God Closed the Door

Hi all,

Hard post to put out there...

Unless something huge happens (and I don't know what that would be) we will not be adopting Wise, Bright's older biological brother in Ghana. I can't go into all of the details because some of it reflects poorly on the birth family and I don't want to put ugly stuff out there about my son's birth family.

To make a very long story short, both Wise and the next oldest brother, Steven, have been relinquished to an orphanage. The birth family is aware that we would have liked to adopt Wise. It just isn't going to happen.

Eric and I put out a very specific circumstance to the Lord. "Lord if X happens, we will see this as a closed door to adopting Wise." Well...X happened.

The good news is that the boys ARE in care--that's much better than their family situation. So praise God for that! Better news is that there is a possibility at least that they can be adopted now. There is an adoption agency that has an exclusive agreement to place the children from this specific orphanage. So now our hope is that the adoption agency will grant us our request of keeping in contact with an adoptive family that is found for the boys. Our prayer is that both Wise and Steven will find permanent love and support through adoption very soon.

Having God close a door after having everything initially look so "open" is pretty hard to understand. Why did He make everything look so perfect to begin with? I suppose that is His business alone. What I do know is that we very ernestly sought His will in deciding to pursue Wise's adoption--and I believe we were supposed to say yes. Maybe the Lord was testing our faith in Him? Maybe He was preparing us for a different challenge at a later date? No matter what, the Lord has been faithful to us to close a door that we asked Him to close if this wasn't His ultimate will for our family or Wise.

Thanks for all of the prayers folks.
Anita