My Rainbow after the Storm...

I'm so convinced that God gives me rainbows when I need them. They serve as a gentle reminder that He stands by His promises.

Friday, we headed out to pick up the U-haul truck and it started to rain on the way to our apartment. We had people coming to help us load up our place! I quickly asked the girls to pray that the rain would stop.

And it did.

Further down the road, I saw a tiny piece of a rainbow. It wasn't a huge beautiful arch but it was a tiny, tiny, fragment of a rainbow.

I smiled as I started thinking back to how amazingly God has provided for us during this journey.

Here are just a few of the ways that He has provided:

- We found our church right before this whole thing began. We'll be here 3 years this November. I do not find it to be a coincidence that our church was revealed to us right before this crazy ride.

- Other than our homestudy (that could still be used although we do have to pay for an update since we moved) and our travel expenses we lost very little of our adoption fund. We are thankful that God spared our tiny fund especially since almost all adoption fees are non-refundable.

- We "randomly" chose a Sunday School class when we visited this church the first time. They welcomed us with open arms and I don't think a week has gone by since that we haven't heard from someone in between church activities. These friends rejoiced with the news that we were matched. These brothers and sisters in Christ have battled in prayer for our situation when things went south. They've reached out to us. They've hugged me. They've cried with us. They've shared their own stories.

- One of our friends from our Sunday School class, helped me find my way to the Women's Bible Study. This has been amazing for me. I tearfully asked for prayer during our prayer request time one week and afterwards several women stopped by to introduce themselves and tell me their own adoption or fostering stories and promise to pray for us!

- For this move, several men and one couple from our Sunday School class blessed us with their time and packed our things into the moving truck. The next morning they came and unloaded the moving truck. It was speedy and efficient and done without a single complaint. Brandon and I are still in awe of how smoothly and quickly it happened!

- Our new neighbors are so friendly! Everyone has come to introduce themselves.

Each day does get a little easier. We've moved past disbelief. We don't understand why this happened, but we have accepted it. We are finding ourselves laughing and smiling more.

~Stephanie

PS: I know I have been lacking in the picture department. I am about to dump a bunch from our phones. So stay tuned!