Our First Two Adoptions

Well, the blog started out heavy with my last post, but because there are some of you who don't know our family, I thought I would tell you our story. Brandy and I have been married for 10 years and are blessed to be parents to Josiah (4 1/2, and the 1/2 is incredibly important apparently) and Selah (3). Both of our kids came through the beautiful miracle of adoption. We discovered early on in our marriage (by accident) that we would not be able to conceive and began our steps to adopt shortly thereafter. Brandy had done some research on the internet and discovered that there was this thing called Frozen Embryo Adoption that an agency out in California, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, had started a program for. We were excited to see that there was a way for Brandy to experience pregnancy without doing anything that we felt broke our marriage covenant. It was a long and lengthy process, but we were eventually matched up with a family who had 13 frozen embryos left from their IVF treatments and we proceeded to get pregnant with Josiah in December of 2002. Josiah was lucky number 13 after a few unsuccessful tries, so we have no more embryos left.

For our next adoption, we didn't feel led to repeat the frozen embryo route again, so we took a more traditional approach, or so we thought, with our next child. We began to research local agencies in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex to see what our options were and were stunned when one of the agencies told us that they had a birth mom who was set to deliver any day who they didn't have a family for. We hurriedly updated our home study, made a book, got our application in and waited to see what would happen. About a week later, we carried Selah home from the hospital, anything but traditional. We tell people to be sure not to look to us for examples of how the adoption process works. They will be sorely disappointed if they're looking to us.

As we prepare for our third adoption, we're excited to see what the Lord has in store for us on this journey. Already we have hit some speedbumps in the road, as recently as today, that are causing us some anxiety in the process. We believe that God has called us to this course of action, but I am confident that God's greatest desire for me and for Brandy is not necessarily that we add Butler kid #3 to the family. Rather, He will use this, like every other moment or event in my life, to make me more like His Son, if I will allow Him to. Behind the quick synopsis of our first two adoptions I just gave you are the unbelievable threads of the lessons we learned, the sufferings we endured, and the leaps we took in our relationship with Christ as a result. James 1:2-4 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." We appreciate your prayers for us in our anxieties and ask that you will pray that God has His way in our hearts regardless of the outcome.