Waiting is the name of the game in adoption. Waiting can summon all kinds of emotions. We have felt nervous, anxious, curious, joyful, hopeful, excited, ecstatic, etc.
First you are waiting to finish paperwork (which feels like forever because you want to actually be waiting to see a picture of your child/children). Then you submit the paperwork and you wait.
You wait until you are to see the faces God placed on your heart. This part made me super anxious because I just kept thinking it could be any day! It was so exciting.
Then we saw those faces that stole our hearts. I have looked at those pictures so many times that I have probably memorized them. We decided on names and we talk about them, pray for them more specifically, know some of their needs and yet we know so little.
So then again, we wait. We wait as we are submitted to court and we wait to hear about the court date, the date on which we will get to meet our children. It is so different for me to think about waiting to met my babies who are getting older by the minute. I am trying so hard not to think about the moments I will miss, but that can be hard.
This part has been the hardest honestly and the most joyous. It has been barely a week since seeing both of our babies faces and yet the time just crawls by. One minute I am super excited and hopeful thinking of hearing their cries, laying them down to sleep, (right now I am even excited thinking about changing their stinky diapers!) looking at baby items, and dreaming of how to do the nursery. Then the next, I worry about where they are. Are they hungry? Are they sick? How long will it be until I get to see them. Over and over the Lord reminds me in my heart that He can take care of them far greater than I can, and I must trust in Him. Oh how the Lord is teaching my heart to trust in Him.
Yet in all of this waiting that seems so hard, I know that one day (hopefully not too far away) all of the waiting won't matter anymore. In fact, I have heard that I will barely even recall it. I have learned a great deal during this waiting. I have learned a lot about adoption processes and the biblical perspective of caring for orphans and doing the Lords will. I have had to be patient (as well as I could be). Yet I feel my biggest lesson in all of this was in learning to trust God when I didn't have the answers. It has been in learning to trust him when adoption seemed foreign, or when Ethiopian adoptions started slowing down. It was about trusting Him when we knew there would be fees to pay or now that we are praying for our children to stay healthy and be loved. The Lord is so good to us and I greatly appreciate the lessons the Lord has shown me through the blessings of adoption.
