His Hand

Through no fault of his own, Mike has had a lot of uncertainty about his job lately. His position was based on a project, and that project is now over. And while his boss assured him that he would have a job in the new fiscal year (which started today), she couldn't guarantee what it would be. We still don't know exactly what his job is right now, but things seem to be working out.

Anyway, we were talking about this tonight, and the resulting financial ramifications, and the conversation drifted to how much more spending money we would have if we had stayed in our rental townhouse in north Utah County and not bought a house last year. We love our house, but I started wondering if maybe we had been too hasty, after all. Maybe we should have continued renting. I could have a DVR.

As I knelt to pray, I seriously felt confused about it. And then a thought hit me. But before I tell you what that is, I need to tell you three facts:

1. Before we started house hunting, we were also thinking about reapplying for adoption. Rachel was one, and we were eligible to apply again. We had always figured we would reapply the second she turned one. We went to the temple and prayed, seeking answers to know if we should buy a house, and if we should apply for adoption. We thought that the answers we would get would be not to buy a house, and to apply for adoption. The answers we got were the opposite. It confused us. It seemed contradictory to Heavenly Father's plan of building families (and not getting into debt). But we trusted Him. We bought a house. We did not apply for adoption again at that time.

2. When we were searching for our house, we originally wanted to stay in the north of the county, but we felt good about including areas south of Provo in our search. When we found our house, it immediately felt like home, and everything fell perfectly into place. In the area we were renting our townhouse, we were with the American Fork LDS Family Services agency. When we moved, we were now in the area of the Provo agency instead. The Provo agency is the only agency in Utah that still has all its couples make a hard copy of their profile with a picture collage and letter. All other agencies only allow online profiles.

3. When Reed's birth parents decided to place two days after he was born, they had their case worker bring them 20 adoptive couple profiles. Only hard copies. They never looked at any online profiles.

So, the thought that hit me tonight is this:

If we hadn't bought our house, we wouldn't have Reed.

We had a good deal on rent in our townhouse, and we were close to family there. There's no way we would have moved unless it was to buy a house. We wouldn't have had a hard copy profile. Shelah and Chris would never have seen us. Reed would not be our son.

I started to cry when I realized this. When I realized that the Lord truly, honestly guides us with His hand. And how we have to trust Him, even when we don't see it. I never would have guessed that buying a house would lead to adopting another precious miracle. At the time, the answer to buy a house and not apply for adoption seemed counterproductive to building our family. But Heavenly Father wasn't building a family. He was building our family. And our family includes Reed. Not just any baby. Reed.

How glorious is our Lord. How perfect is His understanding. How feeble our own. I'm glad I trusted Him, even when I couldn't see why. His hand has built our family, and I will forever be grateful and praise Him.


And I'm okay with not having a DVR.