Waiting

Nobody likes to wait, it's not something we are prone to enjoy. We live in a hedonistic society. We have been programmed by mass marketing to get whatever we need, want, or think we might want at some time, right away. We don't wait for furniture to wear out before we throw it in the trash for the updated/upgraded newest style. The same is true of most everything else. Waiting is the opposite of what any of us want. So as we wait for our little boy I wonder about it all because like anyone I HATE to wait. That being said my goal since we started this has been that God would be glorified through this process. That our lives would never become about our adoption but about our obedience to Him who has called us to this. I don't believe that as I am walking through the process I can accurately or objectively evaluate my progress. I hope that I am never too absorbed with myself to see how God is moving, or to glorify Him. Of course, there are really bad days when we get terrible news or find out that waits are longer. I cry, and I hurt and then I worry that I am being unfaithful to God. I just don't know. I shared with my friend that I wish I could be more like Job, he was so good through the terrible trials of his life. She said Job was human and he probably cried, he felt all the emotions that we all feel. He hurt deeply, he struggled with his loss, and he wondered at what was going on. She then suggested I read through Job. Job is a really, really long book full of a lot of monologues. I decided, as any good American who struggles with waiting would, to read the parts I like first. I love Job's fourth friend. Actually, you can't really even call him a friend. He was much younger than Job and he is never identified as a friend. He was really more an observer, a younger man sitting with the older men, listening for wisdom but remaining silent until he could be silent no more. He rebukes Job, not for any sin that brought on this calamity but rather for believing that he (Job) was blameless, and for focusing on his own virtues rather than those of God. Elihu exalts the greatness of God. He tells Job that we are sinful and therefore deserving of any judgment God sends our way. His rebuke of Job is harsh and his passion for defending the name of God great. He turns everything around and points it all to God. It's a beautiful group of chapters. We must assume that Elihu is right in what he says because after God has spoken for Himself and puts Job in his place he rebukes Job's three friends. God then requires that Job offer a sacrifice on his friends behalf for their sinful behavior. Elihu is not mentioned in God's rebuke. What a true friend he turned out to be. Which leads me to wonder; during the great trials of our lives are we licking our wounds or watching our God? Are we just questioning what the heck is going on and why God is picking on me...(I've never had those thoughts of course) or are we looking for God in the storm? I must believe that God would have never pointed Job out to "The Accuser" had he not known that Job's faith was great. His devotion to God was true and right. God knew that Job would stand the test. As we are enduring a great test, nothing like Job's mind you, I trust that God knows that we will stand, we will remain faithful to His call and we will remain obedient. God won't make the wait one day longer than we can endure, not based on our love for our future son, but based on the depth of our faith. He won't test us beyond the breaking point of our faith. Abraham was tested when he was led to sacrifice Isaac, the test wasn't for God but for Abraham. Abraham knew, after this test, that he would withhold nothing from God. His faith was so strong, he was so convinced of God's covenant with him that he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead...after all he was the child of promise! That's incredible faith, after all Abraham had never seen anyone raised from the dead...that I can think of.

There's really nothing profound in all that I have said, but if God never tested us we would never know the depth of our own faith. If God gave us an "easy button" (as I have often wished for) how would our faith be strengthened? We have been asked to endure much with this adoption. Our sweet boy has had two surgeries without us. We didn't know for months, not days or weeks...months, if we would even be able to adopt him. During that wait we didn't know if another family would snatch him up...he is so adorable. All we could do was trust God through those months, if this was God's will then this sweet boy would be our son...period. We've been given bad time lines and inaccurate information, we've been in the dark more than in the light. But all the while God has remained faithful. He has surrounded us with family, good friends, and a church family, specifically a choir and SS class, who are holding our hands and praying for us. Encouragement comes nearly everyday from expected and unexpected sources. We are so grateful. Had we not already waited 14 months, with many more ahead, we would have missed so much. We would have missed the encouragement, and the prayers. We would have missed the faithful giving us strength when ours grows weak.

