Only God...

"Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart's desires."  Psalm 37:4 

At some point after Mike had died, I knew I would remarry and be a wife again and my three girls would have a step-dad.  One day as I was talking to my pastor about remarriage, he explained that no matter who I married, he would never love my girls as much as Mike had.  I started to cry thinking they would never feel that kind of daughter/father love ever again.  I knew it would take an amazing man to come into our world, with three young daughers and one of them being handicapped, it's not an easy job.  I also believed that God had a plan, and He wasn't done with His plan the day Mike died.  

On Monday, June 17th 2013, the day after Father's Day...we will go to the courthouse and Kevin will be adopting the girls.  They will become his daughters!  This is a dream come true.  I prayed for them to be loved and have that daughter/father relationship, and that's exactly what they have.  I will be honest:  we have talked about this since before we were married, and I wasn't ready for him to adopt the girls at first.  My thought was that I was disrespecting Mike, and I would never do that.  He was a great dad and loved his girls more than anything.  I couldn't take his name off their birth certificate.  I remember how proud he was the day each of them was born, and how could I do that?   But, you probably wonder how I got to this day...only God.  During one of many of our long talks about adopting, Kevin explained to me (which I should have realized) that Mike was in Heaven and he feels no disrespect, anger, or hurt.  He would be happy and joyous for the girls and me.  I got it!  It all clicked with me!  As much as I knew I wanted Kevin to adopt them, I couldn't "do that" to Mike.  So, once God revealed those words to me, I have been completely at peace and more than thrilled with this huge blessing.  

Asking the girls...we started with Kevin's 12 year old daughter.  She was so excited!  She loved having three sisters, and now to share the same name with them was an awesome thought to her!  Then we talked to my three girls.  My oldest (13) was very excited about the adoption, and my youngest (5) has thought her name changed the day we got married.   My 9 year old, kept saying, "But, you are my daddy."  The youngest girls have called Kevin daddy from day one and she couldn't figure out why we had to do all of this because, "he was her daddy."  So, we explained the legal part of the matter to her.  She is the only one that has had any reservation, but the reservation isn't about Kevin being her dad, it's about her last name changing and someone at school asking her about it.  She doesn't want anyone asking so she will have to explain it to them..."my dad died and blah, blah, blah...."  In her mind, we have moved on from that day and here we are, already a family and Kevin is her dad.  In fact, she said, "Daddy will get three extra father's day gifts, but he will have to wait one more day."

It takes an amazing man to adopt three little girls and love them like his own, but God has blessed us with that man.  I call him Kevin and they call him Daddy.