Three Years Ago....

This week.  We saw her face.  It was the weekend.  A friend texted me saying she thinks our daughter is on our agencies waiting child list. (who does that?!  I'm forever grateful she did though) I texted her back that she was crazy and there were only boys on there.  We knew God had a little girl for our family and we were pretty sure she was about 2.  My friend urged me to check again.  We were out but I scrambled on my phone to login.

  I caught a glimpse of her little face.  I couldn't breathe.  I wasn't sure.  I didn't have an overwhelming feeling that this was her.  I showed David.  We were at IKEA.  Not ideal.  I just wanted to go home and read all about her.  

We finished our trip.  As soon as we got home I bolted for my room and grabbed the laptop.  I poured over every picture, every word on the screen.  I sobbed.  David came in, he wasn't sure either.  We were in shock, could this be our daughter?  We vowed to pray over the weekend and call our agency that Monday.  Tuesday December 14th we saw her file.  We prayed. We talked with all of the kids.  We prayed some more.  The bottom line was simple.  There was a little girl who needed a family.  She was older then we'd anticipated but she was waiting.  She needed a family.  We were a family.  Simple.  We were all in agreement.  We said YES on December 15th and on the 16th our agency agreed that Belaynesh would be a Shubin.

Three years ago today we had seen her face.  We had said yes.  Our hearts were all in.  We trusted that God would cover all of the unknowns - our hearts set out to bring a child who needed a family into our home and our "plans" were different then what God had.  We knew His plans were good and we walked in faith.  

Today, I'm SO glad we said YES.  God knew we needed a spicy little lady and He knew that Zahra Belaynesh Reign was to be a Shubin.  We're so honored to be her family.  David and I marvel at Gods goodness over us, we're forever changed by adoption, that God would let us be her parents, that He entrusted her to us.  

Look at her now!

We love you Z!!