I know many of you are just waiting for the announcement that we are pregnant, but I will be quite honest in saying – don’t expect anything right away. We are definitely hoping that it happens in the near future, but we know that having a baby is seriously one of the biggest things out of our control. I mean I believe in a sovereign and providential God, but some things we have some control over. I would say with babies, not so much. So, with that said, we are just praying that one day God would bless our home with kids!
One thing that has really helped us in understanding God’s timing is hindsight. No, I do not know “why now” but I do know that God knows why now. Looking back, we had many people ask us why we weren’t adopting and that was the hardest question to answer and often we felt guilty for not having an answer. I felt shamed at times. I felt that some thought if we just adopted, that the pain of our situation would go away. As I have said before, adoption is not the answer to infertility of any kind. Adoption does bless a home with children, but it has to be in God’s timing we feel. God, we feel, needs to be in the picture. We are HUGE supporters of adoption! That is why I have an eternal home – because Christ adopted ME! I am sure every family who has adopted, felt that tug from God. I know some thought we were just settling for no children when we said we were not adopting, but the issue goes so much deeper and to us it is a matter of God’s calling on our life. That tug just was not there.
We were looking for any answer. And that is the way we saw people’s encouragement for us to adopt – as a way to take away the pain we were feeling. And we are humbled by that. They too, wanted an easy answer for us.
But now we know why.
Could God call us to it in the future? OF COURSE and our hearts are ready and willing. But stepping out of God’s will is not a life we want to live and though the beauty of adoption is etched in our hearts, we know that for us in this moment, that is not the path God wants us to travel down. When asked why we don’t “just adopt” we often felt pressure and wondered why those who asked us didn’t feel the same calling (if they didn’t adopt already)? It is a hard concept to explain, but we just had no answer at the time.
And we firmly believe that God did not turn our hearts down the adoption road because He had a different path up ahead. We just had to keep trusting. We would’ve loved an easier answer, but if we did have that easier answer, we wouldn’t be the people we are today.
Today we “adopt” our youth group kids into our lives and always will. We will continue to love those who need love. We have no clue where this new chapter is going to take us, but we are ready and willing to go where God is leading!
A little snippet of fun…
It might always be fishing season for the Sterks, but summer is definitely our favorite time to go out! We had a free night this past week so we decided to take the boat out and find a quiet lake to rest our bodies and fish. I ended up catching a 15-16 in. bass and Dan pulled in a few that size too! It was a GORGEOUS night out there and we did what we love doing most – fishing together!