What's Your Story???

Yesterday in church the topic was a continued series on "I Am Less; He is More" and the first point was this:

How do I become less and He become greater?  It's not a formula; It's a journey!!!!

"Never make a principle out of your experiences; let God be as original with other people as He was with you"  ~Oswald Chambers

After hearing this my mind immediately drifted towards adoption and the journeys each of us go on.  Each adoption journey is so unique and we should be so excited about that, so excited to see how God is going to write our stories yet it is so easy to get caught up in how other adoptions are looking and trying to plan our own around others.  I'm guilty of it too, thinking back over the last 2 years there were many times when I thought "why did they get a referral before us?", "why are they already fully funded and we are having to do every fundraiser ever imaginable?", "why is everything so easy for them and so hard for us?"  and I could go on.  You know you have done this too, even if you aren't adopting, you know as a human being, we compare our lives to everyone else all the time...why do they have such a nice house, such well behaved kids, such a  great marriage, good health, great jobs, etc.

WHY do we do this???  Does it get us anywhere? NO.  Does it make us feel better? NO.  Does it allow us to see what God's plan is for our lives? Nope.  Why can't we just be happy for how everything plays out, the good and especially the bad and realize if we don't stop comparing and complaining about why WE don't have this or that and "they" do, we will never see how God is trying to use us. 

I'll be 100% honest here, I still am trying to plan out the rest of this adoption, comparing other families timelines, to try and determine when we will travel next, but I have gotten a lot better since, oh, maybe January of this year...about 1.5 yrs after our adoption started.  I started realizing this was OUR unique story and I needed to be content with what God had in store for us and let him "take the wheel" basically and just be patient, listen and follow.  I'm not gonna lie and say it has been easy but I have felt a HUGE weight lifted from my back since I came to this realization and magically, as soon as that happened I can say the following happened:  we got our referral, we got a crazy quick court date, we had all the funds needed to get to our court date and all given to us within weeks of needing them, we had an amazing time with our son, and now will be bringing him home soon.  Yes, many good things happened so of course I would be a "believer" in this so I continue to pray that I always remember this time and that when the down times come, and I know they will, to know that when I trusted and put my story in God's hands, it went the way it was supposed to.  Also to know that in the end, this was just "our" story and I need to remember not to prescribe this formula to other adopting families because they will need their own journey just like we did.

So if you are thinking about adopting, in the process or have already, I would love to hear YOUR STORY.  Also if you are in the process or just beginning, write the Oswald Chambers quote down and look at it daily to remind yourself not to hear other family's stories and think that is the formula that you HAVE to follow in order to get further, let God use you uniquely to write your story.