They say time flies when you're having fun, but I'm not certain I would classify these past months as "fun". However, time has flown by and the thing about time is it allows you to look back and see things in the past that you couldn't see while in the then-present. How's that for a philosophical start?
Adoption is a road of faith, frustration, hope, despair, and a roller coaster of emotions. At times it has been near exhausting. If God hadn’t made it abundantly clear we were to adopt, I'm pretty sure we would have quit by now.
By December I had decided I needed to put myself in an adult “time out”. You know the signs of needing one? For me, I found myself not even liking to be around me! I’m not always a Positive Patty, but I do try to see the bright side of things. Well I was just Negative Nellie. People were driving me crazy! The holidays, I could take or leave. Even our Christmas tree fell over twice and then died….before Christmas! Everyone kept asking us what we knew about the adoption. NOTHING, I wanted to scream! That’s not nice. I know. And so I put myself in a time out. Besides, who would want to read a blog full of “poor me”?
We had been having off and on conversations with a local birth mom for over 8 months who had 2 daughters. I had the privilege of having lunch with her and taking Christmas gifts for her family. Can I just say that buying for people lavishly, who will never give back in return is an awesome thing? After lunch I knew in my heart that this young lady was not capable of making a good choice for herself or her girls. And it grieved my heart. I have always struggled with God about why he allows some people to have babies (over and over) and then why some will do such harm to those children. I know God is sovereign, but it hurts my heart so.
The first part of December we requested the files of a sibling group. A girl who was 4 and her brother who was 21 mos. We had always said if we were going to get a boy he would have to be under 3. I mean, what do we know about raising boys?? When Faith saw their pictures she was sold, but honestly we were at the point that we didn’t want to get our hopes up high. We told our agency to let the Philippines know we were interested in the siblings. The Philippines response, “Please note that another family have signified their intent to adopt the above- mentioned children. Your agency will be notified once initial assessment has been made.” Our agency told us not to get our hopes up high, which by this point we were so cynical we said, “No worries. We aren’t expecting a thing.” (Bless people who work with prospective adoptive parents!) This was December 3rd when we were told another family was interested. Fast forward to the end of December and we hadn’t heard a peep from the Philippines. Sure. No problem. Just our lives in limbo……
Honestly, by January Stacy was ready to pull the plug on the whole adoption thing. We had been looking at our finances and thought maybe we should wait a year and get into a better financial spot. We knew God had called us to adopt, but our eyes were focusing on the tangibles. Frankly coming up with almost 30K seemed impossible. I thought we should just wait this out and see if these kids were going to be ours. Could you imagine pulling the plug to find out the next day you were chosen? I should also mention that right around Christmas we had major things break in our house. My laptop, the ice maker/water buttons on the refrigerator, the garbage disposal. I know I’m forgetting other things, but suffice it to say, Christmas was stressful!!!
Then we had an insight. When everything is hitting the fan, it should be a clue that the enemy is working. And if the enemy is working that means he’s worried. And so we dug in our heels and said goodbye to 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment