The garage sale was complete leaving Adam and I in a both humbled and overwhelmed state. We had finished a monumental moment simultaneously conquering the sale and a home study visit. We were grateful to lean on friends and family so we could take care of that as our second home study visit was on the Friday of our sale.

While Adam and I felt accomplished we were still in a bit of survival mode as off the heels of taking down the sale we had our final home study which meant our social worker would come visit IN home. Additionally our profile books were due to be bound and mailed off to our adoption agency by the end of the week.

Remnants of unsold items, hangers from the clothes, price tags, boxes, and baby items that Adam and I had claimed as our own littered our living room, dining room and bedroom. Several piles of laundry spilled out of our basket from the neglect of laundry and spare bedding and towels from the precious guests who helped us at the sale were overloading the single towel rack.

I’m generally a neat freak. If you know me you know if like things tidy, and organized. I LOVE doing dishes and am obsessed with lists. Our finial in home visit with our social worker was scheduled for Friday just five days away. This would normally be plenty of time but I had three evenings of meetings or church obligations, which left just one evening to get it all done-and we really needed that to bind our profile books. We couldn’t do both, finish our books AND clean.

Packing our profiles to mail off! 

Enter amazing friends Amanda & Philip

Amanda and I were roommates in college (we both were in DCE program) and Philip was a roommate with Adam in college. I had lamented my anxiety to Amanda who offered a word of encouragement as she always does “God’s got this!” The following day I received a phone call at work from Amanda. She asked what my schedule was like. “Crazy” I replied “Didn’t you hear what I said yesterday?”. After talking some more she asked if I had three free hours somewhere and informed me that her and Philip were gifting us a 3 hour cleaning service from a local cleaning company.

Well isn’t that amazing?!

Although Amanda was 350 miles away she was able to answer my prayer and be the best friend she always been. The cleaning company showed up and through another God moment was able to share Christ with one of the cleaners. He saw our décor with various Bible verses and our nameplates with scripture below. I was reading a book and he asked me if I went to church (pointing to the “Lord Bless and Keep You” picture). I explained that I did and was a director of Children, Youth and Family Ministry. We talked some more and I invited him to come to church. He was surprised at the invitation but not put off and told me I wasn’t like “those people on TV”.

Dining room decor that caught his attention

Its sad how stereotypes can so quickly form. I’m not just talking about Christians but looking at any number of groups of people. Teenagers are not necessarily trouble makers, blonds are not dumb, and not all Christians are in your face, Bible thumpers…

We are called to be little Christ’s. Offer a hug, volunteer at a garage sale, and be kind to the cleaning guy… and always “Preach the gospel if necessary use words” (Francis of Assisi).

The following day our social worker stopped for our in home visit. I had baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies and our visit went well without any red flags. I was more worried than I needed to be (as always), but with the home study done and our profile books in our time of “survival mood” has come to an end. We now enter in the waiting period. God’s time, God’s plan, thy will be done Lord.

This is our “we survived our Home study, submitted our profiles, and garage sale is over” pose