What Was Already Moving

The adoption paperwork took five months. Fingerprints, background checks, medical records, and a profile of our family. It felt like enlisting in the Army all over again. Except this time, finishing didn’t feel like finishing. It just meant moving into fundraising. Thirty-five thousand dollars.

We held a garage sale. Friends showed up with more stuff than our garage could hold, and by the end of the weekend we’d raised almost seven thousand. It was generous and overwhelming, but we were still just chipping away at the full price. Ten days later, grief hit in a way I wasn’t expecting. I wrote about that earlier this year.

So I got on Facebook and started asking people for money.

I went from the top of my contacts down, one name at a time, and I hated every second of it. Asking for money made me sick to my stomach. I could manage a couple of hours a day before I had to stop. Most people didn’t respond. Most who did respond said they would be praying for us. A few childhood friends donated, and they were way more generous than I expected. After a while, even with the generosity of the people who said “yes,” it still felt like we were just chipping away at it.

Then I got to Jay’s name.

Jay was a Blackhawk pilot on my deployment in 2009. I was an Army chaplain assistant, which is a glorified bodyguard for a chaplain. My chaplain went on leave and told me some guy was going to show up to lead our worship service and I needed to give him a ride back to the other side of the base. So Jay showed up. We ran through a set, clicked through slides, and the next morning I picked him up and we did it again for chapel.

That was sixteen years ago. I hadn’t talked to him since.

When I got to his name, I remember thinking he’d probably donate. That was enough to keep me going. I wasn’t expecting anything more than a donation.

When I sent Jay a message about the adoption, he was at a chaplain conference in Oklahoma. No response for a few days. Then a message came back that I didn’t believe was real. We need to talk, he said. I may have access to a way to help you guys out significantly, but it’s through a charitable trust that has to go through a recognized agency. He asked if we were connected with a nonprofit that could route the money. Then, once he found out we were, he said, “I’ll give the remainder of what you need. We can cover the rest of the expenses.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

On the phone the next day, he told me that two years earlier, an older couple with no children of their own had given him a charitable trust. They told him he could do whatever he wanted with it. For two years, he and his wife had been praying, asking God to show them who to help. And then he found me.

I texted Misty. Hey, remember Jay from our deployment? He wants to pay the rest of it. She said, “No way.” Then: “Is it really that easy?” I think in her mind there had to be a catch. So did I.

Since then, both of our families have talked. And what we keep coming back to is how God kind of set all of this up sixteen years before either of us knew what it was for. An active duty soldier and a reserve pilot end up on the same base for a chapel service. A couple gives Jay a trust. Jay and his wife pray for two years about whom to help. I sit on my couch scrolling through contacts. And all of it was already moving.

Jesus told his disciples not to worry about what they needed, “for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8, NIV). Before. Not after you run out of options. Not after the twenty-fifth name. Before any of it. Sixteen years before I was sitting on my couch sick over asking people for help, God had already put the answer in a room with me on the other side of a military base.

Prov. 16:9 says, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” I was planning my course. I was scrolling through names, hoping for donations. But God had already established the steps. I usually think in terms of the game of checkers. This was chess. A Blackhawk pilot leading worship in Iraq was not just leading worship. God was doing something neither of us could see.

We’re in the waiting now. Being shown to mothers. The paperwork is done. The money is covered. The only thing left is the child.

God works like this. Sixteen years ahead, through a pilot I barely knew and a couple I have never met at all. So I don’t think the waiting is empty. I think God is setting something else up.