My Plans & God's Purposes

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." - Proverbs 19:21

This time last week I thought I was going to be in Africa today picking up my son in Ethiopia.  Yet here I am sitting on my couch in Cincinnati.  Not in Africa.  I thought I was going to get to travel with our friends to experience the joy of getting our children together, but while I type this they are somewhere over the Atlantic on their way to Ethiopia.  And guess what?  I am right where I'm supposed to be and my friends Le and Lindsey are right where they're supposed to be too. 

The thing is...I can make my plans and think that I know how everything is going to go all I want, but God knows best.  He sees the big picture I don't.  It was just one little tiny piece of paperwork that didn't get into the right hands on time in Ethiopia that kept us from going to get Tariku on Sunday.  It was incredibly disappointing.  But God's timing has been amazing throughout this whole adoption process and so we trust Him.  Almost immediately after we got the news we weren't going to be traveling as anticipated, things began to happen.  

I got a call from a friend I haven't seen in ten years who said she wanted to send us a check (a sizeable one in my opinion) to take with us to spend on the needs of the people we encountered in Ethiopia.  She asked what else she could send and I said "Maybe some bubble gum for the boys at Kolfe, the teenage boy's orphanage we're visiting.  I'd really wanted to see if I could get them each a new t-shirt but there are 130 kids there."  Guess what was delivered to my front porch today?  Yep.  140 brand new t-shirts for the boys at Kolfe.  So, my friend Lindsey gets to throw those boys a pizza party this week and I get to give them all new shirts in a few more weeks. Pretty cool if you ask me.

I mentioned on FaceBook that I was going to be visiting Korah Leper Colony and that they needed medical supplies desperately.  Within 3 minutes of posting the need on FaceBook I had a message from Kids Against Hunger here in Cincinnati saying they had leftover medical supplies they couldn't get to Haiti and I was welcome to come fill up my suitcase.  So I went to fill my suitcase on Saturday at the facility and while I was there they asked if I wanted to take any food with me.  Um...YES!  So, they loaded me up with 440 nutritionally packed meals to take to Korah.

Oh, and now I have time to receive and deliver packages from 3 sponsors who want me to meet and give their sponsored Kolfe boys goodies.  Seriously??  LOVE that I get to do that for them.  And take pictures.  And get to know these boys and tell them they are loved, prayed for and cared for by someone halfway around the world.

From Day 1 we have known that God is taking care of Tariku in the time that we are apart.  What we didn't know was that God was also going to take care of quite a few of His other children simply by allowing us to travel a month later than we had anticipated.  Wow.  I'm blown away by how God has provided for so many people in such a short period of time.  But, that's just like our God.  His love is BIG and His ways are so far above mine I couldn't comprehend them if I tried. 

This journey of learning to trust is just that - a process of surrendering again and again.  It's a constant setting aside of our own wants and desires and admitting "Okay, God.  You know better."  Sometimes those words have a hard time rolling off our tongues, don't they? :)  But let them.  Because He does know better.  Always. The bellies that are going to be full for the first time in who knows how long because of the 440 meals we'll be able to deliver, the boys who will be wearing fresh, new t-shirts, the people of Korah who will finally know what pain relief is...they will attest to the fact that God does know better - ALWAYS.