Our Adoption Story-Part 2- God's Plans vs. Our Plans

God redeemed our story in 48 hours. Now I've worked to be faithful for the past 8+ years and have witnessed God do some pretty amazing things, but this, this may be my favorite miracle. Our 10-pound beautiful baby girl, a true gift sent straight from heaven just for us. 

Will you surrender what you 'think' you need for your life and let God lead?

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.

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  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

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Transcript

Matthew 17, 20 to 21 says, For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Mark 11, 23 to 24.

Have faith in God constantly.

I assure you and most solemnly say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, in God's unlimited power, but believes that what he says is going to take place, it will be done for him.

Mark 9, 23 says, and Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes.

So last couple days ago, I finished off with our part one of our adoption story.

And as we lead into part two today, I just really want to encourage you that no matter what is going on in your life, that if it isn't good, God is it done.

And when we start to pray those mountain-sized prayers, he really will see our faithful, sometimes blind obedience, and he will perform a miracle that can only be expressed as a miracle.

What God did in our home, what God does in our home every day is a miracle.

Just simply the fact that we wake up is a miracle.

But the way that he moved in our home that week, it just, it overwhelms me with gratitude that I cannot express.

And that's the first time that I've been able to say that without crying.

So as we lead into part two of this story, I just really want to encourage you that when you start to walk in obedience and learn to be led by the Holy Spirit, you're going to be so much more in tune with God and what it is that he wants for your life, that when these blessings come, you're not going to be shocked because you know that God is sovereign.

You know that he is omniscient and he is omnipotent and he is perfect and his provision is incredible and his timing is perfect.

And there are things that happen in your life that you can say, Oh my God.

And what happened in that in our lives and the testimony that is snuggling with my husband on our bed right now while I record this podcast is a testament to our faithful obedience.

And I'm not saying that to toot my own horn.

I'm saying that because after we had a failed adoption on Sunday, after we didn't even know that we wanted to adopt until a couple of weeks before, to have that baby, in a sense, ripped out of our hands, like we didn't even know that baby.

We had never met that baby, but I could picture her.

I loved her.

I could see her where she was and who she was gonna grow up to be.

Or so I thought.

So stay tuned.

Let's talk about what happened in our home that week.

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.

We have a phone call with our attorney on Wednesday after our adoption failed on Sunday.

So we call his office at 4 p.m.

and he tells us that the birth mom is going to parent her child, which we were we were glad for.

And he said, you know, I'm happy to refund you.

I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Or I had a young mom in here last week who has an eight week old daughter that she would like to give up for adoption.

And Darryl and I were on the phone with our attorney and we look at each other and he grabs my knee and we're both like, the wind is knocked out of us.

And he's like, take some time to think about it and just get back to me.

And I said, OK, well, can we take the weekend?

This was on Wednesday.

He's like, yeah, no problem.

Maybe we can get, you know, the mom in here.

You can meet the baby and we can go from there.

And so he told us a couple of other details and we hung up the phone.

And Darryl and I looked at each other and we're like, oh my gosh, God is literally hitting us a baby.

So I know a lot of you follow me on social media.

But we had a failed adoption on Sunday.

And on Monday, I had our entire nursery sold.

And I'm not just talking like toys and things like we had a rug, we had a crib and a changing station.

Like the entire nursery was ready to welcome the baby that we thought was coming in January.

By the time my husband came home from work on Monday, I had pretty much sold or donated everything.

That's my unhealthy coping mechanism.

It's like out of sight, out of mind.

I couldn't have it in there anymore.

I needed to mourn that baby and I needed to get it out of my, get it out of my, get it out of my sight.

So Wednesday, we get off the phone and we're like, God's giving us a baby.

So Thursday morning, first thing, I emailed, I emailed our lawyer and I said, we want to adopt this baby.

And he emailed back at noon and he's like, okay, well, I'll see if I can get the birth mom in here next week.

And hopefully nothing has changed.

So instant, I go into like panic, like, oh my gosh, was this our baby?

Is this going to be ripped away?

Like we haven't even had 48 hours, you know, without grief, are we going to grieve again?

And he calls us at three o'clock that Thursday and said, well, birth mom wants to get out of town on Sunday.

If you can be here tomorrow, we'll sign some papers and you can take your baby home.

And Darryl and I were like, we look at each other.

Darryl had just woke up from a nap.

And we're like, okay.

So I called the lady that I gave the car seat to, I know her, and explained the situation.

She's like, I'll have it back to your porch by the time you get home, because we had to go to Walmart and we had to buy some stuff because we didn't have anything to bring home a baby.

