The Check I've Been Waiting to Write

Today I've never been happier to write and mail off a BIG check!! Yes, we finally got to mail off our IAP form and first agency fee. God is good.

And yes, Stella decided to document the paperwork process with her fabulous photography work!

I'm a little on the quirky side when it comes to some things. Having a bit of a type-A personality, I love organizing, sorting, and absolutely love filling out paperwork! Even when I was little and your elementary sent you home with a ton of paperwork for your parents to fill out on the first day of school, I always begged my mother to let me fill out all of mine and BOTH my brothers' as well. It's such a soothing thing for me. (I know, quirky, right!?!) It's the little things that God does, like giving me the love of paperwork, that makes me know I was made for this process!

"For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so

that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

It has been a joyful week at the Michael house. I feel God's presence inside of our home just working inside of us, and wrapping His arms of love and joy around all of us. He's really preparing our hearts for this precious little man who will, hopefully soon, be joining our family. Amidst all the craziness in our lives right now, He is the one who creates this peace inside of us, and is carrying us through.

So what's next...

Now that our IAP form is mailed out, we will be hearing from our agency, hopefully tomorrow, and they will provide us with our adoption planner (pretty much, a BIG checklist of everything we need for our dossier.) We are working everyday to finish up the paperwork on our homestudy to finish that. Tomorrow we are going to get fingerprinted and send off for our last document we need to send off for our homestudy paperwork. The estimated completion time for that will be around 6-12 weeks. Please pray, that all of the records I have sent off for will arrive back to us safely and in a timely manner to keep this process smooth and in His timing.

Again, thanks so much to everyone who has been involved with our journey thus far. NONE of this would have been possible if it weren't for all of you. There's nothing more beautiful than seeing a community of people coming together to bring Him glory.

Please keep praying for our legal situation as well. It's still dragging on, and somedays still gets the best of me. I pray every morning for God to just keep pointing my mind forward, to what's ahead, and to not look behind on the past and the situations that I cannot change. It's a daily battle, but He is faithful.

Great is Your faithfulness! Great is Your faithfulness!

Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed YOUR hand hath provided.

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!"

- "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" Thomas Chisholm