Waiting...

Do you ever get tired of waiting?  Well, due to our family's experiences with adoption, we know many families interested in adoption.  Some of these friends are done with their adoption(s).  Some are just getting started in the process or planning.  And a few are waiting.  Their paperwork is done.  They are in a spot where they have finished their preparations and now it is out of their hands.  There is nothing they can do to speed the process and their only possible influence over the process is through prayer.  These few friends are waiting and many are getting exhausted by the wait.  They are in the stage of adoption that I struggled with the most. 

With Hannah, the waiting lasted 9 long and seemingly eternal months.  There was times that my anxiety was so high that I was sure my heart would stop beating due to the tightness of my chest and neck.  However, finally the call came and travel plans were made.  Then we had to wait 2 of the longest weeks of my life for the date of our departure to Ecuador.  We had only seen two picture of Hannah, but we were in love.  Our trip to Riobamba, Ecuador was exhausting and a story of its own, and when we pulled inside the gates to our hotel at 7am, we had been traveling non-stop for 30 hours.  The taxi driver named Patricio told us that due to arriving so much later than planned, we could get cleaned up and settled in, and he would take us on to the orphanage.  We tried to not let our excitement show too much, but our luggage was inside and we were back in the taxi before Patricio had returned from the restroom!  (We did look in the shower and decided that we were still cleaner than it was.)  The drive to the orphanage seemed forever, but I timed it so I know it was actually 12 minutes....until our wait was over.

With David and Vanessa, the wait was 26 months.  Words cannot describe how long those 26 months were!  I was determined to follow Philippians 4:6, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."  I tried and I prayed.  I REALLY tried and REALLY prayed, but my anxiousness to have my children with me was reducing my patience with others.  Each month our children in the pictures grew.  Each year that passed, their need for the loving stability of a family...our family....was more evident. 

One day I was having an exceptionally BIG pity-party.  I knew no one must be as worried or longing for their children as much as me, and I had let my resentment stall my devotion time until mid-morning. Reluctantly, I began my devotion time by reading Ephesians 1, and immediately verses 3 through 5 jumped off the page and into my heart.  There it was!  Who had waited longer?!  He had!  Why hadn't I realized it before!  I read the beginning of verse 4 again, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world".  God had waited for a relationship with me since "the foundation of the world".   God had waited for me to seek His forgiveness and be made holy through Christ Jesus so that I could be in His loving and perfect presence.  In fact verse 5 said so that I could be adopted into His family through Christ!



Photos of the end of some of our waitings.



All my life I had known John 3:16 and that God loved me, BUT I was 34 years old before I realized that He had lovingly waited for me from "the foundation of the world"...before He even formed me.  I was humbled.  For the remaining year of our wait, I had confidence that God understood my desire to have my children home, and I turned my prayers towards thanking Him for waiting for me and asking Him to prepare our home and to prepare our children for our future together.  God answered these prayers.  David and Vanessa had a remarkably easy transition into our family.

I'll never understand why adoptions must involve so much waiting.  The feelings of discouragement and the doubts that the adoption will ever happen can be overwhelming.  However, I do know that God knows more about perfect love and waiting than me.  I pray constantly for our friends who are waiting and for the protection of the children who are waiting for them.  I pray for the preparation of their new home physically, mentally and spiritually.  If you know someone waiting on an adoption, please pray for them.   And if you're waiting on an adoption or anything else important to you, please take comfort in knowing that God understands waiting from "the foundation of the world".

If you would like the readers of this blog to pray for your adoption process, then please leave your first name and any specifics that you would like prayed on your behalf AND by all means update us when your wait is over. 

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation

 of the world, that we should be holy and without blame

before him in love: --Ephesians 1:4 

And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious

unto you,  and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have

 mercy upon you:  for the LORD [is] a God of judgment:

blessed [are] all they that wait for him. --Isaiah 30:18