From Failed Adoption to Our Christmas Miracle-Trusting God in the Hurt

We had a failed adoption on Sunday and Wednesday our lawyer gave us new hope. 

If your life isn't good, He isn't done. Trust that God has a perfect plan for your life. Sometimes we need to let go of control, surrender our plans and let Him do His work. This is not an easy task, but it is worth it. 

What do you need to trust God for that you're struggling with today?

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and NOT losing weight?

Hey there friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late twenties and struggled for years to get it off. Seven years ago, I found a basic system that worked and has helped me lose 90 of those pounds. I’ve been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since to break chains of diet culture, embrace their bodies and fueling instead of dieting.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to:

• • Lose Weight in a Way that honors God without obsessing about the scale
  • Meal Plan and Prep for Your Family
  • Follow a MACRO based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love.
  • Recognize and pray through triggers keeping you stuck.
  • I’ll help you Plan your week and schedule your self-care time.
  • Cultivate a spirit of self-discipline in your workouts you actually enjoy.
  
  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

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Transcript

So today's message is about hope.

It's about blind faith and walking in obedience.

It's about patience and trusting God's plan.

Our lives have exploded in a lot of different ways over the past couple of weeks.

I've had a lot of people ask to share my story.

And so if you're tuning in and you don't know what I'm talking about, my husband and I had a failed adoption on December 8th and December 13th.

God gave us our forever baby.

And so today, while you're thinking, hey, this is a weight loss podcast, today, really the entire premise about everything I talked to you about is walking in faithful obedience and learning to listen and discern the voice of the Holy Spirit and trusting God in all things, whether it's your weight loss journey or life, your purpose, your nutrition.

And so as we move forward, I'm most likely going to break this into a series just because I have a lot to share.

And our story really starts about a year ago.

So in order to really give you the full circle God moment, I don't want to leave out any details.

So stay tuned.

We are going to talk today about learning to trust God when everything feels uncertain and believing in claiming his provision when life feels heavy and we just really don't see a way out.

So stay tuned.

Hey, sister, welcome to Her Weight Loss Mindset.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and not losing weight?

Do you wish you could find easy meal prep ideas for your family so you're not standing in the kitchen yet again, wondering what everyone is going to eat for dinner that's in line with your goals?

Do you spend hours Googling easy workouts but then have no time to do them because your motivation only goes so far?

Hey there, friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach, encourager and friend.

I gained 100 pounds in my late 20s and struggled for years to get it off.

Seven years ago, I found a basic system that works and has helped me lose over 90 of those pounds.

I've been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to lose weight in a way that honors God without obsessing about the scale.

And meal plan and prep for your family.

And follow a macro-based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love while you reach your goals.

It's time to give God your health journey and watch him make you new from the inside out.

You've got this, sister.

Now go grab your pre-workout or your third coffee like me and let's chat.

In September of 2018, I started hemorrhaging.

And fast forward 18 months later after medical menopause, a lupron shot in my arm every 28 days, multiple laparoscopic procedures to try to shrink the fibroids and endometriosis in my uterus.

Doc said that a hysterectomy was really my only solution.

And I was in my late 30s, I was single, and I was devastated.

I always pictured myself to have a big family.

My mom has a large family and we just, we've always, it's always been something that I really treasured.

So I had come back to my faith, rededicated my life to God about a year and a half before.

And so I was just really in kind of a struggle space because I felt like I was walking in obedience and I was doing all the right things.

And then, so to experience this, it really set me back.

And that's really when I started to realize that I was still living in a works-based religion.

I was trying to earn this or earn that, thinking that God was punishing me for my past or all the poor decisions that I'd made in my parting phase.

And it really just came clear to me one day that we think, why does God let bad things happen to good people?

And we read in John that he says, In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

And that really became my go-to verse during that time.

So I had my hysterectomy in February of 2020.

And for years I had been praying and asking God to move my husband in next door.

And February of that same year, he did.

Two months, not even two months after my surgery.

And I live in a very small town.

Like there's one stoplight, there's a dollar general, a post office, and a bank.

Like there's just not really a lot here.

Like when we go to get pizza, we get it from the gas station.

So the dating pool is very, very small.

Either someone is my cousin or they've dated my cousin.

