What does waiting for something do to you? Are you anxious, nervous, worried, unaffected? For us waiting has acted as huge sifter sifting out our thoughts about this adoption. It seems we've come so far in 4 short months and yet we know we have so far to go. Every day we get deeper and deeper into this thing called adoption...deeper and deeper into this love for a country that we didn't give much thought to a year ago. So where has that love led us? What have we to show for God's calling on us to make a child our own from a country so far away? Yes, we've filled out paper work and sat through interviews and accumulated LOTS of information about our family. But we've also spent countless hours in prayer for a nation we feel deeply for. We've prayed over families who are in different stages of this journey and are finding it difficult to get court dates or embassy approval or are waiting on referrals. We have opened our hearts to love more and our perspective has shifted. And we've been inspired to dig deeper. We've had to look long and hard at our budget and we've had the pleasure of deciding what we could "live without" to help make this adoption a reality. It's unreal to think a continent away there are mothers living in such extreme poverty that they cannot care for their children and must abandon them much less make a decision on what cable package they can live with. Or there are children orphaned from a disease that we can easily manage here with affordable medications. Or worse yet, orphaned children DYING from a disease that currently others in other parts of the world live with just fine because of two little pills. Oh, but for the grace of God that is not my reality and my family. But even with these sobering thoughts we are thankful that we are in a position to add to our family this way. We are blessed to get to walk these paths with our Savior. Even on the days when the letter doesn't come in the mail, or the fees are overwhelming us, or we can't get anyone to answer the phone at an office we need a piece of paper from...we count ourselves blessed. We are also learning that faith without works is dead. And I don't know about you, but I don't want dead faith. We've been wrestling with where God will lead us and we feel like He's been asking us if we'll follow Him or if we're going to lead and keep looking back to see if He's following. We've have felt led to special needs children or to multiple children but the door has not opened for us in these areas yet. I am however confident that God is preparing us for something big, something that was not in our heads at the beginning of this journey and if this has unfolded for us in just 4 short months then I can't wait to see how He leads us there. We do know that we love our Savior and we are striving every day to let Him lead as we wait...and we're sifting out our previous ideas about what we thought this would all look like and the new realities are so much clearer and bolder and scarier...not at all what we thought our suburban little family in Houston would like 5 years ago. But I am so happy and free and excited to say that I love what the waiting does for us...
No comments:
Post a Comment