Blessed be YOUR Name

On January 20th at 9:30 pm I just “happened” to check my email. I see an email from our agency with the words “match?”. Could it really be? I was just telling Mark how awesome it would be to surprise family at Christmas if we receive our referral tomorrow. Of course Mark tells me not to get my hopes up high. I never thought we would see him that night. I opened the email up to see Drew’s big round cheeks, big dark eyes, tiny little hands, bald head (just like Olivia), and to me long feet. I could not stop staring at him. I wanted to look at him forever. We read his paperwork. Emailed our agency back with “We love him…what’s next?” It is hard to imagine to love someone so deeply that you have never met, talked to you, or touched. But there was an instance LOVE that I have for him and knew he was our SON! We have been praying that the Lord would lead Diana’s hand (she does the placing of children to their forever families at our agency) as she “locks” us in with the perfect little guy that ONLY the Lord has picked out.

So we knew Drew was hand picked for our family by his Creator.

It was so hard to sleep that night. But somehow it got done. Drew’s paperwork was sent to Riley International Adoption Clinic for them to look over. Started research everything and anything about China, travel, his orphanage, his city, etc. Around 1:00pm Dr. Julie Keck for Riley called to discuss Drew’s paperwork. Of course she started out with all the “good” stuff. But then she told me that because of his light skin and iron blood work it looks like he might be anemic. Anemic…does not mean that much to me. I have not researched that “special need”. She went on to tell me the different scenarios to manageable to severe anemic. I tried to listen and take notes because I knew Mark is going to ask a lot of questions. I went through the notes with Mark. He had so many questions about the anemia that I could not answer. He needed more answers. I gave him the doctors number so he could ask her. I took him needing more answers as he does not know if we can keep Drew. The next 2 hours was spent CRYING and trying to figure out what we are going to do. I spent some time praying but to be completely honest it was not completely surrendering prayer. I called our agency to explain that the doctor is asking for more blood work. They said we can ask but we will not get it before we have to say yes or no to China (we have 72 hours from time of being “locked in” to respond back to China to say yes we want this child or no). She said that we can try again next month. My HEART broke. I don’t want to try again. I want this little boy. I want Drew. I hung up the phone and cried. The cry that your whole body shakes. Then the song Blessed be your Name came into my head. The words

My heart will choose to say
Lord, Blessed be your name

Rang through my head. I kept on saying I will CHOOSE to say BLESSED be YOUR name, over and over again.  At that moment when I completely surrendered my emotions, decisions, planning, DREW…the peace of God came over me…the tears dried up. Mark called within 30 minutes of me crying on the bed to say call Diana and tell her to LOCK US IN with DREW!! At that time I told him of the struggle that I was having this afternoon and he told me that he was never thinking no to Drew but just wanted to be educated about what we need to do next with Drew. Ye of little Faith. I pray for something but when I receive it, I doubt that God will allow me to keep it, I thought God was going to make me give Drew back. My mind went to our prayer before we saw Drew that God would give us the perfect little boy for our family! But when things did not seem "perfect" in our human eyes, we were about ready to tell God that was not good enough I think you need to try next month. No way...God gave us Drew no doubt about it!

We asked for his blood work and we were told it was a 50/50 chance of getting them. They were completed on December 29th! We sent the results to Riley and all the blood work came back NORMAL. All that crying for nothing! Praise God.

We are day 24 on waiting for our LOA (next document needed). Then we wait again for about 3 weeks for our TA (travel approval) then we wait again for 2 weeks for TRAVEL!!!

Please pray that we get our LOA before February 2nd...Chinese New Year starts then and government offices in China close for about a week.

In His Time! Worth it ALL! Love the Hess'