God's Perfect Timing: The Petersheim Family

From time to time we are going to feature "God's Perfect Timing" testimonies from adoptive families.  I'm grateful for the Petersheim family and am glad they are sharing a little piece of their story with us.  Enjoy!

Last year, on October 8th, my family and I went to a local farm show. I remember watching our children, drunk on the excitement of farm animals to pet, cotton candy to eat and whirling rides to spin on. Their smiles and giggles were so infectious that everyone around them was grinning from ear to ear. Except me...their mother. My heart was a mess.

We were waiting on our 4th child, a little girl in Ethiopia. We had made it through the summer of court closure, biting our nails with worry and impatience...eyes focused on this very week in October. However, instead of good news pouring in, all became very quiet...and an ominous feeling was in the air.

Somehow, I knew the things we had been fervently praying about weren't going to take place. At least not at all in the timing we had so longed for. That day - at the farm show - I felt so defeated, so confused as to what God was doing in my life.

We had sought Him out on our adoption journey - He had confirmed so many things along our path...and now, it seemed - it FELT- like He had just fallen silent.If only I had known...if only...that at the very moment I was at my most lost...the very moment I was without faith...was the moment that in a world away, God was doing His most mighty, gracious work in my life.

On October 8th, while I was picking up baby chicks in a petting zoo - a tiny baby - barely weighing 1 kilogram - was being picked up by a police officer.

A little girl...who would fight for her life through sickness and malnutrition, a little girl without earthly parents but with a Heavenly Father watching over her...this little girl's beautiful face would show up on my computer screen 3 months later...as MINE. The two of us...put together by a God who knows best. Who asked me to wait...because HE knew what I was waiting for.

On October 8th this year, we took this little girl - our 4th beautiful daughter - along to the farm show. I watched my birthday girl moo at cows, laugh at her sisters' giggles, cuddle close to her daddy. And I was so thankful. God's ways are not my ways; His timing is not my timing - it is Oh-SO-infinitely better.