Some days, I feel like I'm in a fog and I realize that I've been daydreaming all day, and the "now" has slipped away. Some days, I'm wrapped up in work, and the girls, and projects at home and I realize that I've lived fully in "today" and let the adoption sit on a shelf in the back of my mind.
Some days are really hard. I hear "Oh, my friends have waited years and it still hasn't happened for them" and I feel like it's not really happening. Or we see lots of puzzle pieces shifting around for other people and nothing has changed to our knowledge right now and it makes this process not seem real at all. I try to do something positive on those days and count my blessings... Some days I have to completely take time out and stick close to home so I can cling to the good. It can put me in a really emotional funk.
It's so strange to not have a time table and not have a changing body sending me reminders that our lives will be changing. No one knows we're expecting if we don't tell them, and I find myself talking about it a lot more than I did our pregnancies so that it feels real to my heart.
We've heard other adoptive families say that the "waiting days" are hard, but they're not here in vain.. I think they're the days that we're stretched and pulled the most. They're our growing pains. They're the days we don't put in the photo album, but they held the space between the turning pages that tied the rest together. They're a reminder to a person always in control that there is absolutely nothing in this life that we're guaranteed and no amount of worry can complete this puzzle when we don't yet have all of the pieces. The waiting season is also a time to look back and think of all the time we could've stopped or not pressed forward. The job change, the budget while we were already trying to become and stay debt free, the neediness of our older kids, the hard questions we had to ask ourselves and have been asked by others, the idea of what we thought our life would be..the paperwork and hoops, the doubts. The fears of opening up our home and hearts to sharing a child with a person that is now (and may remain) a stranger.
I'm glad God doesn't show us all the steps in front of us. At church yesterday, our pastor talked about decision making and following God's design for our lives.. How He doesn't always reveal everything to us-- He shows us the step in front of us, we obey, and He reveals the next step. I'm so glad we didn't see some of the things we've already passed in the 9 months that we've been figuring out the plan for our family. I'm afraid it would've frozen us.
Before we chose our agency when we were in the very beginning stages, my friend said "You will never see God more clearly than you do in this adoption." I've read and heard of so many adoption stories since that day that are so beautiful-- there is just no way paths could've crossed without Him orchestrating every single detail perfectly to bring them together. He is everywhere in this. In the failed matches, celebrations, failed adoptions, painful situations leading to placement, dreams, butterflies, infertility and other health issues not allowing biological pregnancies. He turns the ashes to beauty if you just take that one single first step and trust Him in the darkness.
Before we chose our agency when we were in the very beginning stages, my friend said "You will never see God more clearly than you do in this adoption." I've read and heard of so many adoption stories since that day that are so beautiful-- there is just no way paths could've crossed without Him orchestrating every single detail perfectly to bring them together. He is everywhere in this. In the failed matches, celebrations, failed adoptions, painful situations leading to placement, dreams, butterflies, infertility and other health issues not allowing biological pregnancies. He turns the ashes to beauty if you just take that one single first step and trust Him in the darkness.
