One Conversation... One Year Ago

One year ago today Joshua and I had a conversation. This one conversation has radically flipped our world upside down. This one conversation has brought with it more blessings then I could have ever fathomed. This one conversation has impacted our family more then any other conversation we have ever had before. This one conversation started because God wanted to get to work on our lives and He began opening our eyes and hearts to His bigger plan. Here is how it all went down ONE YEAR AGO TODAY...


It was about 10pm on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 and we were driving home from our Go Group from my sis's house (our church small group that was composed of four other couples at the time). Our group had been going through a study called, Becoming a Good Samaritan, by Michael R. Seaton, for about 6 weeks. In conjunction with the study, there were excellent video segments "hosted" by John Ortberg (which I must plug in here and say, having grown up at Willow, he is near and dear to my heart, so I was a fan from the beginning!) and a list of other awesome leaders like Philip Yancy, Rob Bell, and Shane Claiborne- you know, powerful and passionate people. These video sessions covered topics from Caring for the Sick, Seeking Justice, Honoring the Poor, Loving the Forsaken... and the list goes on. Simple truths and topics for Christians, right?! Well the crazy thing is, here Joshua and I sat, both having grown up as Christians nearly all our lives- and it was like our eyes were just now being opened to the truth of what our responsibility was regarding these issues! I'm ashamed to admit that I clearly didn't get, and I mean really get, what Loving God and Loving Other's truly looked like- reflected in my life. In saying that, I am in no way admitting that I have it all figured out now either- I have so much to learn! But I'm just dumbfounded that it took me 29 years, as a believer, to figure out it was probably important for me to pray that God would break my heart for what breaks His! It was probably important for me to... CARE, frankly, for the issues that were being discussed, because after all Jesus OBVIOUSLY CARED for these issues! Duh Hilary! It was probably important for me to ask myself, "What will my life TRULY look like if my actions back up what God says should be important to my heart?!"! Because heres the deal, Joshua and I knew the "right answers" and had the head knowledge that these topics should be important to us.. we just weren't applying it to our lives, and we weren't burdened by them either. That being said, I think in classic "God style"- HE knew we needed to wake up, so that's why He started tugging on our hearts and flipped our world upside down!

Okay, back to the 10pm drive home that night....
I was driving. Joshua was in the passenger seat. It was quite. It usually was on the way home because we put Jude to sleep at my sister's and then wake him up when we leave and gingerly load him in the car. So in hopes of keeping Jude in that delirious sleep stage, so that he goes back to sleep at home, we generally don't talk much during the 5 minute car ride.  In the stillness and quite of the car, completely out of the blue and unexpected, I had the thought of adoption come to mind. It took me off guard a bit and I dismissed it, thinking it strange that it even crossed my mind. The study and video never touch specifically on orphans or adoption, so it wasn't because we had been talking about it. I didn't say anything to Joshua, and just finished driving home. We get home and get Jude unloaded, and tucked into bed, we hurry and get ready for bed too (because after all, it's  after 10pm on a school night, and we're getting old!), and we both crawl under the sheets. I hear Joshua take a deep breath and say, "Hil.... what about adoption?" with a curious tone. I laid there in the dark, still and speechless for a moment. "Huh?... what made you ask that?" was my response. I started second guessing whether I had in fact said anything out loud in the car on the way home OR if he just had the crazy ability to read my thoughts?! He went on, "I don't know, I just think it's something we should maybe be praying about. I know we've never talked about it before, but why not?". Still confused and shocked that this was on his mind too, I said, "No joke hun, literally, just 10 minutes ago, I had the thought of adoption run through my mind for the first time ever in my life on the car ride home! This is weird!". Of course, instead of seeing it clearly as the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts, I dismiss it as "weird"... nice Hil! Joshua was equally as surprised that the word adoption was even being thrown around by us- after all, I loved being pregnant with Jude and was genuinely looking forward to getting pregnant again at some point. I literally said, "Do you really think God would want us to adopt? I mean, I'm a really good baby making machine?!"... again, nice Hil. We both kind of laughed... and sighed, maybe catching a glimpse that God might have a different story to write- but doing our best to dismiss it as... I don't even know what. And honestly, that's about the extent of our conversation that night. We both said we'd pray about it- in a light-hearted kind of way, and then we drifted off to sleep.

Again I'll say.... One year ago today Joshua and I had a conversation. This one conversation has radically flipped our world upside down. This one conversation has brought with it more blessings then I could have ever fathomed. This one conversation has impacted our family more then any other conversation we have ever had before. This one conversation started because God wanted to get to work on our lives and He began opening our eyes and hearts to His bigger plan. Praise God for this ONE CONVERSATION!

I say, pray boldly. Pray that God would take your life and use it for His glory. And then sit back and watch what He can do with ONE conversation!