It’s been almost 8 months since our home study was completed. So many of you have asked, some even hesitantly, if there’s been any news or any updates. If the fact that we are adopting is new to you, you can read more about that here. Recently, I had a friend ask if it was okay to even ask us about it all. For the record, yes, it’s okay to ask us. Maybe others in a similar season of the adoption process feel differently because all of our stories are just different. I have appreciated the sensitivity, and also the questions that tell us how much you care, and I wish I had more to say in response, but it’s been pretty quiet on the adoption front as far as we can see.
We know there’s much that goes on beyond what we can see, however. That gives us hope and reminds us to not only wait, but to try to wait well.
When the husband and I were in our last weeks of living in Germany in 2008, one of the men who led us throughout the year from afar was spending a week with us to help us process the year, debreif and prepare for the upcoming transition of moving back to the States after having lived abroad. One of the main things he encouraged us to do was to say goodbye well and also to wait well in our transition. Those words of wisdom have come back again and again in so many aspects and seasons of life since then.
As we celebrate Advent as a family this year, I am reminded in such a tangible way, of how important waiting and preparation are. So often, I want to know that every little moment of waiting will matter. I want to see exactly how the preparation needed makes sense and how it will bring a welcome result. Yet, as I search scripture and am reminded of the things God has done in and through so many others who have gone before us, I see it mostly seems the opposite. Preparation and waiting didn’t always make sense to those who endured it and were called to live in long seasons of it. In many of these true stories I read and am reminded of, I have the advantage of seeing how the long wait was full of good from God. But I also see how there weren’t always clear and obvious answers to the waiting stories and still aren’t in my nearsighted view of life.
So, yes, the most recent adoption update is what it has been for months: we are waiting. We don’t know when a referral will come and the estimates given span a large time frame. In the meantime, we are trying to do tangible things, like making sure our empty room is becoming more and more of a welcoming and warm space just for our littlest one, and saving and fundraising for all of the continued costs that lie ahead. Beyond the unchanging update and the tangible activities, we are also using the time given to learn more and to pray and ask God to prepare our hearts for the story unfolding. He is the author and he sees the pages ahead. He knows the time and is outside of it, able to hold all of it’s pieces together in a way I will never fully comprehend. If you are reading this, we would love for you to continue to pray with us. We have some things to think through about travel when it’s time, and we know we need God’s wisdom and his gentle, perfect ways of preparation for the four of us here, and for our littlest one there. I have felt led to pray for littlest one’s bio mom and dad and for the circumstances that surround the entire adoption as well and would love to have others praying for those things with me. I am choosing to believe that the deep complexities of this journey are not too deep for our good, good Father in heaven, even when I am tempted to be afraid of all that lies ahead. I have had a lot of moments lately when I wonder if we are up for all that’s ahead and am tempted to be so very afraid of this very unknown path. But God is so very persistent to remind me that I know Him and can trust Him and that he loves all of us who are involved in this journey.
Thank you in advance, and thank you for the support so many of you have given us as we continue to step out in faith and into the unknown. We know this journey is not cupcakes and rainbows, but we are finding that in this continually offered space of stepping out of our comfort zones and of stepping out into unknown territories, there lies a sweet spot of intimacy with and dependency on, our good, good Father in Heaven. We can wait because He is in the waiting and He will be at the end of this waiting as he has been and is in all of our seasons of waiting. We can move forward despite fear and the unknown, because we are led by his perfect Love and we choose daily to believe. Maybe you need to hear this, as you wait for something in this season, too. Be encouraged, friends and seek Him in the waiting.
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