In this time that I was learning patience and how to enjoy being in God’s presence, I was also watching a transformation happening in my husband; he was learning to embrace joy. He had seen the signs and heard the hearts of his children too. And he was getting his own messages that brought joy. He seemed more eager to open the word and go to church as if he also expected big stuff and even the daily reminders. There was good reason; we were getting these messages so frequently now. And our ears were open and expecting them. Some of the big moments that grabbed my husband’s attention came at church, watching movies with the kids and hearing his boys pray and discuss all their hopes of a sister. At church, Tony willingly prayed for his heart to align with God’s. It wasn’t something that came easily for him, but he knelt on the altar and asked how to obey and submitted to God’s will for His life. I remember thinking that even if we never saw a child come from this, that moment was enough for me. Does that hold any truth for you? I mean, I wanted a daughter, but seeing my husband saying He wanted God, was an even bigger desire. The journey could have stopped there and I would have been full of enough joy then. The thing is: I knew the journey was just starting. And I could hardly contain myself. And week after week, Sunday after sunday, Jesus met us at our church home and fed our spirits. Every message, every guest, every praise song felt like it was just for us. Now I might exaggerate slightly but do you see what I mean–we were feeling pretty special. I get that church doesn’t necessarily feed everyone’s soul the same, but there’s a pretty good chance you are going to hear from God when you enter a worship experience with him. If we were questioning adoption, a guest speaker talked about their adoption. If Tony and I were praying to be unified in this, the Sunday message (March 12, 2102) was on Unity (John 17:21-23).

But God meets us everywhere we are, not just at church. And we spend a lot of time with our kids. We noticed that we were picking up on the “adoption” theme when we watched movies with our kids. Jude said, “this movie is about adoption” after we watched Kung Fu Panda 2. And when Gru says “I am very excited about adopting” in Despicable Me, Tony and I looked at each other and smiled. This was actually the third time that day that the message was in our face and it just seemed to seal the deal. That night, it was almost as if anything left in Tony that fought this idea of adoption threw up his arms and relinquished itself. It sounds funny that a kids’ movie put him over the top, but there had been nearly a year of moments by this point in November 2012 now.

One of the big moments happened in May, earlier that year, when Sy was having a conversation with God. Sy not only prayed, he got in the habit of asking God about his life, including his future sister. He asked about what he would be when he grew up, why there were dinosaurs and the purpose of love bugs and he asked about his sister. He also got answers. He would tell us that she would “be born in June 2014, when {Sy is} 7” (she was born in May 2014; Sy was indeed 7. At the time of this, he was only 5 and I doubted he could have added that together in his head). He shared details of her appearance including her black hair. I recall the dramatic way Sy responded when he asked God for her name. He kept pausing and then said he couldn’t understand the language God was speaking, so he asked God to use his language, and then he looked at me and said, “God says we will find her name in the bible.” And then he asked, “What is Heaven like?” He waited for God’s answer and looked at me, confused. “God told me there is a disco party in heaven. What’s disco?” Well, I knew that Donna Summer and a BeeGee had just died. I bet there was some disco dancing in heaven then. But really-oh my goodness. Sy could not have known that and he clearly didn’t even know what disco was. I do believe that part of the conversation was to get the attention of us adult parents, who were probably not completely believing this whole conversation…until that.

But these moments, well, we clung to them. They felt like promises. We started to tell people. We were going to have a daughter. Anyways, Sy had been telling people for months that he was going to have a sister, even strangers he sat next to at a ball game or people that would ring the doorbell to sell things. His faith and passion were contagious. And so, we also started proclaiming it. “JOY!!!!!”