Waiting...For What Seems Like Forever

It's been a melancholy couple of weeks.  I am not sure what it is, but the waiting has seemed increasingly difficult.  We have been working on re-doing our entire Dossier, which doesn't win for the most exciting task.  The first time around it seemed exciting, the second time around it has just seemed to frustrate us.  I guess we are tired of waiting.  August 11 was 17 months on the wait list.  When we started this process, the waiting game was only supposed to last 6-8 months.  I guess that is why we feel somewhat melancholy these days.  We are just ready for the referral to come...

I have found myself craving time with God these past two weeks, hoping and praying that he would bring light to this waiting process.  As I have thought about the past several years of our life, waiting for the desires of our hearts to come to fruition, I have seen God weaving this amazing tapestry, shaping our hearts and shaping our lives.  "Waiting" has this incredible way of meshing your frustrations with God and his lack of coming through on "your time," with this deep longing and desire in your soul to draw closer to his heart, because you so badly want to see life the way he sees it (as I am typing this, I am not sure my words do a great job expressing the tension that I feel like I live in on a day to day basis).

Last week I had the opportunity to serve at our District Youth Camp.  One night during worship, the team sang a song that I hadn't heard since my Sophomore year of college (I am 32, so that was quite some time ago).  The lyrics struck my heart at the core.

"I cry out for your hand of mercy to heal me.  I am weak and I need your love to heal me.
Oh Lord my rock, my strength in weakness, come rescue me, Oh Lord.
You are my hope...your promise never fails me.
And my desire...is to follow you forever.
For you are good, for you are good, for you are good to me.
For you are good, for you are good, for you are good to me."

I have absolutely no idea when the waiting will end.  Some days, I feel incredibly weak.  The truth is, God is a good God.  I think I forget that sometimes.  He promises that he has the plan.  He promises to be our strength when we don't even have any desire to get out of bed and do life in the morning.  He gives us hope when we can't make sense of the process around us.  He is our rock when we don't think we can stand strong and finish what he has called us to do.  And most of all, he is good.  It's as simple as that.  He is good.    For all of us tonight waiting for change to happen, may we be reminded that He has been good, he will continue to be good, and he is good to us.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Mother's Heart...

Image
It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again.  There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk. While words can be few and far
Read more

Stories Matter

Image
Yesterday, my family and I found ourselves at a local elementary school’s culture club, presenting about our trip to Ethiopia. Even as I write those words, it kind of blows my mind how God has continued to use our story in unexpected places. When the kids were old enough to understand, we began to talk about taking them back to their birth country when they turned 10. We figured at 10, they would be old enough to be pretty good travelers, but still approach the adventure with a childlike wonder. What we didn’t plan on, was that the year Biruk turned 10 would come on the heels of me taking a brand new job, our family moving to a new state, and buying our very first house, in an economy that felt as though it was tanking!  I remember talking to my counselor one day and sharing with him that while we had always promised this trip to our kids, it just didn’t seem to make financial sense. After all, last time I checked, Southwest Airlines does not travel to Africa. He said something
Read more

The Hands That Hold Your Heart...

Image
I have somewhat been dreading writing this blog entry for the past week.   The more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that my words probably won’t do a great job conveying my heart.   For the past several weeks, I not only thought about our little Baby B half way around the world, aching and longing to hold him, but my heart has been heavy for his birth mom.   While Wednesday marked the 3 year anniversary of our adoption journey (we signed our very first adoption paperwork May 8, 2010), just two days later marked a day in which Baby B’s mother signed papers to give consent to our adoption. Yesterday was a huge step in our journey.   We now wait to be assigned a court date to travel to Ethiopia, which our social workers says could happen any day.   Technically, tomorrow will be my official Mother’s Day as an “expectant” Mom.   While I have felt “expectant” the past three years of this journey, having an actual face and name makes it so much more real.   Tomorrow
Read more