Worth the Wait...

Throughout our adoption process, we learned the true art of waiting.  While I wouldn't say that we became "masters" at waiting, by the end, I think we understood the importance of it.  We have officially been home with Biruk for 3 months and while it has been everything we hoped and dreamed for and more, it has been a transition.  Now, when I look back over those three years of waiting, some of which included days that I felt like completely giving up, I can see that God was shaping us and working behind the scenes so that his perfect story could be lived out.

Waiting is never easy.  When we want something to happen so badly, we dwell on, we beg for it, and we expend every ounce of our energy thinking about it.  If given the choice to not wait and just get what we wanted, most of us would seize that opportunity.  At the beginning of our journey, if we could have chosen to have our prayers answered right then and there, getting what we wanted so badly, we probably would have paid money for that to happen.

I can honestly say, three years later, I am so thankful that God doesn't work that way.  I am thankful that God uses the wait process to shape us.  I am thankful that in the waiting we learn to be dependent on God rather than dependent on ourselves.  I am thankful that in the waiting our view of God changes in a way that by the end, we want nothing more than to be completely in his will.

Without the waiting process, we would have never met our son.

Tonight, after spending some time with our friends and taking Biruk Trick or Treating for the first time (something we have waited a LONG time to do), my friend Alicia posted a picture of our boys with this caption, "We've waited a long time for tonight!"  Alicia has been a friend along the journey, who also happens to be the mom of an adopted child she also waited for.  If you were to ask Alicia, I think she would agree, the waiting was worth it.

As I fed Biruk his bottle tonight, holding him in my arms and then tucking him in bed, I found myself smiling.  Some things are totally worth the wait!


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