God always knows.

     How about a post that talks about our most recent adoption UPDATE?! Two weekends ago, we sent off our application (finally) to our chosen agency. It felt like we had been hanging out for weeks with this application. And weeks is probably fairly accurate. Our biggest hang-ups were printing a family picture at Wal-Mart (I kid, I kid) and the special care checklist. This special care checklist was beyond overwhelming. Beyond. I remember sitting down late one night to tackle another small section with Eric...and just sobbing about whether we should say "no" to some conditions and "yes" to others. Battling guilt and wondering WHO would adopt these babies with certain conditions was heart-breaking. I sent out a quick email to our consultant asking for guidance and direction. We are working with someone wonderful from Christian Adoption Consultants. Bless her heart, she responded right away and assured us it was OK to say no. God calls different people to care for every child. We muddled our way through a few more  conditions and then turned in for the night.

     Shortly after Christmas day, we hosted Christmas with Eric's sister and parents. It was the perfect time to dust off our special care checklist...because Eric's mom, brother-in-law, AND sister are all nurses. We were SO thankful that Eric's sister (who is a NICU nurse) could go over the checklist with us. She went into great detail over every single condition on the 5-page, SINGLE- SPACED, list. It saved us a lot of time from googling and we got to talk with a person about things that weren't all scary! We had such peace after our conversation with her. Phew! Thanks, Em!

     With our family picture in tow, Eric sent our packet on its way. Our consultant had touched base with the agency to let them know our app was in the mail. She advised us that if we didn't hear back from our agency by this week...we should let her know. Well, on Tuesday, as my Kindergarten kiddos went off to lunch, I noticed I had a voicemail from a familiar number. It was our agency. I immediately felt excitement...they must have called to let us know they received our application! I quickly checked the  message and our case worker said that she "already had an update" for us. I wasn't quite sure what this meant...but wondered if they had already approved us.

     Thankful it was my lunch break, I returned the call and talked with our case worker. She had shared that they received our application on Friday. Everything looked great. She then went on to say that she had gone ahead and sent our application to their agency in South Korea to get the ball rolling.

     *Sidenote: We chose an agency who had a South Korea program. However, South Korea does not allow this particular agency to work with families in Ohio, unless we get special permission. We were told this wasn't a huge deal (it had been done before), but it would take time...in fact, up to 6 weeks...yikes. Although the approval didn't usually take that long, that was the time frame they had to give us.*

     Sooo... as I was on the phone feeling giddy that our application had even made its way to the agency and that our case worker had kindly sent it to South Korea already....she continues on to say that she had ALREADY heard back from South Korea! Up to 6 weeks?! How about TWO DAYS!? We were approved by South Korea! I was all kinds of excited. I think I sent Eric about 30 emojis with the kiss face. HA! God showed up and showed OFF, friends! I had been praying specifically about the timing of this approval and he answered it. Even our case worker couldn't believe she had already heard back from them in such a short period of time. I emailed our  consultant and overused the exclamation mark but it was warranted. She approved of my exclamation mark usage too. What a huge answer to our prayers!

     So what now?! Now, we finish up our online training and begin the home study. Dun, dun, dun, dunnnnnnn. We're still prayerfully considering which home study agency is best for us. We've had some really great talks with one agency in particular. Would you pray for clarity and discernment with this decision? The home study is a long and grueling process and we want to work with the right agency for us.

     Friends, I am fully aware that our journey is still long...but this quick approval was such a HUGE blessing already. I am finding the good in every single step of this glorious unfolding because I know it's growing our character and our relationship with the Lord. God knows what we need and when we need it. That is for sure!