A God thing

This morning after church we had a free lunch for the university students. One of the great things about serving in the university department is that when the students get free lunch, so do we! (Usually.)

Mr. Randy assistant taught 4-year-old Sunday school a few years ago. Today we ran into the teacher of that class who had not seen Randy in awhile and didn't know we had gotten married. R shared that we were adopting a baby and she said, nonchallantly, "Both of our children are adopted. What agency are you using?" R replied "Buckner." I don't even think I need to tell you what agency they used. This happens to us ALL THE TIME.

One of the stressful things about choosing adoption is selecting an agency. There are so many to choose from! You can go through an agency, a maternity home, an attorney, foster care, and so on. I thought we'd never pick one. However, from even before we came to the decision to adopt the word "Buckner" came to our ears regularly. Our friend went on a mission trip with Buckner. Our friend's friend had adopted from there. Every time we told friends we were thinking about adoption they said, "Have you heard of Buckner?"

Have you visited Christine's pseudo-crunchy weblog? Christine was a college roommate of a friend, and is now a friend to us, too.

The other night we announced to several more people that we are adopting. The first person we told, Cherie, squeeled with joy and asked, "From Buckner?" We had never ever talked about adoption or Buckner with her before. Julie was sitting next to Cherie and was equally excited. She was the friend who went on a mission trip with Bukner International to Guatemala and highly recommended Buckner's professional staff. (The international adoption side of things is a different staff from domestic, but I'm sure they are all equally loverly.)

And now this latest circumstance.

Some ways that God speaks to people are through prayer, the Bible, circumstances, and other believers. When you read in our profile that we feel that God is leading us down this path, part of that tug comes from the frequent confirmation of our choice by the words of other believers who we trust also are listening for His voice. This is not an audible voice, although it could be as God has chosen to speak that way to people before, but a still small voice. When we accept that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we are a part of Him and He a part of us. We then receive the Holy Spirit as our "inner voice" of God. When we pray to God, the Holy Spirit interprets our words in ways that even we don't fully understand - but God does. I'm not making this up - it's in the Bible. Check it!

I am not talking about "the universe" here. The universe is not a person, it is a creation of, you guessed it, God. Why is it so strange to believe that an almighty being acts in this way, but it is not strange to believe that the "universe" gives and takes away?

When did I become a preacher? You can call me "Rev" like the character in the movie Remember the Titans. ;o)