Adoption and the Holy Family

This morning Paul and I stopped in a tiny town nestled in the mountains of West Virginia. We were worried when we walked up the road towards the church, twenty minutes early, because there was only one car parked by the church. Had we gotten the mass time confused? Where else could we go at such late notice? Especially with an 18 wheeler! We had already walked there from the edge of town.

The doors were unlocked. We went in and discovered that the church was half filled with people who had walked. I was in love! I would love to just walk to my church, particularly on a snowy winter morning like today. I know that I had walked, but that was out of neccesity and not a decision based on living down the street. It just seems so quaint.

Fathers homily for the Feast of the Holy Family was about love being the driving force that makes the difference in a family. Not blood relationship. He spoke of families that fall apart during hard times because of the lack of love required for sacrafices that must be made in a family. He reminded us that St. Joseph was not the paternal father to Jesus, but rather an adopted father whose love bound him to Christ as much as any father could possibly love their child.

Father joked that looking at an image of the Holy Family is a not what you would expect to see from a "good, Catholic" family. Here was a family with one child. A father who was "a mere adopted father." But, they had love and were doing as God called them to do.

Father spoke about adoption, love and sacrafice.

I found myself crying. Its been a little over a year since I lost my baby, Paul Joshua. Was Father's homily God's way of asking Paul and I to prepare and try to adopt a downs syndrome baby? It has been on our minds since before we got married, but we aren't financially able to come up with the 20 to 30,000 needed for the adoption. There are so few jobs at home right now. So many potential mountains to climb.

Almost every day I ask myself why God is waiting to give us a baby. I know He has a reason. I just wish I knew what it is! At mass I found myself asking Him, "Lord, is this the reason you are waiting to give us a baby? Do you want us to choose a baby for our family?"

I look over the pages and pages of listings of children on Reece's Rainbow that desperately need families. We pray for them and the families that God is asking to adopt them. Are we one of those families??? We are pretty sure the answer is yes, but the timing is the question. Oh, and the money of course! :)

We have been working so hard. All of our student loans are paid off. The credit cards are gone and paid off. We have one last loan to pay off and we are debt free. Its an amazing feeling!

We've worked so hard to pay everything off that we haven't really saved anything but an emergency fund so far. So now the question is do we keep driving this truck over the road (which we think may be the reason we haven't been able to get pregnant yet) and save up money or go home and try to find a job that won't pay as well (the major industries in our area have gone belly up this past year and our county has the highest unemployment rate in the state), but potential get pregnant sooner? Of course that is a pretty cut and dry version.

Lord, what are you calling us to do???

All I can really do now is pray and trust Our Lord. I guess it just helps to verbalize my emotions and speak what's on my heart.

Please, Lord, give me patience and trust.