What A God Journey It Has Been!

Exactly 3 years ago...

I saw this picture!

AND, I heard a voice...

It said,

HE

IS YOUR 

SON!

My heart lept, my head began to spin, and I had goosebumps from head to toe.

I answered back.

REALLY GOD?

But he is so young and we are not?

He is not even up for adoption?

How could he be our son?

Then Hubby came home and took one look at me and said 

"Obviously we need to talk".

I told him what happened and his response was

YES!

No questions, no doubting, 

just yes!

Of course after an experience like this the hard part comes...

I wanted this little boy to appear in our home as quickly and as clearly as I heard the Lord speak!

But that is not the way our God works.

Instead our journey would be filled with many opportunities to grow in the areas of patience, prayers, faith and trust in HIM.

Once again we saw God work a miracle in Luke's short life.

As he was 1 of 18 children orphans picked to have life saving surgery in Israel.

It was part of a good will gesture between Israel and CHina.

To be accurate Luke was the 18th child to be picked... the last one...

(He had his surgery when he was 18 months old.

His birthday is on the 18th.)

Then there was the realization that this surgery was much too complicated and Israel wanted to back out... Luke's foster family would not allow that to happen without a fight! They endlessly advocated for him until the Israeli Embassy decided to send Luke to Israel for the surgery...

It is amazing how God had his hand all over this little boy...

When they opened him up

the surgeon said "I cannot do this". His heart was incredibly complicated.

The other assisting physicians encouraged him to continue.

They said "people are praying and fasting for this little orphan, all over the world"!

It was a stressful couple of days all the way in MN as we prayed, fasted and waited and waited to hear how he was doing.

I will be honest- I believe what happened to me when I heard the Lord's voice BUT I had no idea if or how he was going to orchestrate all of this.

I know I have shared this whole story before on my blog but right now as we celebrate this little boy's 4th Birthday AND his first birthday at home we are reminded of God's greatness, of His faithfulness, of His immense power and the fact that HE really can move mountains. 

I am in complete awe of our Creator!

HE takes my breath away and He leave me speechless...

The little boy that the Lord spoke to us about celebrated another birthday in China.

Oh how, we longed to have him home.

We waited for a year and a half for Luke's referral to appear.

Once it arrived we were amazed on how GOD was in all the details.

Below is one of his referral pics ;-)

Then he celebrated his 3rd birthday in China November 18, 2011.

Days later would be Gotcha Day- December 5th, 2011.

It was surreal. It was like watching a movie that we were part of, only in slow motion...

On December 5th, 2011 we walked into the Henan Civil Affairs Office where this sweet little boy was waiting for us!

He had stole our hearts 2 years ago and it seemed nothing short of a miracle that "he was our son"!

We are so thankful he is home!

 He blesses our life every day!

Our God is AMAZING!

Birthday party post is next!