Brian and Starla, evergreeners both and two of my favorite people are getting ready to adopt 3 children! I'm happy evergreen has gotten to play a part in their story (and that they have played a part in evergreen's!). Here- in their words...
On the verge of the children coming, I suppose it’s time to revisit the story of how we got here so some of you know how we came to the point of inviting Daisy, Dylan/"Georgie" and Isaac into our lives.
It wasn’t easy. Brian and I battled for years with infertility. On the cusp of learning that our only option was in vitro, a friend met me at Starbucks to tell me she had a message after praying for us. The message was simple; God had seen our faithfulness and would give us a child of our own. Following that rainy day in Southern California, Brian and I proceeded to ask God to heal, ask God to work with the doctors, ask God for instructions. All the while we were going down the path towards in vitro. One week before starting injections, we both confessed to each other that we felt God telling us to wait. I don’t know how to describe that conviction other than to say that it felt like moving forward would have been disobedience. Later we would call in vitro our “Ishmael”.
The crazy thing is that following our decision, God was painfully silent and we were left to try and explain to family members why we weren’t going with in vitro. “No, I don’t have an ethical problem with it.” “Yes, we do want children.” “Yes, we do think that God has given us medicine.” We expected God to tell us right away what to do, but there was nothing but silence for...oh…about 4-5 years. The only break in silence came in ’03 when Brian and I thought that we’d have our answer in the fall – Brian thought we’d get our answer in October. When nothing came to fruition, we jokingly referred to that time as an indication that we don’t know when it’s God ‘talking’. “Remember October” was equated with “mishearing”.
Oddly enough, this barren time was really used by God to shift Brian and me. Holding an unrealized hope started moving us away from comfortable Christianity and crept us towards the edge. We used the time rethink our friends, finances, purpose, theology…some may say the screws came off – but we started have meaningful spiritual conversations with folks, shifting our finances to give support more things that we believed it, and meeting with Stephen’s friend Bob who was going to start a church that met in a bar.
Last July my sister took her grandchildren in and we were asked to consider taking Isaac…
No way. No way would we adopt. Two professionals with busy lives adopting kids that have been traumatized and who may or may not have longstanding developmental problems?! Someone else can do it. Not us. At least that’s what we said to Liz at breakfast before going to evergreen last August. During church, we were reminded of Isaiah’s words: Do not forsake your family in need. Yes, I too heard Liz’s laugher when we read the verse aloud.
So, we flew down and met Isaac and fell in love. (Yes, we get the irony that we were calling in vitro our Ishmael) We began visiting the kids every 6 weeks…nine months later we were asked to consider taking his brother Georgie. Almost one year went by when we started wondering about Daisy and how we could let her lose her brothers…we started seeing that she was bonded to them and then…Daisy asked Brian if he would be her daddy.
Of, course he will. Of course.
Shortly after the decision to adopt all three of them, Heath [one of the artists in our community] gave us a painting that is its own story. Make him tell it. Or, make Amy [his wife]. The punch line of the story is that the painting has three pots, and in the largest pot is a flower and that flower is a daisy. Heath didn’t know about Daisy. (creepy cool)
I can tell you that God has used silence to speak through community. It forced us rest on a group of folks who were wrestling and waiting for their own answers. Words of encouragement, dreams and visions of hope would come to us from friends in the community at just the right time, not a moment too soon or too late.
Now we are knee deep in cleaning out our house and making room for tricycles, legos, dolls and crayons…and I just felt like I needed to pause and tell our story of the great things that God has done. Because I’m pretty sure that if we had a child of our own, we would not have made room for Daisy, Dylan and Isaac.
I’m pretty sure our story isn’t done yet…but thank you for helping to bring us this far.
And yes, we learned that the kids were coming in the fall, specifically…October.
That is beautiful. What an incredible example of God's sovereign hand in our lives, guiding our path.
Posted by: Makeesha Fisher | November 10, 2006 at 06:18 AM
Congratulations, Brian & Starla! What a beautiful love story!
Posted by: Rachel | November 17, 2006 at 05:47 PM