Time Away

Some of you (you are out there, aren't you?) may have noticed I've taken a little time off since my last post.  It's been a month and 5 days actually.  That's a little longer than I intended, but I think I needed some time to process. 

 

This adoption journey has been way more emotionally complicated than I could ever have imagined.  I thought it would be like having another child.  It is, in some ways:  we wait expectantly for our family to grow, we wonder if we will have a boy or a girl, if they will be healthy, what types of changes we may face, and on and on.  It is also different, very different, in many ways:  we have no idea when our child will come home, where our child will come from (more on this in a minute), or how much work will be expected of us in order to make any of these dreams come true.

 

I wrote a post a while back (Another Baby!!) about how we came to choose the Congo as our child's birth country.  Recently I wrote a bit about having to choose a path now that our homestudy is nearly over.  Well, here I sit on the eve of finalization, and I still don't know.

 

(waiting feet...)

 

 

That's not exactly true.  I feel very certain (or at least I did yesterday) that we are supposed to wait.  Wait to hear from the Canadian government, from God, from both...I'm not exactly sure in which order, but wait nonetheless. 

 

Waiting is hard, so I have taken a mental break from thinking overthinking things.  Tonight I am holding on to hope that we are doing the right thing in waiting. 

 

I wrote this, "Friends, please pray with us about which direction we should go. I can't give too much information, but we were approached this morning by a friend and asked to consider adopting a specific little girl from BC. I have been praying for God to reveal himself...a LOT of discerning to be done," a little less than a month ago.  Being asked by a woman I know to consider adopting a child she knows rocked my world. 

 

Adopting a child isn't like going to the pet store to buy a puppy.  We all know how that scenario goes.  We say we're just going to look and yet we come home with the cute little thing anyway!  Not a lot of thought going in to the decision, we soon curse because the little bugger is peeing on our favourite rug. 

 

I couldn't help but think of this as I was asked to consider that child.  You see, I really can't believe that giving a child in need a home is a bad thing. They need a home, we have one to offer.  Our hearts would be in the right place if we decided to pursue her--but is it the best place?  It breaks my heart to know that a little girl needs a home...but how do we handle this situation?  The only option for us was to bring it to God.  I read scripture, prayed constantly (the closest I've ever come to praying without ceasing), and still I heard wait.  I want to bring that little girl home, but at the same time I just have to listen to what God is saying. 

 

(love to hear God's word, Psalm 27:14, echoed in a great song by Mumford and Sons)

 

Wait, wait, WAIT. 

You see, I suck at waiting.  Badly.  Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that continually eludes me.  It just might be that God is trying to teach me through all this.  Perhaps I need to learn what it means to sit perfectly in His will.  Maybe I need to learn the difference between doing a good thing and the best thing.  Maybe God is just working out all the details so that our original direction of the Congo will been realized.  And maybe none of these things are what is going to happen because God only knows!!

 

(double rainbow over Nelson a few weeks ago...reminder of God's great promise!)

 

 I pray that the little girl gets a home.  I pray that it is a perfect and lovely home.  Who knows, it might yet be my home...I haven't felt led to that yet and neither has Jason.  We do, however, continue to pray. 

 

So tonight, as I think about what it means to sign off on our homestudy tomorrow, I can't help but feel a little stuck.  I'm in a good place-we're done with phase 1- and yet I long to know what comes next.  Wait...that's what comes next.