So God literally delivered my husband next door.

I married into an Amish family in 2022.

We have, I think, 24 nieces and nephews on my husband's side.

And then my brother has two kids, so we spend a lot of time with them.

So growing a family is always something that's been really important to us.

And I remember that first weekend we were sitting out on a Sunday morning, it was Father's Day, and I told him that I couldn't have kids.

And he looked at me and said, if there's a way, God will make it happen.

And I remember looking at my little dog, and she was following me into the kitchen to get coffee.

And I said, I think I just fell in love with him a little bit.

So we got married in October of 2022.

And a year ago, we decided that we were going to start exploring our options for parenting.

So we contacted a doctor that some people at our church had recommended that helped them get pregnant through IVF.

I had a hysterectomy, but I still have my ovaries.

So we had a consult with this doctor, I had some blood work ran, and my levels seemed okay, but as we were just continuing to pray, we just really didn't feel like God was calling us to go in to spend tens of thousands of dollars that we didn't have.

It just didn't seem biblically based.

Now, let me just say, if you're out there and you've spent tens of thousands of dollars on IVF or fertility treatments, everyone has their own opinion.

You do you, I don't, I just, for us, that wasn't where we felt God leading us.

And so after probably about six to eight weeks, we decided to move on to a different path.

So we just continued to pray.

And then that following spring, we decided we were going to work with an agency, a Christian agency that's about an hour from us.

So we went through the interview process, we went through the fingerprinting process, we paid half of our home study fee.

And as we continue to go through the trainings and learning, you know, just about the process of adoption and the lack of support for perspective adoptive parents.

And in the state of Indiana where we live, the birth mom has 30 days after the baby is born to change her mind.

And the average price of adoption in Indiana is $44,000.

So not every agency adoption is that expensive, but it's going to be minimum 25.

Again, we just really didn't feel like that was where God was leading us.

We had just done a Dave Ramsey class.

We decided to pay off all of our debt.

Like it just didn't feel like taking out a loan to buy a baby.

Like it just didn't feel right to us.

And so as we continue through this training this past summer, we just like, I remember, we didn't talk about it for like two weeks.

And two weeks or a couple weeks went by and it was July vacation.

My husband was off.

We had my niece for a week and we were sitting out at the island on our boat and he's like, what are we gonna do?

Like, what are we gonna do?

What do you want to do?

And I said, I don't feel like God wants us to go into debt to buy a baby.

Like, that's just really what it felt like.

And he said, I just, I feel the same way.

So I emailed the agency the following week and we terminated the contract.

So our thought was always, you know, we wanted to walk in obedience.

If God had a baby for us, he was going to provide a way.

I turned 42 this summer.

My husband is going to be 39 here in a couple of days.

Like, we're not young people.

Yeah, I know people are getting, having kids later in life.

But like, was that what God had for us?

Maybe we're just going to be like really cool aunties and uncles, you know?

And so that that day was January or July 9th.

We were like, we're just we're just laying that down.

So I would say it was like the end of August, beginning of September.

I was contacted by a woman that I've met, I've chatted with on Facebook for years.

She knows my mom.

I've never actually met her in person.

And we had left my mother-in-law's and she had texted me while we were there eating dinner.

And she's like, hey, I need you to call me.

So we called, we called her on our way home and just a little back story, about six months before that, she had texted me and asked me to pray for a girl that she knew that she had gone to church with when she was younger and she was homeless and she was living in the woods.

She just wasn't in a good space.

And so when she texted me that night, we were leaving my in-law, she said, I need to talk to you about the girl in the woods.

And so she called me that night or we called her that night.

And she was like almost crying when she answered the phone.

But as we continued to talk, she said, Lindy, I've never heard God speak so clearly that I was going to find your baby.

And Darryl and I just kind of looked at each other like we had put this.

She's like, I know you put it out of your mind, but I just feel like if I'm not obedient, I'm not going to have a clear conscience.

And we said the same thing.

Like, yeah, we want to walk in obedience.

So let us pray about it.

And she said, do you care if I give her your contact information?

So this girl in the woods that I had been praying for months before, oh my gosh, is she going to give us her baby?

And we were not committed at all.

So she reached out in September, very like the beginning of September.

