9:23am

This may end up being a little long but trust me, you will want to read this story....

A little over a year and a half ago we were having dinner with someone very close to us. She decided to hesitantly tell us something that had happened to her. The Sunday before, she was getting ready for church. She looked at the clock and saw that it was 9:23am (church starts at 9:30). She quickly finished putting on her make-up, ran into the kitchen to grab her purse, that clock said 9:23am. Then she jumped in the truck with her husband, looked at the clock in the truck and it said 9:23am. She thought that was weird but maybe that clock was slower that the one in her room. She then remembered that she had forgotten something, jumped out of the truck, unlocked the front door, walked back into her room and grabbed what she had forgotten. At that moment, she looked at the clock in her room again (same clock she had initially looked at) and it said 9:23am. Now she knew that something was going on because there was NO WAY that less than a minute had passed from when she first looked at that clock. She prayed and asked God if there was something that she was supposed to be "getting" from this odd occurrence. She felt strongly that God was telling her that it had something to do with Kenley. We thought that maybe he would be coming home on 9/23. Well, September 23rd came and went twice and Kenley was not home. We thought that maybe it meant that Kenley would be coming home 9 months and 23 days from the day that this happened. 9 months and 23 days came and went, Kenley was not home. I know that this woman was discouraged. Mainly because she felt like she had given us a false hope. Honestly, I never got too worked up about it. I always had the feeling that "someday" we would know what 9:23am was all about.

Yesterday I received a call from her. "I have to tell you something", she said, "I went on your blog and wrote down the date that you sent in your application to OWAS. (that was the very first step that we took to start the adoption process) I went on google and counted the days from that day, August 24th, 2006, until March 4th, 2009, the day that you are scheduled to fly home with Kenley, and GUESS how many days it is? NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE!"

I seriously got chills. We talked about how crazy and amazing that was, how we would never doubt God again! After I got off the phone with her, I thought a lot about the "lesson" I should learn from this. I don't think God wanted us to KNOW what it meant over a year and half ago. I actually think I would have been a little discouraged to know that we weren't even half way through the process yet. I think God was sending us a "faith challenge". I think He wants us to KNOW that He is in control. All the times that we have said, "God knows the day that Kenley will be home. It's in His control." Umm, yeah He does. This a hard lesson for me. I like to know all the answers. I don't like it when someone says "just trust me". Yes, I have control issues. OK Lord, I get it. You knew the day, You are in control, You have all the answers and I don't need to be "in the know", I just need to trust you. Thank you special lady (you know who you are :-)) for sharing this with us, what seems like so long ago. As Josh put it so well, "She has been vindicated when it comes to listening to our God"!