Waiting ....

 

Yesterday was one of those days where the reality of adoption …. The hard parts of adoption hit you square in the face and you want to give up.  We are still waiting on receiving word that our mail made it to Ghana.  It should be there any day and we just want to hear that it arrived.  So we wait …

Many times people comment that I must have a cool job working in adoption.  I think many of the people that feel that way maybe haven’t been through the adoption process and likely just don’t have much of an idea of what the ups and downs of adoption feels like.  Even as a ‘worker’ in this process you connected deeply.  Yesterday was a day where the weight of the ‘hard’ side of adoption was felt heavy within me.  So many struggles in the many aspects of adoption and at the same time wanting to “do well” the job given to me.  It is very challenging when you see kids not receive the home you are anticipating for them, and it is hard to work with insurance companies and attorneys to make sure that each person involved is treated well and protected in the ways that they should be.  There is pain and loss in adoption, there is grief in choosing a family for a child when what that sweet birth momma likely wants to have that child for herself.   I am probably not making sense in this post.  Yesterday was one of those days where the ‘hard’ stuff can make you pack your bags and leave this crazy emotional journey of adoption, returning home to curl up under the blanket in the warmth and protection of home, drawing close the family God has blessed you with and decide you are content and ‘done.’  And then when you let your brain go there, you realize how selfish it is to want to abandon the job God has given you. 

The beauty of adoption is in the families that forge ahead through the tough stuff, through the unknowns and through the ‘what ifs’ and fear of what you don’t know will come.  If you know families on the journey of adoption, pray for them on this crazy journey.  Pray that God will give them the perseverance needed, and the courage to continue even when the fear and doubt creeps in.  Pray for protection of these sweet children that are out there waiting for their forever family, even when they are rejected from receiving what they so much deserve.  Pray for the government officials whose job is to make sure that all is done legally and correctly, yet it can feel unjust when you are fighting for a child that you just want that child released to receive her forever family.  And pray for the amazingly courageous birth families, in this country and across the oceans who have to make a choice to relinquish a child/children.  Sometimes that choice is made by default through death or in our country the foster care system / workers and judges determining the future of children.  This whole process is broken.  This whole journey is based in something that I wish these children and families didn’t have to face.  God is the only one that can redeem this brokenness which is why I am privileged to have the job that I do.  If you are reading this and have considered adoption, please pray about what God is speaking to you.  There is so much need.

My wonderful sister shared with me last night a note one of her kids wrote to her recently.  They have been home in their forever family for almost five years.  Those that know their story intimately know that the past five years have been HARD for them.  Harder than they could have ever anticipated they would be.  But, thanks to my sister’s reminder last night I can continue on, knowing that God has us on this journey for a reason.  He is choosing to use us, with all of our inadequacies, to be a family for a child.   God is not giving us another child; God is giving a child a family! 

Back to the note … the words of a sweet child who once lived life in many different homes and shelters and was able to recall to her forever mommy almost five years after coming home that she remembers the day that Anita and Joel took them from the shelter and told them “no matter what, we will never leave you.”  And shared a memory of shortly after coming home when she went out to play in the snow for the first time and jumped off of the slide instead of sliding down it, cutting her lip along the way.  She thanked her mommy for cuddling her into her lap and putting a wet cloth on the cut on her lip.  That is what happens when a child goes from a life of not having a mom to care for the littlest of issues; to knowing and believing she has a mom and dad that will always be there.  There was so much more in her note that I wish I could share.  The point in this is that this healing doesn’t happen overnight.  I am certain it took a long time for this precious child to believe that her parents will be there and care for her, but she can remember the “feeling” she had the first time these things happened to her. 

So, we continue to say “yes” to God’s calling of pursuing this precious girl across the world.  We know that God has called and we trust that He is continuing to work even when the waiting is hard and when want her home now.