We finished up our second home study visit on Friday! It was pushed back a day due to our winter storm, but we're still on track to be finished in about 2 1/2 weeks!
The visit started with us together for a few questions and then we had individual meetings for about 45 minutes each. They asked us about our strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, interests, and goals in life. We had to describe our spouse, relationships with families, feelings about adoption...nothing too difficult. At the beginning of the session we had filled out another questionnaire, this time based on any sort of drug abuse, criminal activity, child abuse, etc that may have occurred in our families. We would like to thank our families for leading very healthy, normal lives, as this made our interview much shorter!:)
Next week is the final interview at our house. It will take her a week to write the report and then the director takes a few days to finalize it. We're getting closer!
During our initial application we had to fill out an openness survey, which basically talks about what kind of baby we'd be willing to accept. There were 3 pages of questions, like every other questionnaire they hand us. This is such a difficult form for me to fill out. For most people, if you don't want a child with fetal alcohol syndrome, you just don't drink. If you don't want to a child with drug addictions, don't do drugs. You get my point. The question that is scariest for me is accepting a baby from mothers/fathers that are mentally ill. In my job I work with lots of children that have a mental illness and it is a lifelong, difficult thing to deal with. I initially marked "no" to accepting a baby with a family history of mental illness and our social worker asked about it during the first part of our interview. After the initial questions, I left Bethany so Nate could do his interview first and had some time to think about it. I realized that I have to continually place my trust in God during this process. New fears and questions come up all the time, and I have to constantly remind myself that God is in control now and He will be in the future. How much do you trust God? We say we do all the time...we're Christians so of course we trust Him. But do we trust Him enough to give Him complete control over our lives? Or do we say we trust Him, but still try to control the things in our lives. Do I trust Him enough to check "yes" to those scary boxes? After all, if God chooses to give me a child with a mental illness, He will also give me the strength and skills I need to parent that child.
As I was contemplating these things in my car, I heard the song "You Lead" by Jamie Grace...click on the link to hear it! In the chorus she sings "You lead, I'll follow. Your hands hold my tomorrow. Your grip, your grace, you know the way, you guide me tenderly. You lead, I'll follow. Just light the way and I'll follow. Cause I know what you got for me is more than I can see."
God is teaching me so much during this process and I know that I still have a lot to learn. We continue to be very excited to see where God is going to lead us!
Heather
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