Hey everyone,

I know it has been a while since we have posted. Reason being is there hasn’t been a lot to update you on. A few agencies have meetings coming up in august. The first one is August 7. There is another one August 17-19 but not sure if we will be able to make that one. Most agencies require you to attend an info meeting before moving forward and of course we would like to go to a few if possible before choosing which agency we want to go with. This first step has been a little harder than we thought just with having to wait to go to these meetings. We are anxious to get things moving but we know God’s timing is perfect not ours. We hope by the end of August we will be able to say we have chosen an agency so hang in there with us.

In Sunday school today we were asked the question “When is it easiest to worship the Lord and when it more challenging?” Most of us would say it’s easy when things are good and harder when things are bad. But a friend brought up a good point. He said a lot times its harder to worship when things are going good. Nothing bad is happening, life is good, job is good, new home is good, no sickness and that is when we get lazy. We might not pray as much when things are good or read our bible as much, or whatever it is. But when life gets rough, when we get sick, someone has cancer, loved one dies, lose your job, etc. That is when we start crying out to God, lots of prayer, reading scripture. That just really convicted me. Not to speak for all but I am guilty of the latter. Life is good, not really much to pray for when in reality there is always something to pray for. I should be praying for our future child everyday, praying for God’s wisdom in this process every day. Pray for Nick everyday. Praying for boldness to share the gospel with someone new, everyday (how often do we say that prayer hmm). Pray for my family and friends everyday, there is always something to pray for but we get lazy.

So this week I challenge you. Exam how you relationship with God has been lately. Whether life has been good or bad how have you been worshiping him lately? How has your prayer life been. When is the last time you read scripture or had a quiet time. Has it been awhile? If so, make it a point to say a prayer each day. Make a point to have one quiet time this week. Make a point to just talk with God. He is there waiting to listen. He loves you!

Here are a few things you can be praying about for us and with us!

Prayer request:

Continue to pray for our future child and/or their birth parent(s)

Pray for our up coming meetings and that any conflicts with work will get worked out so we can go to these meetings

Pray that even if we can’t go to all the meetings we want that we will be ok with that and that the Lord will give us wisdom and make it clear which agency will best fit our needs.

Pray for patience (scary thing to pray for sometimes) but I know I want everything to move fast and this is not a fast process. So I need prayers for patience 🙂

Continue to pray for Nick and I as we make decisions that we will be unified and continue to seek the Lord’s will and not our own.

I want to start off by saying thank you! The response to us telling you all about wanting to adopt was overwhelming in a good way. We are so thankful for all the encouraging words, texts and phone calls. You don’t know how much they mean to us. We thanked God for another confirmation that this is supposed to be what we are doing right now and we have an army of people in our corner praying for us and encouraging us along the way. It also made us even more excited to share our story. We want everyone to understand that we are not sharing our story for our glory. We are sharing our story so God gets the glory. If anything, we want our story to bring you closer to Christ, or if you don’t know Him we want you to get to know Him as your Lord and Savior. Maybe you are going through infertility or something similar.  We want you to see how he has a greater plan for us than our own. We want you to see how God has his hand in each and every decision we make and how he perfectly orchestrates it all. When this is all said and done we will be able to look back and see all of that. We can already see some of it now.

With all that being said, let me get to our first step.

Picking an agency. We made some call yesterday and have a few more calls to make this week. We are working on narrowing down some agencies and then going to some info meetings. I don’t know if it was the devil trying to get me down or what but I got really nervous before I started calling agencies. It took me a little while to dial the first number. Who knows it could of just been the fact that starting to call was making this even more real. Some of the unknown with all this can be a little nerve racking. You get pregnant, and MOST of time you have 9 months to know when your child will arrive. Not knowing a time frame or when you will get a child, that unknown is a little different. Once you start calling, then we need to go to some info meetings and then choose an agency. (No big deal right). But not every agency has frequent info meetings or we both might work the night of the next one and that can be discouraging because we just want it all to happen quickly. So we must remind ourselves to be patient. God’s timing not ours.

So that is where we are right now. Making phone calls. We will then choose some info meetings to go to and then choose an agency.

