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I’m afraid if I start telling the whole story of what happened yesterday, it’ll be the longest post in the history of my blog and quite frankly, my brain is fried from this long, crazy, wonderful experience. I’m also afraid that if I don’t tell the whole story now, it won’t ever get told. So let’s see where this goes… Basically, a miracle happened yesterday. And I don’t throw the word “miracle” around lightly. God moved a mountain, an even bigger mountain than we initially thought.

Last week we got unofficial news that most of the people at the DCS office were changing their opinions and were feeling she should stay with us. But it wasn’t official yet. Yesterday, they all got together and made their official decision. When we arrived at the courthouse in the afternoon, we got the bad news from Precious’ case worker after a very split meeting, they had decided she should move to the other “kinship” placement on Friday, as originally scheduled. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might suffocate.

While we were waiting for our hearing, the social worker suggested we allow this new placement, the woman who had not yet met Precious, to hold her and see how she reacts. I could barely manage an introductory smile, and I just couldn’t bring myself to make small talk. How could I trust a woman who would do this to us and to Precious? Did she not realize the gravity of all of this?

As she was holding her, Precious kept looking over to Jason and giving him big slobbery open-mouth smiles. He couldn’t help responding back with a smile but I couldn’t do it. Watching that and imaging her growing up without a daddy, HER daddy—it was more than I could bare. I had to walk away as tears started burning my eyes. I tried to hold it together and not be a blubbering fool in the courtroom. Thankfully (?) we a long wait before going in and plenty of time to compose myself.

What happened inside the courtroom was a beautiful blur. I shouldn’t really share any details but here’s how it ended. The judge (magistrate, technically) asked us if we would be willing to accept full legal custody of Precious and no longer receive any assistance from the state department of childrens services. We enthusiastically said yes. Her ruling was that Precious leave state custody immediately and we be given custody of her. That means she is no longer a foster child—she’s ours! I think that ruling was unexpected by everyone in the room. Talk about a miracle! That just doesn’t happen. But it did. We are over-the-moon excited and thankful. God is so good!!

Now we’ll still need to adopt her through an attorney and there is a bit of a jumbled legal mess around this whole situation but WOW WOW WOW! And we’ll have to come up with money for a private adoption but come on, if God can do all of this, He can handle all of that, too. Thank you to everyone who has been praying and cheering us on. Seriously, prayer works and I without-a-doubt believe that God worked a gigantic miracle on our little girl’s behalf.

It’s all still sinking in.