God's greater plan & appointments

First, we just want to say……Thank you!  John and I were blown away by our t-shirt sale and are so grateful to everyone who purchased one and/or gave a donation to help support bringing home Baby China. You will forever be a part of our child's story, and how he/she found a forever home. 

We sent many of you facebook private messages to thank you personally but I know not everyone has messanger.  All told, through the website,  we ended up selling 140 t-shirts including 10 shirts to people we have never met before. What an act of faith supporting our adoption when you don’t know us personally.  The southern roots side of us is dying knowing we can’t send you a proper thank you note (because we don’t know your name let alone your address), so please forgive us and accept this as our formal thank you!!  

God continues to amaze us by His continued provision throughout this adoption.  We first began this adoption journey for the sole purpose of bringing an orphan into our family because God called us to do so, with hopes of sharing the Gospel of Grace along the way.  What has been amazing to us is to see that God’s plans are much bigger than that.  Today was a good example.

Today is Wednesday.  On Wednesdays, I typically go to a 9:30am women’s bible study at our church (Church at Viera).  This morning I planned to leave early so I could run by Office Depot and pick up some fliers we made for our upcoming garage sale (more on that later).  I had ordered and paid for the fliers online so it would be easy to just run in and pick them up before bible study.  What I always hope is going to be a 5 min run-in and pick-up always takes longer!  Story of my life... While I have your attention, a little tangent/ rant for my husband:

I used to think the drive-through was for lazy people, and not using the drive-through was for real moms!  Let me just say that I wish there was a  drive-through EVERYwhere... And I mean everywhere.  Office Depot, Old Navy, the Bank, Hobby Lobby, Publix, Home Depot, Post Office, Pets Mart, Walmart...  I mean seriously, would that not be the best thing ever?!  It takes an act of Congress to get our family in and out of the car at every errand stop. Besides, the fact that one of the sliding doors on our van is broken currently, I have to crawl over the seats to buckle the kids in (who never keep their shoes on for more than 2 seconds), with both of them demanding to do everything their self... which for an 18month old could take about an hour to get out of the car. Then it never fails once we get in the store one of them has to go potty… Can I get an amen from the moms?

The best thing about the entire story above is that once I got into Office Depot this morning they informed me that I was at the wrong location and my fliers had been printed at the store 30 minutes away. Uhhhhhh! The "nice man" at  my current Office Depot location offered to print them for me, but it would take about 20 minutes.  So if I didn’t have children I totally would have waited but entertaining Nora for 20 minutes can be a bit challenging, so I accepted my loss and left the store, no fliers in hand.  On the bright side, this meant I got to church about 30 minutes earlier than I anticipated!  Happy DANCE!  I get to sit in quiet and have a cup of joe!

As I was sitting there, 2 Asian women came up and sat next to me.  We began the regular chit-chat that one makes when meeting someone new. One of the women was older (in her 70's) and spoke very clear English.  The younger woman spoke a bit of broken English and you could tell she was having trouble understanding me.  In an effort to help the communication gap, the older woman began to translate what I was saying to the younger woman.  I asked her where she was from... and she said CHINA!  Of course my heart started beating a little faster, I couldn’t believe it.  She told me that she had just moved here in January from China with her 15 year old son.  We talked more and the room that was once empty had now filled with around 100 women, although I was completely unaware because this woman had captured my limited attention.  I told her about our adoption from China and she seemed fascinated.  She asked “why are you adopting if you have your own children?”  I explained to her that we believe God has called us to adopt and we believe we were once orphans - separated form God - until Christ adopted us back into relationship with him. At that moment the older woman leaned over and said “She doesn’t know Jesus and that is why I have brought her here.” I was stunned.  A divine appointment I thought! What are the chances that my fliers would be sent to the wrong store, I would get to church 30 min early, and this woman (just recently moved from China) who doesn’t know the Lord would sit down next to me and strike up a conversation so relative to our situation... I don’t know how this story will end, but I have her email and I pray an authentic friendship will develop.  I pray that through our friendship she can learn about Jesus and I can learn a little more about China.  Although to quote her, "you teach me English, and I teach you Chinese cooking!" John will be happy about that!

Today has made me think about 1Timothy 1:12 "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given my strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service."

You can’t tell me this meeting today was random.  It was a divine appointment that God planned before the beginning.  I, who am never 30 minutes early, happened to print the flyers at the wrong store, decided not to wait around and was therefore early enough to sit and have a cup of coffee, and have this experience. It is an amazing feeling to know that God is at work in our lives. Have you had a divine appointment recently that left you left you a little speechless? I believe we all have a lot more divine appointments than we realize. It just takes a little faith to see the reason for some of life's circumstances.

What if God uses our adoption to bring this woman to Christ? What about her son who has never heard the name Jesus? His purpose is always good.

What are your thoughts?

Laura