My journey began with a question, as most of my journeys do. The question was something like this: "I want to know who God is, really, truly, deeply." I knew if I asked my kids they would simply answer, "That's easy! God is love!" Yeah, yeah, that's fine and well in a Sunday-school kinda way, but I'm a deep, intellectual guy and I mean really, who is God!? The spirit within me would invariably respond, "That's easy. God is love." Fine. I get it, but beyond that, if I am going to experience God tangibly, I need to know who he really is and what he is all about! Well, as you might have heard: seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened...

In my quest for "the answer," I began to ponder the notion that God is love, primarily because I wasn't getting much further than that. Coincidentally, I started reading the book of John and noticed an overriding theme! You guessed it, God is love! What I read was that God would reveal himself to me and actually abide with me if I obeyed this one commandment. Love people. I know, about now you are thinking, "This guy is pretty dense." But I had always related to these scriptures as sort of an entry-level step into Christianity. Something like, "Love people, then you can move on to the really deep stuff," like it was a prerequisite. Step one of seven, or some such. Then the following things dawned on me, not necessarily in this order!

1. I am not as deep and intellectual as I had originally thought
2. God was trying to make things as simple for me as possible, knowing full well that my infinitesimal brain would be doing well just to comprehend the smallest portion of who He is.
3. When God said, "Love people and I will make my abode with you and reveal myself to you," He actually meant that the very act of loving would be a taste of who He is! That by being selfless I can actually, tangibly experience God because (drum roll please)...GOD IS LOVE!!!
4. Ultimate joy and fulfilment come from selflessness.

This was incredible revelation to me! I reveled in it for a while and thought, "Wow, isn't revelation cool." Then I felt this restless tug on my heart, "Yeah, but what are you going to do about it?" I confess my first reaction to this was, "I'm going to think about it for a while," but it didn't take me long to become bored with that. By the grace of God, I desperately love my wife and our three boys and believe we have an exceedingly special relationship and an abundance of love in our home, so I began to cry out to God, "Okay, I think I'm starting to get it, but what do I do with it? I want my life and our family to reflect a difference because of this revelation of who you are!" At this point, I was finally ready to hear that still, small voice and not be such a fool as to dismiss it, and what I heard in my heart was a question, "Are you willing to open your home and share the love and joy of your family with someone else through adoption...?" Again, by the grace of God and by His strength, the answer was and is a resounding, "Yes!," and so began our quest for Rebekah.