Alright, I’m going to give Jenni a short break and share these thoughts that God put on my heart.
This past weekend we began preparing a dresser for our newest daughter Evie Joy. The dresser is just one of the many things we are getting ready, but this dresser has special meaning. When my siblings and I were kids my parents used it for us. In middle school I decided to take this old dresser and clean it up. It took weeks to strip away the old paint and to get it back to bare wood. In the end it was a beautiful piece of furniture.
Now fast-forward 24 years to this weekend. Jenni and I started by sanding the entire dresser all the way back down to bare wood. The good news was that the hard work had been done in my youth, and now we just had to refine the piece. It took all weekend and we are still putting on the finish coats. The hard work has been worth it, and the dresser is looking great.
As I sanded the finish off of the dresser, I began to realize that I am a lot like this dresser. The layers of paint were much like the layers on my heart that had to be removed. To be removed to move me to the place where God wanted me. Recently He has been stripping the layers off my heart that I never thought He would. Just like the dresser He took away the layers to get down to the bare wood……my bare heart. I started off with “adoption is good, just not for us”. Then a layer was stripped away. “Maybe adoption could be for us”. Then a layer was stripped away. “Adoption is for us. Wait, oh my goodness, adoption is for us”. Then a layer was stripped away. “Adoption is for us, and we have to find her”. Now it’s “Adoption is for us and we just need to bring her home”.
Just like finishing the dresser will result in a beautiful piece of furniture for our little girl, God has refined our hearts to create a beautiful family for our new little girl. Removing the layers has not always been easy, but I can’t even imagine what our lives would be like if we weren’t on this adoption journey. Now we just can’t wait to bring her home!
Houseful of Houghs 