Glorious Unfolding...

It has been far too long since I have sat down and taken some time to write.  To be honest, the summer started and before I knew it, we were already into July.  Between Mission Road Trip stops with our youth group, summer night walks with our little one, a road trip to Maine to visit Nate's mom, mission trip fundraisers, writing sermons, spending time with teenagers and trying to keep up with my calendar, the days fly by incredibly fast.  To make time feel like it is flying even faster, today we had our very last post placement for our adoption.  In two weeks we will have been home for an entire year, and that alone blows my mind.

This week we are on vacation with our entire family for our annual trip to the Jersey Shore.  It's hard to believe that at this time last year, we had packed our car with baby stuff, headed for vacation, anticipating that we would finally get the call to go to Ethiopia to pick up Biruk.  God in his graciousness opened those doors, our family saw us off, and we ventured on a plane ride that would take us half way around the world to pick up the little boy that would change our life.

This past week, I was overwhelmed by some of the really difficult circumstances that some of my friends are going through.  From medical diagnoses, to painful transitions, to deaths that came too soon, it is hard to know and understand just where God is in the midst of all of that.  As my friends have shared their hearts this week, I have felt at a loss as to how to encourage them.  The right words have been hard to find.  There were so many times in our infertility and adoption journey where we felt broken, where we felt as though the world was crumbling, when we felt as though our hearts had been shattered.  Many friends attempted to share encouragement, but many were also honest enough to say that they just weren't sure what to say.

Today, as I watched my son play with his cousins at the beach I have vacationed at for the past 34 years of my life, I couldn't help but think again about the beauty that comes out of brokenness.  There have been many vacations spent at the Jersey Shore with my family over the past 8 years where my brokenness has probably overwhelmed my family and left them at a loss for the right words.  From failed infertility procedures, negative pregnancy tests, unexpected extensions in the waiting process, and just living in the land of the "unknown," my family has experienced some of the most difficult days with me.  Yet one common thread has remained among all of us...God is still good.

As I am writing this tonight, Biruk and his two cousins are wrestling, dancing, and laughing hysterically downstairs and I am once again reminded that God is good.  Life does not always happen the way we plan for it to.  We don't always understand what God is doing and we spend a lot of time questioning that.  But as our stories unfold, as the chapters of our lives are written, the truth remains that God is good.  He never leaves us.  He is a constant.  He never forsakes us.  He is strong.  He is faithful.  Sometimes the story he is writing is still in the process of being revealed.

I heard Steven Curtis Chapman's song, "Glorious Unfolding" on the radio today and was struck by the chorus.  The words reveal what I am experiencing after a long season of waiting

"This is going to be a glorious unfolding
Just you wait and see and you will be amazed
We've just got to believe that the story is so far from over
So hold onto every promise God has made to us
And watch this glorious unfolding."

Our stories are far from being over and God is the author of some pretty epic stories!  Even when we can't feel it, he is behind the scenes working.  And most of the time, as Steven Curtis Chapman writes, "There's so much of the story that's still yet to unfold."  I am grateful that God never stops writing.

  


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