I love what God is doing in my heart.

It's so amazing how God has changed my heart about adoption in the past almost 4 years since he layed this on my heart.... I started out wanting to adopt for the obvious reason of wanting a daughter... but it really did start out fairly shallow.... mostly wanting God to meet "my need" for a girl....(I'm not saying that those reasons are not good enough to adopt.... I think any reason is valid to adopt if God calls you to adopt) but as the doors kept closing on adopting... first with Indonesia, then with Cambodia ~ it made me dig deep down and search my heart.... I still DO want a daughter and I believe God will grant those desires because I think He put it there to begin with.... but all the details of what I felt like I wanted are starting to melt away.....when we had that opportunity to adopt Sherlly & Sharonne back in January, I feel like for us, it was a test... God has been beginning to show me little bit more of why we had to go through that.... Aaron & I really didn't want older children... we really wanted a newborn or an infant.... we definitely didn't want 2 toddler girls that were the same age as our Michael, either... not only that, they already had their own names, they spoke another language, they were taken care of by others as babies, and one of them was older than our Michael, which would throw off the birth order (These were all things that were important to me). Anyways, it really threw me off when that opportunity came by and I really had to give it to God....I told him that night... "God, you know what I want... you know that my desire is for a newborn or infant girl and you know that I want to name her... you know that having her as a baby is an important thing in my heart, you know that throwing off the birth order will take some getting used to....but in the end, I want YOUR PLAN... if these 2 girls are part of YOUR PLAN for our life, make it happen and change my heart and let Aaron & I both have PEACE about it and be in agreement..." Those are the words I spoke to Him and then... Amazingly, He changed my heart so dramatically and we said 'yes' to adopting Sherlly and Sharonne... when we did that, I had this CRAZY JOY that came over me... I suddenly felt FREE... I felt like this bondage of having to "have the ideal situation" was lifted from me. It was a tremendous feeling and I began to really, really get excited about the girls. I even felt like I truly wanted toddlers and I would not want a baby anymore....God had certainly transformed me. Anyways, I believe that the situation with the girls was something we had to go through in order for me to grow even more....I used to also think I DEFINITELY will NOT adopt a boy and that I didn't want to adopt any orphans from Africa.... Don't ask me why and please don't judge me.... it was just something I didn't want or I guess God hadn't given me the desire for that.... but now, this day, if there was a chance to adopt from Africa, I'd do it in a heartbeat... If there was a chance to adopt a boy, I think I would do it. My heart toward orphans has changed... I used to only care for the orphan that I would eventually adopt.... now, I truly ache for the orphans out there without parents. I am not sure what the future holds for my family and how many we'll end up adopting, but I believe God has still more changing in me to do...even though the process is painful, the results so far have been more than wonderful. God, I yield to You... make me desire only You and Your plan.