Part II: God is Good All the Time

Another guest post - by Matt

Let me begin by saying that I believe the title of this post to be true... All the time. With the good news I am about to share, some may say, "Yeah, easy for him to say—look at what's gone his way lately." But I can tell you that I've walked through some pretty dark valleys and gone through some pretty devastating trials. In all circumstances, I’ve felt the same peace from God that I'm feeling in these last couple weeks. I’m not saying it’s easy during those other times to still proclaim God’s goodness, but I can assure you that in the depths of my heart I believe that to be true, and a fundamental element of my faith (Philippians 4:12). That is why I want to proclaim so loudly His goodness during this time of abundance in our lives.

OK… so when I told Part 1 of this story, my new job wasn’t even close to the most exciting news we had received this month… this week… or even that day! You see, the morning of the day that I got the call about my job, I was awoken at 5:04 AM by my wife sticking some plastic thing in my face. “It’s not negative!” she said. We were planning on taking a pregnancy test on my birthday, but my sweet wife after waiting for 8 years just couldn’t wait even one more day. You see, we had been praying for a baby by my birthday. We’ve been waiting on the adoption list for over a year and have had several situations where the expectant mother decided to parent. We decided to be bold in our prayer request and truth be told, I had forgotten to keep praying. We lasted a few weeks with that prayer request, but over the course of time, our faith in the ability for that to happen faded. And really, what we were praying for what an already born brown baby waiting for us at the hospital. Who knew how God was going to answer our prayers!

Abby couldn’t wait any longer, and felt the need to know in order to stop consuming the gallons of caffeine she drinks if she were pregnant. We examined the indicator closely in the light and could barely make out a faint perpendicular line. It was a far cry from anything definitive but it was definitely “not negative”. And if there is one thing Abby knows, it’s what a negative pregnancy test looks like.

We had been suspicious for a couple weeks that Abby might actually be pregnant, but didn’t really believe it could actually be true. I mean we had given up trying 4 years ago. We continued to practice but stopped ‘trying’:) The fact of the matter is, WE LOVE ADOPTION. We have been blessed through adoption immeasurably and wouldn’t change our circumstances for all the money or biological kids in the world. Adoption was where the Lord led us 4 years ago for our girls and it’s where we thought He was leading us again for our 3rd. Many of you know we’ve had a couple pretty rough “fall-throughs” in the past several months. In the midst of the hurt and pain of those, we knew God had something else out there for us. We just never imagined that it would be this.

Anyways, back to that morning… we had always been told that as soon as we even suspected Abby to be pregnant, we should see our doctor right away because of her risk for an ectopic pregnancy. So Abby went to the doctor’s office that morning to get confirmation one way or the other. She would get a blood test and then wait to hear the results back later in the afternoon. At this point, I was at school and not sure what to think about the “not negative” pregnancy test. My mind was mostly consumed with anxiously waiting to hear if I had gotten the job. I couldn’t even begin to wrap it around the fact we might actually be pregnant.

When my phone finally rang a little after 4:00, and I was offered the position, the first thing I did was call Abby to share with her the news. She told me that she was still awaiting her phone call. Fifteen minutes later the nurse called. Officially pregnant, and probably not ectopic. Us… Us?! This wasn’t the plan. Our kids are adopted. We love adoption. We want to adopt more.

God is good. We say He is good not because He has given us a child that will be a mixture of our own DNA. This isn’t better or worse… it’s different and it’s exciting! He is good because His ways are not our ways. Our way would have been to have kids 8 years ago when we first started trying (I’m crying right now—my girls are looking at me like I’m insane:)) If that were the case, we would have never known the miracle of adoption. I wouldn’t be sitting here with my daughters snuggled up on my lap, hugging and kissing me and wiping the tears from my face as I write this. I would never have known God’s goodness to the depth I do now. I wouldn’t trade all that for anything—have I mentioned that?? God is good!!

So now our way is being challenged again. We would like to adopt, but for right now, it doesn’t look like that’s what the Lord has for us. So we will wait and watch to see what His perfect plan unfolds. The fact of the matter is, it’s still very early in the pregnancy. Anything could happen. We could lose the baby. I could lose my job. Heaven forbid, something could happen to one of girls or to one of us. I pray every day that God would put a hedge of protection around our family and His guardian angels would watch over my loved ones, but there are no guarantees. He could choose to bring tragedy to our family to accomplish His perfect will. Nothing would change the fact that God is good… all the time.

Seeing God’s grace and provision these last few weeks has been amazing. He has continued to be faithful in so many ways. I could do another entire post (don’t worry, I’ve written enough) to follow up my first one about how He brought the perfect teacher into my classroom to replace me. I was almost brought to tears during his interview (I really am becoming more and more like my emotional father as I get older!). Despite having a different, really solid candidate, I could feel the Lord directing this guy right into my place.

God was also incredibly faithful in the way He allowed our 1989 Chevy (named Oscar), that was given to us as a gift, to only need minor repairs these past 10 years until the DAY AFTER I got this job, and only then, have its transmission blow out. The truth is, if I had not have gotten the job, God still would have been gracious to us and would have provided a car in some way. But now, it’s going to be a little easier with my higher salary.

It has been indescribable to see God move in so many ways these past several weeks. I believe He does this all the time if I would just be more diligent in looking for it. And that is my prayer: that no matter what season of life I find myself in, I would recognize God’s sovereignty and acknowledge that “God is good!”

These lyrics say it best,

"All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have reason to sing
I have a reason to worship"