I haven't written in a long time regarding our adoption journey. We started our second adoption process in January 2011 with lots of paperwork and were "Ready and waiting" in August of that same year.
Now it is February 2014! My husband is fifty-one on the nineteenth of this month and I am forty-nine this coming November; we are no spring chickens. Our first son, Josiah, is now going to be five-years-old on April 10. We have waited and waited for a long time. We have contemplated when it is time to stop waiting even if we do not have a baby...our fos-adopt licence is in effect until August of this year and we have talked about stopping the process then if we still do not have a baby placed with us. We certainly do not come to this decision lightly. We really felt God was leading us in that direction. We really wanted a brother or sister for Josiah...But, who can know the mind of God? We have invested so much into this adoption; time, money, resources, prayer...you name it! It is scary to come to the point of saying no when it could have been any day or month and we have gotten "THE" call...but how long are we to hold on?
Speaking of calls....we received a call from Katherine a couple of weeks ago. She was asking us if we were open to adopting an eight-month-old healthy baby boy as the birthmother had felt that she had not bonded with this baby and was ready to place him (she had gone to the adoption agency when she had found out she was pregnant and decided to parent the child). The excitement of it all. "Is this the baby you have for us Lord?" Excited and yet, full of trepidation...an eight-month-old? Now, I wold love to have an infant past the initial stages of infancy, but isn't separation anxiety at its height in a baby of this age? What would happen if the baby who is used to the smell, sound and routines of his birthmother sees that she is not there? Inconsolable crying? How could I handle this little guy who cannot understand where his mother has gone and rejects me as his mother? I was imagining my husband at work and me trying to handle a heartbroken little boy crying his eyes out hour after hour, day after day and maybe even week after week...
Who knows how the little boy would have done and how I would have handled it; we did not get chosen after all...part of me was relieved and part of me was disappointed too...when would we get the call? Will it ever happen? So many dichotomies in life that are irreconcilable...it is not for us to understand, it is only for us to trust that our times are in God's hands and He alone understands our hearts and He alone is able to make all grace abound to us as we continue this journey that we do not know how it will end. I am always encouraged by the story of Hagar...when she was in the desert, thrown out of her master's house, nearly dying of thirst with her boy, Ishmael; "God knows, God sees, God hears". I am so comforted by that today as I think about our journey in the desert of not knowing or understanding all the whys.
And so, in our "not-knowing", we trudge on...though our waiting is nearly over (one way or the other), I am certain our days of waiting will never end. It seems we all are waiting for something at many points of our life...it is our job, my job, not just to wait, but to wait well...only by the grace of God!
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