Not long into our adoption journey, maybe about two months, we were looking at files and came across two teen girls. We debated between them and several other candidates for some time. My mom felt guilty because there were only two of them instead of the four in another group, and those two girls did not seem to have as many problems as most other kids from troubled backgrounds. However, after a lot of dinner conversations, we all realized that those two girls were the ones that we felt the most comfortable with. My dad, looking at their picture, said that there was a grief in their eyes that he felt he could reach. I simply did not feel like I would count down the days until I could leave the house if they were the girls we would adopt.

We sent a letter to them at the beginning of March. We had never been through that process before, so we were a little nervous. However, we jumped right in. We wanted to have them home by Christmas 2021, so Mom and Dad did all the paperwork as quickly as they could. I started learning Bulgarian so that I would be able to interact with them, and we all prayed.

According to their file they were both in favor of an adoption and, even though they were in a foster family instead of an orphanage, the foster mom was having trouble keeping up with the younger girl’s needs. We just assumed, or at least I just assumed, that they would say yes. However, at least a month later, the agency contacted us to say that the girls said no. Apparently only the younger one had said no, but since the older one was too old to be adopted on her own, we were not able to adopt them at all. The social worker had visited the girls three times trying to convince them; they generally only go once. The older sister had even been trying to convince the younger one to say yes.

Needless to say, we were all devastated. Those girls were my sisters, and I had lost them. I do not know if any of you have ever known someone who went through a miscarriage, but it felt a lot like that. That same loss of potential, except we had seen their faces. In fact, my parents still have their picture sitting in their room. So, I honestly mourned for awhile. Any time I went to work I was super mellow. I am a nanny so the kids were freaked out that I was so moody, but we got through it. I think the worst part was that we all felt God very clearly leading us to those girls, and then it did not work out. I cannot count the number of times I told myself over those weeks that God has a plan and works all things for good. And the thing is He did. Looking back, I probably should not have opened myself up to them so quickly. Not only because they said no but because if they had said yes, I would have been so blinded by how I wanted things to go, that I would not have been prepared for all the problems that were bound to arise when we would have brought them home. Now we are waiting on a response from a girl (15) and boy (13), and while I do not feel nearly as close to them as I did the sisters, I feel even more at peace about them.

 Romans 8:28 “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to His purpose.” I know from multiple personal experiences that it does not always feel like it in the moment, but looking back in a couple of months, it is crazy to see how God works. 

-Gabriella