The Dreaded Home Study :(

OK, so tonight was the 1st of 4 in home interviews. This is where a lady comes into our home to check us and our home out to make sure we are fit and sane enough to adopt a child. Oh, the fun we've had thinking up all kinds of fun ways to freak this women out just to make tonight a little more fun (like answering the door dressed in our Ike and Tina Turner costumes from Halloween; leaving a bunch of CRAZY things all over the house and telling her that's what we use to spank our kids with; answering every other question with a Chinese accent; letting the kids run around naked the whole time, etc.). But, then we may never receive this sweet blessing God has for us. :(  So, we'll just act our age tonight and try our best to fool the woman. ;~)

The crazy blessing in all of this is that I happen to know this women. We have had our children in the same Mother Day Out schools over the last couple of years (I am so amazed at all the little ways God keeps showing himself to us through this process). An agency out of Amarillo picked someone I knew! In all this time of casually talking with this lady I never knew she did this type of work. Now, here she is in my house doing our Home Study. Just Crazy!

Tonight went AMAZINGLY well!!! We got through our couple interview, and the kids had their interview (without us in the room). It feels so good to know that this lady is working for us and not against us (I've heard some crazy stories)...that reminded me I need to share my scripture of the week:

Romans 8:31 If God is for us, then who can be against us.

This was the scripture that has come across my mind so many times in this last week. I even began to wonder why it kept coming up. Then yesterday I found out something we would be asked (knowing our answer would not look good for us and knowing Charlie and I had not talked about it yet, nor would we be able to talk before tonight's interview due to his ridiculously late nights at the office this week). I began to panic a little. I finally called our sweet agent out of Georgia to ask her how to handle the situation only to have her quote this same scripture from Romans. Wow! God gave me this scripture before I needed it! Why am I surprised that He knew I was going to hit a wall this week, and there He was already preparing me for it? The moment I heard her say this, it hit me like a ton of bricks (I kind of even remember yelling at her,"That's it! That's it"). I realized at that moment that if God has called us to this adoption (and He clearly has), then no one can stand in our way (not even some bad note on our 10 plus page report she will send to China about us). So, tonight when the issue came up, she passed it off and it was never an issue at all. Wow, I can't begin to tell you how good it feels to know that we have God going before us, paving this CRAZY road all the way to China.

One, down. 3 more to go! The next 2 interviews will be our individual ones where she will ask us all about our families, our marriage, and our sex life (yes, I said sex life). I just think it's funny that you still have to have sex to have a child even through adoption (go figure). I probably should have prepared the sweet lady that I have NO problem talking about sex. This is one area I know we don't have anything to worry about. ;~) T.M.I.??? Naa.

Funny, but I don't dread the HS process anymore (I never thought I would say that).