Sometimes We All Need to be Hit With a Cattle Prod

I tend to be the type of person that isn't pushed into things. I don't like to feel rushed. I like to read every single line on every plaque at the museum so I can process all the nerdy history stuff. I could actually care less about whatever it is that I'm looking at, but if there is text I'm going to read it. One day, I'll make it on Jeapordy and all of those useless facts about Norwegian cat-dogs will come in handy.

When it came to adoption, I think I found every excuse not to start. It wasn't that I didn't want to adopt. That had been decided a long time ago. I just wanted to do it in my own little controlled way. I wanted to read, research, step back, sleep on it, rinse, repeat, etc. My wife on the other hand is very gung-ho. I love her for it. Because without her, I probably wouldn't move forward on a lot of things. I remember about a year ago, we were looking at when to start the process. At the time, we were still thinking about adopting from Rwanda. But I didn't feel ready. I looked at the fine print (i.e. the price tag) and all I saw was impossibility.

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't get past it. Surely God wasn't calling us to something that impossible. Because, God doesn't call people to impossible tasks, right? I mean, it's not like he told Moses to challenge a world leader, turn the Nile into blood, or part an entire sea with his staff, right?

Ok, so maybe God does that with people in the Bible, but does he do that with every day folk like us?

At the suggestion of my beautiful wife (I get +10 points with Katie every time I sing her praises) I took a week to pray on it. I struggled praying over this. Not like sweating blood prayer struggles, though, sometimes it felt like it. I wrestled with God and it seemed like he was silent the entire time.

At the end of the week on Sunday, we went to church as normal. We rehearsed and were waiting for the service to start. Our pastor K, comes up to me and gives me a $100 bill. He tells me - somewhat in a state of shock - "Some guy came up and gave this to me and told me to give it to you. I have no idea what this is about."

That was Father's day last year.

Read that last sentence again and let it sink in.

I didn't realize it at first, but when I told Katie about it, she reminded me that I had been praying all week long about how on earth we were going to come up with the necessary funds for adoption.

And some stranger gives us money.

On Father's day.

Clearly, our God does not understand the word "impossible".

Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible'" - Matthew 19:26