preliminary application- check

as you can probably gander from the title, we have officially turned in our prelim application for adoption through bethany christian services. chris and i are stoked and anxious to get the big application to trudge through. there are a lot of things we have to get taken care of in that application like financials, fingerprinting, background checks, physicals, etc. thankfully our great friends jesse and leslie have already been through this part and kind of gave us a heads up on some of the things we would need so we have a little bit of a head start. our adoption counselor told us to plan to receive a child 2 years from today. obviously, we are hoping quicker, but at least we know that in two years it is highly likely we will have an addition to our family- and that is exciting!

please pray with us as we try to get all these little things taken care of. it is a very tedious and extensive application and our desire is to fly through it and move along to our homestudy. we were told that if we stay on top of this, it is possible we can have our profile available for viewing as early as january! so we beg and covet your prayers!

on a side note, in my previous blog i wrote about this blog being a testament and hard copy of our child's journey to his or her life with chris and me. well as we were in our meeting at bethany tonight and they kept encouraging us to pray for the birth parents i felt compelled to start keeping another type of journal- a prayer journal to give the birth mom/parents when the placement has occurred. she may not want it, but since i am feeling compelled to do it, i think she probably will. i want to write down every single date, time, and request that i prayed for this birthmom so that i can go back and see how God was preparing her heart and mine, but also so she can see that i was praying for her, before she even knew me. perhaps this birthmom will be someone who is unsure of their faith or their decision and that is why i feel the need to do this for her. or perhaps she is just overwhelmed with the adoption- i want her to see how God orchestrated the entire process in order to bring redemption, healing, and life. or maybe this will just be another way for me to chronicle this very very special experience we are going through. i don't know. all i know is that i am bursting at the seams with overwhelming excitement, anticipation and joy for what is to come. so much of this can seem overwhelming, but God really confirmed to us tonight at our meeting that this is the path He has chosen for us and we are going to take every step in stride, seeking to find the lesson in every situation.

so again, please keep us in your prayers and while you pray for us, please pray for the birth mother. what a gift this woman will be giving us and if she is lost what a gift she could receive if her heart is ready for the seed to be harvested. and even if she is a christian, what encouragement it will be for her, knowing that she is being prayed for. it's really overwhelming and exciting to know that God already knows her name, knows when she will conceive the baby,what sex that baby will be, and when we will get the life changing news that our family will be expanding. and who knows? if things go as quickly as i hope they will (unlikely but hopefully!) she could be carrying our child right now! (of course she could be getting knocked up right now too! ahh!) thank you all again, i promise your words of encouragement are not going unnoticed, and they are making a world of difference to us as this can be intimidating and frightening. but we love you all and cannot wait to introduce baby lawson to all of you!

be blessed. cass