Faith

This week one of my Thailand adoption friends called to tell me that the child background/referral for their little boy had finally come. This is such great and welcome news for them, their paperwork went to Thailand a week before ours and their referral has come 12 1/2 months after ours! The whole process is crazy. Their little boy is older than Max he turns 7 next month and although they are so thrilled for their referral they, of course, grieve the time they have lost for unknown and likely unnecessary reasons. Our social worker told Danielle to plan on traveling about the time next year that we traveled this year, in the late spring. I hope and pray their final approval and article 16 comes more quickly than ours did, but she is wise enough to know it might take that long.

Danielle's call reminded me of the relief and joy I felt last year when we finally received the much needed paperwork and were sliding into the next, final steps necessary to bring Max home. It was so sweet because it gave me a break from the stress of wondering if "today would be our day", it also gave us some hope of a timeline. Our wait is nothing compared to Danielle's and I hurt for them. I can't imagine what another year in the process must have felt like, and with no other children to wait with, but God faithfully brought them through and the ball is rolling now.

I was reading the other day in my devotional and it happened to be about suffering and trials. It said "Dear believer, if you are in trouble, the voice of that trouble is designed to draw you nearer to God. God has favored you, favored you with an extraordinary means of growth of in grace. Believe that the deepest afflictions are always neighbors to the highest joys. The greatest possible privileges lie close to the darkest trials. The more bitter your sorrow, the louder your song in the end. Our afflictions are the highway that leads us closer to God." Veldon and I have spent much of our married life "in trouble/affliction" whether it was, or is, financial strain, lost babies, difficult churches to serve in, pastors (or their wives) who resented (hated) us, a 901 day wait for a son, or anything in between, we have known troubles and affliction and God has been faithful. Spurgeon is right, of course, those afflictions have drawn us closer to God, they have strengthened our faith in God. Who knows if those faith builders were necessary because our faith was so weak (likely) or if those faith builders worked because we were able to persevere (only because of the One who dwells in us), but whatever the reason the work of God works! God didn't and hasn't always met our needs the way we wanted Him to. I've said this before and will repeat myself again I'm sure, I tend to do that. But God hasn't always met our financial needs, we've never been truly hungry but we have certainly had to decide whether to pay a bill or buy food for our family. By the way Maslow is correct we will always meet our immediate most pressing physical needs first and food is the most basic need, after perhaps air, but air is still free! We've never had a healthy savings account, as a matter of fact our savings always looks rather anemic and emaciated, even when we were in the process of bringing Max home the money would leave the account as quickly as it appeared, but God provided and I can look back and see much of what He did and some of the miracles but possibly the greatest miracle of all was how natural most of the money came and went through us, like a sieve, God filtered the provision through us but we hardly knew it was there. When the need arose God provided. This week we had a new huge need, we also are finalizing the adoption and paying attorney fees and home study fees and court fees.

When we found out how much was necessary my heart sank. I went back to my devotion and reread the words of Spurgeon, based on Deut. 32:10 that God has a plan in affliction, that He is doing something to draw us closer to Him or perhaps just to show His Glory. He provided for the need mightily and decisively. I immediately realized that this need that came out of no where and was most unexpected revealed something greater to me. I have been worried and struggling over these final costs of the adoption. Believing in theory that God would provide, but humanly wondering how. Lightening fast He threw out an obstacle and lightening fast He removed it. We didn't have the means to do it ourselves any more than we have the means to come up with the remaining funds and any more than we had the means to pay thousands of dollars to bring Max home, but He does. When we look back on our adoption I can never say I did anything, or that we did anything to work it out. It's super easy to say "God did it, we give Him the glory" but in my humanity, had I been able to provide anything for our adoption, I would have been and still might be tempted to think "but I did a little of it". I did nothing then and I am able to do nothing now. I was convicted and humbled by His show of mercy and provision. I am so grateful to Him for pushing me down into my chair and saying "watch this" figuratively of course!

I can look back and honestly know that God did have a purpose in our painfully long wait for Max, just as He had a plan to provide the resources, He knew what He was doing and if we walk this road again my faith will be stronger. The wait may not be easier, the road may not be shorter, but the knowledge of what's on the other side has strengthened me. The knowledge that there is a beautiful child there, the knowledge that God is faithful is there and mostly being closer to Him is there.

This week has stirred up a lot in me, reminders of pain and hurt, reminders and displays of God's grace, reminders and displays of His provision, but mostly He has reminded me that He is wholly in charge and my faith doesn't lie in agency timelines, savings accounts or things, my faith lies in Him and Him alone.