Invited

At the beginning of this year I turned 25 and started to focus on the thoughts of adopting. We have heard it is easier to adopt through fostering and thought we would try that. As the next few months came we tried to get started with that whole process through a christian children's home and that fell through. We turned to the state and quickly got started on filling out paperwork. There's not much else you can do besides paperwork until you start your foster/adoption training classes, so until classes everything else got put on hold. We got an invite for classes shortly after, but they were too far away. We got to talk to a friend of Jared's family who teaches some of those classes and he encouraged us to wait for some local classes. Our best friends then moved away to work at a summer camp and wouldn't be back for several months. Our lives got busy and we started traveling a lot. We got our second invite for classes, but they were on Tuesday nights while my husband is currently in plumbing school at that time. Our church... well it kind of died. While mourning over the loss of our once upon a time good church family we started searching for a new church to attend. We got our third invite for classes and this one got canceled because we were the only ones who signed up to attend. By that last one I was no longer feeling up to going, we signed up just in case that's what God wanted us to do. I was honestly very glad the classes were canceled, I hated not knowing if God wanted us going or not and then He blessed us by taking away the option for us. I remember when we started filling out paperwork the lady telling us something about three invites, that after three invites if we didn't respond to any of them they would stop sending the invites to us. Now I had either called or emailed with the last two invites, but with there now having been three sent to us... I kinda wondered if we'd get anymore. That third invite I believe we received in August...The whole thought of us adopting or becoming foster parents has kind of dwindled down and almost gone away. Where people used to ask excitedly how the whole process is coming, now people have almost forgotten we ever started the process in the first place. I don't blame them, it's not something we think much about anymore either. The whole thing is pretty well put on hold until we start the foster/adoption training and I wasn't even sure we'd ever get another invite. Last week we visited our best friends who went away to that summer camp, and guess what? They are moving back home now! We'll have our best friends to hang out with once again. When we arrived home from our trip to see them we had a new invite in the mail for foster/adoption classes. This fourth invite is for classes on Saturdays, less than 10 minutes from our home, and they will be taught by that friend of our family. And did I mention our best friends will be back?? We'll have someone local to us who I know will encourage us, pray for us, and all around be there for us as we start this new adventure. The first class is to be next Saturday, and the last class is the Saturday before my 26th birthday. My 25th year has been a crazy one. At the beginning of this year I chose to through out my pocket calendar trying to avoid keeping track of every little detail of my life. I have slipped back into that obsessive habit a couple of times, and unfortunately the inbox and outbox on my phone are still cram packed full of messages I don't want to delete. One step at a time... This year has been crazy and I don't think I could have kept track of it all even if I'd tried to. I started out my 25th year thinking of adoption, maybe I'll start out my 26th year actually getting closer to that goal. I have grown distant from all those adoption thoughts throughout the year thinking they may never happen, and now? Now they are all starting to rush back. Praise God for His timing, may He help us in the months to come.