God’s Providence in Fortune Cookies

For those readers who know us apart from this site, this will not come as a surprise, but Amy and I are working to adopt a child from China! We started the paperwork in January of this year, and we hope to travel to China in late February or early March to bring back our son or daughter. Working through the various steps of adoption has been an incredible process for us individually and as a couple. We have learned a great deal about ourselves, about each other, and about our great God and Father who has adopted us into his family and made us heirs to the kingdom. God's providence has sustained us and His grace has carried us through the long wait.

During this time, we have joined a number of mailing lists full of people who are adopting or have adopted from China, and the exchange of information and ideas has been encouraging, but eye-opening as well. There are all sorts of superstitions (most only lightly held) relating to adoption, such as the appearance of lady bugs being a sign that referrals are about to be sent. (For those who haven't gone through this process, the referral is what they call the package sent to you by the Chinese government containing the name and picture and whatever other information they have on your child. We are still waiting for our referral, and are hoping that it will arrive in early January, if not sooner.) Other little "signs" are also held to be significant to the process. As I said, most of these are tongue-in-cheek, but it does not take much to get a group of waiting parents excited! Each time we see posts on this subject, it reinforces our joy and profound security in knowing that God is in control of this process, and not superstitions or mysterious fates and chance.

I say all of that to set the context for this story. Last night, Amy and I went to Pei Wei (one of our favorite restaurants) and had a nice dinner talking about the future and about our child whom we do not yet know, but whom God knows and has in His hand. After dinner, we each picked up a fortune cookie, which we typically laugh at as ridiculous and often nonsensical, only to be reminded that God has a sense of humor and is guiding all events in our lives. Amy's fortune said "You will soon be crossing the great waters." My fortune then went straight to the point in saying "A short stranger will soon enter your life!"