Adoration is where I was first made aware that I might be adopting a child.  When my wife first mentioned adoption to me my answer was a resounding NO way will I adopt! My two biological children were at an age where they could take care of themselves and I was free to go off fishing and do what I wanted.  I was getting ahead financially and adoption, at that time was a threat to all that.  A lot of I me mine, I was being selfish.

However, while praying in adoration I could not remove the thought of adoption from my prayers.  It kept creeping in.  At Mass it would creep in as well.  My loving wife slowly started to hint at other things too like perhaps looking globally to adopt like China.  My answer was No way will I adopt from halfway across the world!  I could maybe say yes to adopt a local kid we can drive to pick up but I despise flying even to Florida never mind halfway around the world!  In my warped mind I was viewing a trip to WalMart to get a new kid.  I still had a lot to learn here and God had a lot to teach me.

God’s plan, of course, are so much better than mine and He truly does have a decent sense of humor.  On November 10, 2007 God let me know that our new daughter would come from China!  We had gone to see Steven Curtis Chapman in Lowell and he talked a lot about China adoptions. Mr. Chapman has several adopted Chinese daughters. Leaving the concert my wife asked me if God had been talking to me in there.  I told her to contact the agency tomorrow and get the paperwork going before I change my mind.  Boy did my prayer life kick into overdrive from that moment!  

God wasn’t done with this yet.  I kind of liken it to a very small scale version of when God told Moses he would lead the people out of slavery.  

We can hear about God’s call to Moses in Exodus 3:10 Now, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

That was all he started with - he did not tell Moses that Pharaoh will be stubborn and it will take seven plagues to free the people and then Pharaoh will get ticked off and send an army after you and you will be stuck up against the Red Sea but you’ll part it with your staff and walk through it on dry land and then it will crash around Pharaoh’s army and they will die and you’ll all be free and eat manna and get stone tablets called the commandments and wander around lost and die prior to entering the promised land and all that.  If Moses knew all that up front he just might have said no.

St. Therese of Lisieux illustrated this eloquently when she said “He (God) doesn't like pointing everything out at once to souls. He generally gives His light little by little”.

When my wife, who was already privy to all this through prayer, added another level to all this and mentioned adopting a deaf child my response was simply “I need to pray about that”.  I knew better than to say no any longer.  What God did with this process is get it rolling slowly - just adoption at first.  Then adoption from China.  Then finally, adoption of a beautiful deaf three year old girl from China.   Had I heard all of that information at the mention of adoption I’d have said no, but once the adoption ball got rolling it wasn’t so bad when it picked up these other things along the way.  

We knew it would be an interesting road ahead and God provided the communities we needed during this process.  He provided a loving pastor that helped guide my wife through the difficulty of waiting.  He provided my family with plenty of prayers answered. We seemed to always have just what we needed financially when it was due, and our friends and family were an incredible support group as well.

I’m not sure when we decided to name our new daughter Faith but the decision was made prior to leaving for China as we knew it would take Faith bigger than a mustard seed to get us there and home again with our sanity still intact.  God didn’t and never does disappoint.  We have had our daughter Faith in our life for 4 ½ years now and I cannot imagine life without her.  Now God just needs to help me become more proficient at sign language!

God guided me on my family's journey to adopt Faith and my love for her as one of my own has helped my relationship with my heavenly Father.  If I can love my adopted daughter as one of my own with my imperfect love then how much more can our perfect father in heaven love us just as he loved his own Son Jesus.

As in 1 John 3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God- and so we are.