And I had family here for my great aunt's funeral.

And so I just reached out and said, hey, I have family here for the next couple of weeks.

Can I reach out to you then?

So I had messaged her that morning and she just like called me out of the blue.

Well, I was getting ready to hop on with the client.

So I called her a little bit later.

We chatted for a little bit.

I really got to know her.

And over the course of the next couple of weeks, we just really got to chat a lot.

Like I just really felt like I was growing to, you know, become her friend.

And still, we had not committed to adopt her girl, baby daughter that would be born January 2025.

And so we just continued to build a relationship with her.

And we had set a plan to go to meet with her the end of October.

It was October 28th.

And on the 27th, she called me in a panic.

And she was like, if you guys don't adopt my baby, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Ironically, that morning, not ironically, divine intervention, Daryl and I had woke up for the first time in months, I had woke up with him that morning to do our devotional time.

And we had prayed and we were sitting at the kitchen table.

We were reading the Bible.

And he's like, what are we going to do?

Like, is this where God is leading us?

And so we felt at that time that God wanted us to adopt her baby.

So I said, you know, we were just in prayer this morning and decided that we really feel like this is where God is leading us.

So we had already had a plan for like two weeks to meet her the following day.

So the next day we went down, we picked her up, we took her to a coffee shop, we had a coffee, we got to know her, and I just loved her instantly.

Like she's super tall, she's just really pretty, she's got brown eyes, brown hair, she's just she's funny, she's kind of awkward, definitely like nervous and fidgety.

And I just I saw a lot of myself in her.

And the relationship, the friendship just continued to grow.

Like she would call me, I had recorded some books so that she could play it over her belly for our daughter.

And I had taken her a stack of books, and she had given me a couple of things for our baby.

And it was just, it was an incredible relationship, you know, she was just giving us this most amazing gift.

And we were like, flying on high.

We hadn't told any of our family at all, because we hadn't committed until that day, after eight weeks of talking to her that, you know, we just hadn't committed.

And so we were talking to her on the phone one day, and I had contacted a lawyer this past spring, just to see how all of it works.

My cousin is a casa, and her husband is a judge.

And so they have a lot of knowledge in the system of, you know, who's best to work with, et cetera.

So I contacted an attorney, and we had an appointment set for mid-November.

So mid-November, we go down, we pick her up, we go to the attorney's office, we sign the pre-consent to adopt, he asks us a lot of questions, we ask him some questions, we go to Chick-fil-A that night, and it was all just very weird walking out of the lawyer's office, like, I'm not gonna lie.

It was just like, so transactional was the term my husband used, that was completely accurate.

So we go to Chick-fil-A, we have some conversations, and she's like, you know, it's just, I don't want to be weird, it's just hard.

And we even, like, the entire time of speaking to her, we never, like, we always said, if you decide to parent this child, we will support you.

Because before we even committed to adopting her baby, we thought maybe God just brought us into your lives to, you know, encourage you, help you get plugged into a good community, church community, and help you, you know, stay on path to what God has called you to do.

And so we just, we really wanted, still want today to be an encourager to her.

And so we went down November 13th, signed our paperwork.

November 14th, we had a party.

That morning she had messaged me and she's like, hey, listen, I have not wavered in my decision.

I don't want you to think, you know, I know I got a little weird last night.

I just, I have not wavered in my decision.

And again, I reassured her.

I said, you know what would be weird if you didn't have any reservations.

But again, like we're here to support you, whatever you decide.

So November 14th, we had gone to our pastor and asked him to come pray over us.

We invited our family.

We had a gender reveal party for a baby that they didn't even know we were having.

And there were tears and prayers.

And it was just a really beautiful night.

And the following weekend, we had invited our friends over and we got cute t-shirts that, you know, was like a surprise to, hey, we're going to have a kid.

We had the nursery all set up and painted and ready to go.

And we were just so excited to share this good blessing of what God has done, had done in our lives.

And it just felt really good.

So, November 26th, the day before Thanksgiving, she had asked us to come down to go to her ultrasound.

And that morning she had called and she was, she had fibbed to me that morning and I'm not quite sure why.

But she had told me that the doctor wanted to move up her due day and be induced at a certain day so her dad could be there and just all these different things.

