Around this time last year, MC and I started to get serious about addressing a tension that we were both feeling in our life. Not a tension between us, but more of a sense that we should be doing more with the lives we’ve been given.

I would guess that most men read this type of tension as being specifically career-related. I felt this tension and assumed it meant I should be doing a different kind of work, so I explored that idea for a brief period.

My conclusion was that there was more school that I needed if we were to head down the path I thought we were supposed to follow, which meant we might need to move out of town for a few years.

This was a highly troublesome idea for both of us, as we have spent our time figuratively feathering a fine nest here in Johnson City.

It was an unsettling season, to say the least. We talked about big life stuff a lot. We prayed a lot. We worried a lot.

Our big prayer throughout was that God would make himself very clear. We didn’t need subtle messages. If some bold step was in our future, we prayed that he would put it in neon lights.

We waited.

And waited.

There were no neon lights.

As we waited for God to speak into this restlessness that I was feeling, what we heard instead was nothing. (Insert crickets chirping here.)

He didn’t affirm my hunch that more school would fix things. He didn’t clear any particular path for us. There was just silence about all that.

Eventually, we got to the place where we should have begun. We were ready to pray what was probably the scariest prayer we’ve ever prayed. We each told God, in our own way:

“I’m in. I’ll do whatever you want. Just TELL ME!”

That’s a scary prayer because you assume that a plane ticket to India is going to magically appear in your hand when you get done praying it and that you’re going to have to sell everything you own. But that’s not what happened. At least, not to us.

Finally, our hearts were open to respond to whatever He had for us.

What we didn’t know was that He was going to be in touch soon with an answer for us.

Eventually, that restlessness I mentioned eased.

The frequency and intensity of the big life talks that MC and I were having dropped dramatically, and we settled back in to life as usual.

I told you that we prayed for God to tell us what He wanted us to do. During last fall and winter, He did.

That’s when I started having what I considered to be some crazy thoughts. I was moved by some things that had never really moved me before and when I closed my eyes to look ahead to what my life looks like years from now, I saw something different than anything I’ve ever imagined for myself.

Now, I’m not sure what you do when you have crazy thoughts, but I didn’t run straight home and share my craziness with Mary Craig. It’s healthier to just push that stuff down, right?

So for a couple months I kept having crazy thoughts along a common theme, but I was too afraid to talk to MC about any of it.

On April 15, we had a sweet date night at Gourmet & Company. Like married couples on dates do, we talked about the kids until our salads were served. Then MC asked me:

“So do you think we’re done?”

I knew exactly what form of “done” she meant. She was asking if I thought we were done having kids.

I fidgeted with my silverware.

“Umm…”

I was working up the courage to unload my crazy idea on her. It felt like it took forever for the words to come. Finally they did, and I asked her:

“Have you ever thought about us adopting?”

She reached across the table and grabbed my hands with emotion that I don’t have the words for and said:

“It’s all I can think about.”

For months, we’d been living under the same roof, parenting the same kids, sharing a life together, and thinking the same crazy thoughts…

…but we were too afraid to talk to each other about it.

We spent the rest of our date talking about all the little ways God had been whispering in each of our ears. When it was all laid out before us and we could see the whole thing, we could finally see the flashing neon lights.

Since we said we’d do whatever He asked us to do if He’d just make it clear, we decided then that we’d respond to the call to adopt a child.

So we’re in. We’re doing it. We’re only in the earliest steps of the journey, but we’ve started the ball rolling to adopt a child from Ethiopia.

And now that we’re on this side of it, even though some big things had to happen in our hearts to get us here, this doesn’t seem all that big to me. Even though it seemed crazy when I compared it to the vision of my life that I’ve always carried around with me, it doesn’t seem crazy to me.

God said do something; so we’ll do it. It might not always be easy to accomplish, but it’s simple enough to understand.

There are more than 140,000,000 orphans in the world. When all is said and done and we bring our new child home, we’ll have reduced that number by one.

That’s certainly not big or crazy.