When the Excitement is Heavy

We leave for South Korea soon. I am a dichotomy of feelings.

We can’t wait to meet our little E and see her face to face. Right now, there’s no voice to the pictures we’ve seen, no knowledge of what she looks like when she toddles around or what makes her laugh or how her eyes look when she smiles. We can’t wait to be with her and to be one step closer to bringing her home.

We also feel heavy. Adoption comes from loss and every adoption is complex. While we begin to walk into these moments we’ve been waiting and longing for, we realize that this part of our sweet E’s story will be confusing and sad for her. This upcoming moment will bring her grief and loss and knowing this breaks our excited hearts. In the long run, yes, we know we will finally be together and she will have a forever family and a forever home; but knowing this doesn’t mean we get to gloss over the sadness she will inevitably walk through and have with her for the rest of her life in some shape or form.

All of life is one transition after another, some more obvious than the others. It’s how we move through them and what we cling to in the midst of them that matters. The transition ahead of our family right now feels like it has us standing at the edge of a steep precipice. On one hand, I want to tie us all up together and try to control the unknown that faces all of us. On the other hand, I want to fall forward and head right into this dichotomy of feelings, this marking moment, this transition and this unknown future.

Today, I am trying to listen to the voice that tells me to loosen my grip. I am believing that from the depth of sadness to the height of joy, from the familiar to the foreign, from the past to the future: there is One who is holding it all together.

He is big enough for all of our hopes. And those hopes? They matter to Him. Here and there and everywhere, he holds those hopes, our hopes, with tender and able hands.

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. Who else has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?” -Isaiah 40:11-12

So, in a few weeks and months, we may need the reminders. For now, we are ready with a heavy excitement.