When one door closes...

Have you ever heard the expression, "When one door closes, another one opens"?  This is showing up as truth in this entire adoption process and I feel compelled to share some examples with YOU.

In Acts 16 we learn of a disappointment experienced by Paul.  The Spirit prevented Paul and Timothy from preaching in Asia, and I can't help but think they felt a moment of doubt and discouragement.  They had a plan.  A mission from the Lord.  But the door closed.  They remained faithful and another door opened, had they been focused on where they could not go they would have missed the blessings of Phillipi and that would come.  

Alexander Graham Bell once said   “When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” 

Don't miss this friends....in life, doors WILL close.  It is in those moments our faith is tested, that WE are tested.  Psalm 129:33 says, "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts."  When we say to the Lord, "test me" it is important to mean it.  When our plans go amiss, we are tested.

For me.....the test began with the miscarriage between Asher and Jeremiah.  I followed the Lord's prompting and thus conceived Jeremiah.  The story of his miracle conception is a true testimony of following the desires the Lord placed upon my heart.  I didn't know at the time that it truly was "the last stand" for my ovaries.  Hearing the news in September 2012 that we would most likely never conceive again was the next test.  Steve and I felt the call to grow our family, yet we didn't understand this closed door.  So we opened our hearts and minds to how the Lord would prompt us to act.

When the door opened to adoption for us, it didn't make sense.  Having just moved, we weren't even fully moved in.  Boxes remained (and still do!), we had very little furniture, and did not feel "ready" in a materialistic way to move forward.  Yet, when we felt the Lord's prompting, we knew.  We had a choice to follow faith or fear....and we are choosing faith.  The door flung WIDE open and we are moving toward an expedited double adoption, talk about a TEST!  But we have a PEACE that is indescribable.  What a blessing it is to be walking in the will of the Lord.  To feel confident that HE shall provide all our needs.  

We set out knowing the journey ahead would be intense and that the financial needs seemed overwhelming.  Rather than looking at the BIG number, we have focused on one due at a time, one agency or government fee after another.  And honestly, for each step so far the money has been there when needed.  Some from our own monthly income, most from donations and outside support.  Now, for the next closed door.  When we began, we applied for MANY grants and honestly had hopes and expectations for them.  We really considered that to be the biggest way we would find financial support.  This past week we received not one, not two, but THREE denials.  Bam!  Talk about doors closing!  But internally, I have held peace knowing that HE will provide.  Ready to hear about the open doors?

We received a phone call this week from a friend and her husband with a commitment of the exact amount of one of the grants we were denied.  EXACT!  Did you get goosebumps from hearing that?!??!?!  Wanna hear more?  Today at church, we were handed a check for the EXACT amount of one of the other grants we were denied this week.  Talk about OPEN doors!!  

So today, I am standing in awe at His abundant blessings, knowing the HE has already chosen the people or organizations that will be partnering with us in bringing home these two precious children.  We know our Father in Heaven loves them and He is assuring us daily that He shall supply our needs.  It may not look the way we thought....honestly, the people we most expected support from is not where it has come from....the Lord has opened doors to new friends, complete strangers who have chosen to become part of this story.  We know that we still have a ways to go, and we are excited to see this beautiful love story unfold.  Always focusing on the open doors rather than the closed....