And I said, you know, the lawyer told us that once the baby's born, social worker will take her and we'll go into our own private room.

And she's like, well, I didn't remember that.

And so it just started to feel a little off at that point.

And so we go down that day, we go to the ultrasound and we come home.

And that next Monday, I kept thinking, I should text her and just, you know, tell her I hope she had a happy Thanksgiving.

And I was like, no, you know what?

I'm just, I'm not going to.

She typically reaches out to me.

I'm not going to worry.

God has a plan.

And then as the week continued on, it just continued to feel even weirder.

So that Friday, it would have been December 6th.

We, I had, was going to message her on Messenger with some new books for her to play over her belly.

And I couldn't find our chat.

And long story short, she blocked me.

She blocked me on all social media.

She blocked my phone number and I couldn't reach her.

And I called Daryl instantly and I was like in a death panic.

Like she blocked me.

Like we're not having her baby, she blocked me.

And he's like, no, it'll be fine.

She's probably just, you know, in a bad place.

We know that she has some struggles with her.

She just has some emotional struggles and some addiction struggles and things like that.

And so we're just, you know, we're just not going to worry about it.

God's plan, it'll be fine.

She's probably just, you know, having a panic, whatever.

And I was like, you know, what do you do at that point?

Like I had reached out to her mom who was not helpful at all.

She's like, I don't know what's going on with you girls.

You just need to talk it out.

I said nothing's going on with us.

Like we were at the ultrasound a week ago and now she's blocked me.

So Saturday was just a not fun day at our house.

Sunday, we come home from church and we have a note or an email from our attorney that she had revoked consent.

And he said, I'll be in my office Monday morning if you want to call me, I will see if I can find any information.

So we reached out to him that Monday, didn't hear back.

So husband called him on Tuesday and his secretary answered the phone and she's like, oh hey, Kevin wanted to talk to you guys.

Can you set up a call for tomorrow at four o'clock?

So Wednesday, it would have been the 10th, I believe, of December 11th, maybe.

Anyway, we called him at four o'clock that Wednesday and he said, so he had done some research from this lawyer that had contacted him in Indianapolis, and they're an organization that help moms in trouble.

Parent their kids.

So we got a little bit of closure.

We were glad and grateful that she's decided to parent because for a while, they're like, we built up all of this mumbo jumbo in our minds that she was selling us after the highest bidder and whatnot.

So that at least gave us a little bit of closure.

So I just, I want to encourage you, having the faith to trust God when something like that happens in your life, it was rough.

You know, it was, there was a legit struggle in our home for about 48 hours.

Tuesday, hubby came home from work and he was just angry.

And we went to our discipleship class that night and they prayed over us.

We read, we listened to a song.

We got in the Psalms and we just came home with like this overwhelming peace.

And it takes me back to that John 16 33 verse, that in this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world.

And to think of what happened in the course of that three weeks from, you know, October 27th, we told her we wanted to adopt her baby.

October 28th, we met her.

November 13th, we went to the lawyer and signed papers.

November 14th, we told our families.

And by December, whatever that day was, 6th, she had blocked me.

So like in the course of like five weeks, we went from this most complete high, excited about our baby coming in January, like I had worked ahead in my business.

I had, you know, I just had been taking all of these steps and making preparations to make sure that when this baby came, that we were just prepared and we were going to be able to give her the best life that she could have.

And it just sucked the life out of both of us.

And it's just really hard to understand sometimes why people are the way that they are, why they make the decisions that they make.

But we're all lost people.

And, you know, when we have to find a way to forgive and, you know, remember that we're all failed sinners, it just, it's hard.

Life can be hard.

So how do you deal with that?

How do you come back with that?

So I'm going to leave you there.

And I am going to come back to you on Thursday and talk to you about what the lawyer shared with us on that Wednesday phone call and how he changed our lives.

And in 36 hours, we brought our baby home.

Not the baby we thought we were going to have, but the baby that God had for us the whole time.

So stay tuned and we will see you back on Thursday.

I know, spoiler, right?

Hey, sweets, I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

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It lights me up to know this podcast is helping you.

OK, it's time to go make a protein shake and get my sweat on.

No more standing in the kitchen waiting for motivation to appear.

I'll meet you back next week for another episode.

Be blessed.