Prayer request:

1. Patience. Patience because this is not a quick process
2. Prayers wisdom and discernment as we talk to agencies and choose which info meetings to go.
3. That we will be faithful not fearful
4. Pray for our future child, that they are being loved right now and knowing that Christ loves them.
5. Continue to hear God’s voice and be able to clearly hear him speak when making decisions.

Love,

Nick and Brittany

This is the date it all began. Most people say their wedding day was perfect but ours pretty much was. From the planning to leaving that night in the limo it all went so smooth. We kept waiting for something bad to happen but it never did. Our reception was a big party with all our closet family and friends that made it a night we still talk about 4 years later. I think we can say we will be even more grateful for our support system now.

Let me share with you all what has been leading up to this point and how we have see God working in our lives. I can always remember the thought of adoption being in the back of my mind. Something I would think about here and there. However, I don’t think Nick and I really talked about adoption much before we were married. We talked about a lot of things but I don’t remember that coming up. I think its natural to assume you will be able to have biological children, that you won’t be the ones not get pregnant. So I remember mentioning it to him the first time. He wasn’t necessarily against it but was just like I think I want to have my own kids. That was that convo. Over the years we would randomly discuss adoption a little more. Then this last year a lot more as we just weren’t getting pregnant.

I still don’t know why we think our plans are always going to workout better than God’s. Silly humans  we are.

It has been so neat to see God open up Nick’s heart to adoption. The thought in the back of my mind starting to push its way to the front. I remember praying if God did want us to adopt to make that clear and let us have some good conversations about it. God did that. Both of us have had this peace that we know that this is the path we should be on right now. I think that is an important sign. I think not being able to have biological children at this time but always having the peace about it is from God. I trust that is Him saying adoption is what we should be pursuing right now.  Seeing Nick open up and share his feelings has been huge. Totally a God thing! Let’s be honest we all know how men are about sharing their feelings and Nick is no different. Not once have we argued. We have maybe had different thoughts on certain things but we have been respectful, never gotten mad and have been able to meet each other in the middle with some decisions we have had to make already. It is clear God has been working on us both.

A small but significant thing is Nick was able to switch rotations and work the same weekends as me. Y’all this is the first time that has happened since we were dating I think. I don’t think that is coincidence. God even orchestrates the tiny details.

So where we are today: We had our first meeting with East Texas Orphan Care network. They gave us lots of resources and pamphlets to read. The two of them have each adopted and will be walking with us through this process. It was a blessing that we were able to get with them. We had no idea where to start. So now we will be calling a few agencies, going to info meetings and picking which one will best suit our needs.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

My favorite part of that verse is “my peace I give you” the world we live in can’t give us peace but God can. His peace! We will cling tight to that through this process.

Prayer request:

That we would have peace in deciding which agency to use.

That we would continue to have good conversations and discussions when it comes time to choose an agency.

Pray for the child that God will pick for us to be his/her parents!

Pray that we continue to be faithful and not fearful

 

Nick and Brittany

 

Hey everyone,

Nick and I want to welcome you to our adoption journey. I have never blogged before so hang in there as I figure it out along the way. We have already seen God’s hand leading up to this point and we wanted an easier way to share our story with family and friends and with as many people that are interested. We want to be transparent with you all. First and foremost we want you to pray for and with us. We believe strongly in the power of prayer. We want you to pray for us through our joy, excitement, tears, fears and all the other ups and downs that we might encounter along the way. So thank you in advance for joining us on this journey.

Our website is faithfulNOTfearful.com. As Nick and I began praying and talking about adoption and when to start the process you talk about a lot of different things. One of the things that comes up is our fears. The process, finances, will we be good parents, etc. It is so easy to let those fears keep creeping in your mind and overwhelm you. The devil looks for those opportunities to creep in and take hold. So through all our talks I kept hearing a little whisper, “faithful not fearful.” What a great reminder that we serve a mighty God. A God who will be walking with us through this whole process. A God that can silence the devil and take away our fears. A God that provides. So anytime we talk or are having doubts we can just look at each other and say faithful not fearful. So out of that came the name for our website!

So again, welcome to our story. Feel free to share with your friends and family. The more the merrier!!

Brittany McCarty

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton