Thankful in the Tough Stuff

I have been an emotional mess lately. When we started this process over a year ago, I knew it would be hard, but I never anticipated it being this emotionally draining. I never anticipated being so high on a wait list and moving 1 spot in 4 months. Now, we were warned that things would not likely go as planned, but I guess I thought they would go at least a little closer to my plan. Silly me!

It seems as if there is no end in sight some days. I am fine waiting for 2 or 3 years if progress was being made. But with nothing happening lately in the referral department, I can't help but be upset and confused about if we took the right path. There is nothing we can do, nothing our agency can do. It lies in the hands of a foreign government and that is frustrating my friends!

Yesterday was one of those days, one of those days where I could not help but let the emotions run out of my tear ducts. My whole body ached and I felt like I was coming down with the flu because honestly, I am exhausted. Exhausted emotionally, exhausted mentally and sometimes exhausted spiritually. We KNOW God called us to adoption and we KNOW He is pruning us through this process but oh my it is tough.

I sat at the kitchen table last night with my husband, my face in my hands and just cried. Cried because I feel so helpless, so confused, so unsure about our direction. My husband, gentle and reassuring, looked at me with compassion and said, "We are ok. We have so much to be thankful for. We aren't the ones having to decide if we should give our child up for adoption or not, we are the ones who are alive and healthy wanting to adopt." That man, he always knows just what to say. He calms me! He was so right. Shout out to God for blessing me with a husband who knows how to handle me and speaks TRUTH to my weary heart.

Adoption comes from such a place of heartache and despair. The birth parents, the children, they are the ones who truly go through the trenches. I am not saying that I do not have the right to feel what I am feeling, because this is seriously the hardest thing I have EVER been through and I know our deep trenches will come when our child is home and we are dealing with the ramifications of the past! But, sometimes I get so wrapped up in how I am feeling that I forget to be thankful, even for this situation that we are in today.

Today, I am not having to decide if I should give my child up because I cannot afford to take care of them, today I am not on my death bed with HIV saying goodbye to my children, today I am not jumping from foster home to foster home praying for stability and love, today I am not enduring abuse or neglect or malnutrition. Today, I am simply waiting to love on someone who may be going through those situations themselves or seeing their parents go through them in some form or another.

I opened up Jesus Calling today and read this:

"Casually despising my sovereignty"...ouch! I know God is sovereign and his timing and plan will prevail, but I am guilty of this one peeps!

While my emotions are running high because we are trying to seek direction and guidance from HIM and that is HARD sometimes, I am thankful! I am thankful because I know my God is faithful! He will give us peace, he will guide our steps, he will place the child who needs to be in our home, in our home. I cannot imagine going through this or any other hard place in life without God. My relationship with him is what I cling to in times like this.

Hebrews 6:19 says:
"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure."

I know that no matter what, no matter how this adoption turns out, my hope is in the Lord and I want to glorify him despite circumstance and emotion.  I am firm and secure in knowing that as we continue to seek him for direction, HE IS THERE. I cannot promise that I won't have any more emotional melt downs. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you that I will. Oh, this road ahead is still so long. But,  I know He holds every tear drop in his hands (Psalm 56:8), and some days, I am just thankful for being able to cry and release some of these emotions I am feeling.

Today, I am choosing to be thankful. Thankful that he called us to adoption, thankful that he is growing and changing my heart to look more like his, thankful that I have to be fully dependent on him because there is no way I could make it through this without him (and my husband). Being thankful is a choice, one that I have to sometimes sit and ponder on, but when I focus on the gratitude, my perspective changes and joy wells up inside.

So, what about you? What are you thankful for?

FAQ: Do you know who your child is?

I get asked this question a lot. It would seem like since we have been walking this journey for over a year now, we would know WHO we are adopting. I am sure that because I say "my boy" "our son", etc, it gives the idea that we have seen this child's face before, know a little of his history. But, we have not seen him and hold no information on who he is or where he is. The way this process works is that once all of your paperwork is complete (ours took 11 months to finish), you are placed on a waiting list. The waiting list is for a referral of a child who falls into the parameters you have listed that you are wishing to adopt. For us, that is a boy, anywhere between the ages of 0-6.

How long must we wait to see who our son will be? Well, that is a tough question to answer. Our agency has told us that there is around a 2 year wait from the time we got on the wait list (December of 2013) until we could potentially get matched with a child. That time frame can change. Lately, things have slowed down BIG TIME in Ethiopia as far as processing paperwork in country goes. I foresee our wait actually being longer than 2 years at this rate. When we started this adoption journey, I would have never imagined that it would take this long, but it is what it is and we are trying to just roll with it. As mentioned before, every month as referrals are given to families at the top of the wait list, we move closer to the top. Some moths there are a few referrals and some months, like lately, there are none. The first of the month is always filled with anticipation to see if we have made any progress on the wait list.

Although we do not know who he is, what he looks like, or where he is, we still love him. We love him because God has already placed him in our hearts. He started in 2012 carving out a place for this little guy and our love only grows stronger over time as we pursue and wait for him. We anxiously await the day that we will open the computer screen and see his face, the face that already has a place in this family. I know that once we do see him, my heart will just burst with even more love as I lay my eyes on the little boy who we have prayed over and called Brother for so long. Oh, how I long for that day!