We were meeting my friend and her boys that night for dinner and she shows up with a bag of stuff for us with some diapers and outfits and just amazing.

My grandma, my aunt Natalie, they text, they're like, send us the list, whatever you need.

They brought stuff down on Friday.

We went to the lawyer's office at, our appointment was at 9.30 and we were told birth mom would be there at 10.

We got into town a little early and we went and had a coffee.

I didn't voice my struggles to hubby, but in my head I was like, well, what if she doesn't show up?

What if our hearts are broken again?

About that time, Daryl said the same thing.

I said, we're just going to trust God.

He prayed for us there while we had our coffee.

We walked over to the lawyer's office and as we walked into the lawyer's office, we saw a man and a woman, a younger girl, and then there was a little boy, and then this little girl in the car seat.

Our attorney takes mom back with an advocate for her.

They signed some paperwork, and in the meantime, we are talking with the other older woman who was there.

She was holding the baby, and we didn't know anything about this little girl.

We didn't know her name, we didn't know her birthday, we didn't know anything about her.

All we knew is we show up and here's this beautiful tiny little peanut with the most beautiful full thick head of dark hair I've ever seen and the brownest, most beautiful eyes, and she tells us her birthday is in October and she tells us her name is Evelyn and I instantly look at her and my husband and I said, oh my gosh, I had a dream last night about Evelyn.

Four times the night before we went to pick her up, I heard the name Evelyn and right before my alarm went off, I heard Evelyn Adélie Fern Schlabach.

So my husband and I have always had the name Adélie is our girl name and his mom's middle name is Fern.

And I just think that it's absolutely the most precious name.

So the name Adélie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin.

That means the Lord is exalted.

Now we picked the name before we knew any of this.

I just Googled it and this is what I found.

It comes from the Biblical name Athaliah, which also means God is exalted.

Adélie is a unique variation of the name Natalie, which we named her after my aunt Natalie, which is another Hebrew name that means day of birth and refers to Christmas.

The name is associated with the day of Jesus Christ's birth and evokes a sense of joy and celebration.

We looked at that little baby in one second and we knew that we had to keep her given name, but she would become Adélie to us.

So we kept her her birth name, Evelyn.

And we went into the lawyer's office.

We signed some paperwork and we brought our baby home.

And to think what God did in that moment, I couldn't wait to call my friend that had reached out to me about her faithful obedience, thinking that she was leading us to a baby that would come in January.

I couldn't wait to call her on the way home from the attorney and say, Listen, you did give us our baby, because without her taking us to our January baby, we never would have connected with the attorney who brought us to our forever baby.

And as hard as life can be sometimes, as deep and dark as the valley can sometimes feel, God is always with us.

And while our plans might not seem like they're ever going to come to fruition, if you stay in faithful obedience with patience and trust, he's going to make away.

It's probably not going to look like you thought it was going to look or feel, and there might be some ugly spots in the middle, but he will make away.

But we have to learn to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit.

What if we would have made a different choice here?

What if we would have made a different choice there?

What if we would have said we didn't want to adopt this baby that we thought was coming in January?

We wouldn't have woke up to the beautiful blessing this morning that sleeps at the end of our bed.

I see so many people chasing and striving and aching for a life that they think that they need or want.

There she is right there.

Can you hear that?

It's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

If your life isn't good, God is not done.

Trust and believe that where there's a will, there's a way.

And where there's obedience and there's mustard-sized faith, say that five times fast, he will give you the desires of your heart.

And when you look back and you start to see all of the things around you, you're going to realize that he has a hand in everything, in every aspect.

And sometimes you have to learn to just surrender.

You have to learn to sit back.

Because if we would have continued that relationship with the agency last summer and went into debt to have a baby, waiting three to five years in the state of Indiana with the chance that the baby could go back within the first 30 days, that was something we were going to have to contend with in January.

What if we would have brought that baby home and after two weeks, she would have changed her mind and decided to parent then?

That Sunday, we had a failed adoption.

My husband looked at me and he said, we don't need that baby.

We have God and we have each other.

And he said, we're going to get on our knees right now and we're going to pray.

We got on our knees and we tried to pray, but we didn't have anything to say.

We were sad, we were frustrated, we were angry, we were hurt.

We were grieving a baby we thought we were going to have and get to love and God had a plan the whole time.

But I think we needed to go through that to make sure that our hearts were set on being parents.

And God wanted us to see how real it was, not just for the baby that would be ours, but for everyone involved.

I didn't understand why January Baby's birth mom wouldn't have had a conversation with us, but I don't need to understand that.

I see what God did now.

And while I was sad and frustrated, He brought beauty from our ashes.

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

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

Okay, 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.