I'm so excited to race to Thailand and snatch up our precious boy, but over the last 72 hours I'm also grateful for a little bit more perspective. So I will remain strong. (If I blow it once or twice He's faithful to forgive.) I refuse to mope or lick my wounds. I can't manipulate God or make His time change all I can do is my best to glorify Him always!

8 Months

This is month number 8 in our wait for a referral. We've known of families waiting for as long as 11 months and then 6 - 8 more for travel. To date I haven't heard of anyone waiting longer than 11 months without special circumstances, for example the courts are undecided if the child is adoptable. Being this far along and our agency having been in Thailand twice since we put him on hold, once since the dossier went, I don't think we will fall under the special circumstances label. Therefore, I have to comfort myself that we surely will get our referral in the next 3 months. It's not really monumental, having a referral in hand as there is still a long wait, but the counting can begin. We can know that within about 8 months we will be traveling. In late fall of 09 I really had to mourn the fact that the dates we thought we would be traveling were going to be inaccurate. I was very prepared emotionally to pick up our sweet boy this spring, now it will likely be late summer or fall. Amazingly time keeps marching on, as if we are not waiting, and as if there is no hurry...sometimes life and time are harsh. It seems time is always the enemy, we are constantly asking for more time, or wishing time would pass more slowly...or quickly. Rarely do we just sit content in the time we are in. That's my goal for this new year, to sit content in this adoption. I think, generally speaking, I am a pretty content person, as I said, generally speaking. I don't live for whatever is next on the calendar, I figure it will get here. I also prefer not live for the future as I think it would make life exhausting and disappointing. Contentment with this adoption has been a different story, the longer we wait the more discontent I sometimes feel. When we started this process I compared the wait to the years of waiting for our first child. It has been remarkably similar. There was nothing we could do to make my body carry a child except pray, there is nothing we can do to hurry this adoption along except pray. We had no time frame as to when I might be able to deliver a child, we are without a time frame right now as well. One thing that did come from the years of waiting and frustration was an overwhelming desire to be home with my baby. Of course every mom wants that...I think, but this was so deep and unquenchable. I worked full time when Hayden was born and had to continue for a time, but within a year God had allowed me to move to part time and 6 months later I was home full time! The wait and yearning created a different me, a mom that was willing to give up anything to be with her child. And we did make some big sacrifices...like a normal house. We moved to a 750 sq ft. trailer at the seminary Veldon was attending. Although small we found that trailer to be a gift. From that moment on I've just been a mom, I've had part time jobs here and there and worked full time for about 3 months once, but I'm a mom. I don't leave my kids very often I just can't stand it! When we go to Thailand it will be the longest my kids have ever been without me. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that my first job is to my husband and my children. I've had to make sacrifices, as all moms do, but I think that God allowing me to wait so long for my first child changed my heart more than anything. I don't believe there is anything more important for me right now. Our pastor said today that the number 1 priority (or job I can't remember) of a mom is to maintain the home and nurture the next generation. I completely agree! God has called me to this; there's nothing more important for me right now. There will come a day, in the very distant future that I will have the freedom to do more, but for now my priorities are the 3 (4) lives given to me. I asked a friend of mine last fall, who has a 4 year old from China, if she found it difficult to slow down when they brought their daughter home. They have older children like we do so I wondered about the transition, she just laughed and said it was a joy and there was nothing difficult about it. What an encouragement! (They have just begun another adoption from China.) So my prayer, after this long, rambling entry, is that God will use this time of waiting to do a work in me as he did the first time we waited. Of course he will, he only has our good in mind. Sometimes I shutter at the thought of what kind of mom or person I might have been had God not brought such trails into my life. What a wonderful and gracious God we have who uses every opportunity to teach us and mold us into the person he desires for us to be, I'm afraid there's much more work on me...maybe that explains the wait!

So tomorrow is another business day, and like everyday before it I hope and pray that it will be the day we get the call that our referral has come. If not we'll move on and pray for the call to come on Tuesday! :)