The Dream

So, what do we do with our lives now? We've had our dreams but they are not coming as we expected. Do we give up? Or do we lay our lives in God's hands and see what happens? Well, for those of you who know my side of the family - you know that we are VERY superstitious. My brother is getting married in July. His fiance' was talking the other day about him marking an "X" on the windshield when he saw a black cat sitting beside the road. Not crossing the road, but just sitting beside the road. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her you could never be too cautious. And he didn't mark just one "X", he marked 2. One for himself and one for his fiance'. You always mark as many as you have in the car with you. We are one supersitious bunch. No washing clothes on New Years Day, you don't borrow someone's clothes if they are new and they haven't worn them, etc., etc., etc. But we also believe in signs from God. John was in an automobile accident in March of 1997. He should have been killed. He was hit head on, driver to driver. He lost a tooth, had stitches in his lip, and was bruised and beat up pretty good but he was alive and well. He had someone riding with him that was also fine. Amamzing intervention. But why? John questioned this for quite some time. He could not figure out why God spared his life. He didn't have kids to live for or to provide for, he was no one special to no one in particular. Except to God. John told his preacher calling not long after that. For those of you who do not know what that means - John was called by God to tell others in this life about God, his son Jesus, and what he can do for your life. John is particularly led to youth childr
en. We worked with the youth in our church for many years. After John told people about his calling, he got VERY involved with the youth. There were several that were like our own kids. We supported them just as much as they supported us.
I don't know about you, but we believe that God can speak to us in ways that leave you thinking - did I really dream that, what is that supposed to mean. John and I both had the same dream. Now this may seem silly to some of you. But wait until you hear our whole story. (It may take a while folks.) We both dreamed that we had 1 more toothbrush on the bathroom counter. On the same night. We didn't tell each other about it for several days. But when John mentioned it to me, I just sat and listened. When he got finished, I basically had chill bumps because I had dreamed the exact same thing. All of this is happening while we are looking online at the adoption process. We were trying to decide what we wanted to do about bringing a child into our home. Did we have the money? How would our family react? What kind of support would we get from church family and friends? And most importantly, where would the money come from? (This is the latter part of 2003 by this time.) We received a phone call from some friends of my mom's about some children that were about to be taken into foster care. There were 2 kids. A baby and a toddler. We couldn't believe it. It was too good to be true. We called our lawyer, asked some questions, and was told to be very leery - we were reminded that people don't just give their kids away unless it is under extreme circumstances. Call and talk to someone for ourselves. We got the name of a lady to speak with and I called her 2 days later. The children were already in foster care. There had apparently been a DFCS case against the family previously. We had to be certified foster parents before they would even talk to us about the children. Of course we were not. We were heartbroken. We had been given a picture of the kids, told about the situation and we were sure that we could make a difference in these kid's lives. We had discussed fostering and thought there was absolutely no way that we could do it. How could we take a child into our home, fall in love with it, knowing that there would be a great chance that they would go back to their biological parents or family. Then one day, I met and spoke with a lady that was at my school one afternoon. I had afternoon car duty and she had come in to pick up her children. She had a foster child with her that was absolutely adorable. Then came more questions.