without a doubt. Blessing? Beyond measure.

For those in our lives who have never had adoption on their hearts, what we are doing now is the craziest thing to imagine. WHY would we make life 'harder' more complicated, frankly, more challenging? Why would we even consider bringing another child into a busy home when we have two 'special needs' children already? Why would we stretch our resources, our finances, and our time, to do this again? After all, don't we have 'enough challenges'? Why not let 'someone else' adopt WuShuang?

Each of these questions run through my mind at the beginning of the process of discerning if this is, exactly, what we are to do. Making the decision to adopt is not an easy one, and it is not to be taken lightly. Much thought and prayer goes into it, and in the end, in my experience, God shows the way. What we think of as an impossible situation becomes possible, what seems unthinkable becomes matter-of-fact. With God, all things are possible, and we need to humble ourselves to realize how small we are in the plan, and how big He is. And, as always, God cannot be outdone in his generosity. So when we say 'yes' to His plan, he blesses us abundantly.

Now, as we begin to tell the world about our new daughter, there will be many who will not understand, many who will think us crazy. That's fine, because in the end, it really isn't between them and us, it's between us and God.

And after all, what is so crazy about claiming for our own the child who was chosen for us, before the very beginning of time, to be our daughter through adoption?