As you can see by the date of my last post, it's been roughly three months since we've had any news regarding our adoption. This is due to our own negligence. Our profile is still not finished and the 15 page Abba Fund application has been gathering dust on our desk. What's the problem you ask? How could two people who have been desperately longing for children for 8 years now, possibly be dragging their feet? Not sure, really.
I feel unmotivated, overwhelmed at putting together this profile that will display my husband and me to a family that is choosing a home for their child. Trying to brainstorm the most creative way to "advertise" our desire and ability to be the best parents that they could ever hope for. The weight of each screening, through home study and paperwork after paperwork, has left me a bit frustrated. Maybe I'm having some slight feelings of resentment, because Matt and I (unlike biological parents) have to provide detailed descriptions on why we want to adopt a children and why would we be good parents. How we are going to raise our child.. answering specific questions about what that looks like.
In fact Matt and I don't have all the answers.. we have few. And to be the subject of so many questions is daunting. We know that only by God's grace can we ever be anywhere near the mother and father that we aspire to be. All I can say is.. we have to believe that God is strongly at work even in the midst of this drought. And that it seems there is some spiritual warfare that we are standing at the front lines of.
So I end this rather short post (short for this blog anyway:)), and just ask for your prayers. Please pray for Matt and I as we look to the Lord for these next steps in the process. To persevere when things are looking rather bleak and our spirits are feeling disheartened and tired. More specifically, please pray for the following:
- Continued clarity on God's will for a family
- Sensitivity to spiritual attacks and fighting them with God's word/prayer
- Perseverance to press on in this journey and discipline to complete our part
- Patience to trust in His timing
- Peace about each decision along the way
Thank you to everyone who has continued to offer up prayers and encouragement in support of our adoption. Psalm 42 brings us much comfort..
Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
day and night,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
My soul is cast down within me;
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
have gone over me.
a prayer to the God of my life.
“Why have you forgotten me?
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
“Where is your God?”
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
I'm so proud of you for finally saying here how you've been feeling. Thank you for your bravery, my friend. I've shed some tears on your behalf and have been feverishly praying for you. I'm so grateful for God's work in you & Matt's lives, and I know that He will show you His plan for your family in due time. The waiting and working toward it is so, so, so hard, and I feel your pain so deeply that my heart aches as I read this. I love you so much and hope your arms are holding a little baby very soon. Keep trucking along friend, it's totally okay and normal to feel this way, and to share your feelings will help someone else too!! You will finish that paperwork when you're meant to. God already knows your child's name and the number of hairs on his or her head. Can you believe that?!?! So incredible. I can't imagine answering all those parenting questions before you even have the child in your arms... we guessed how we'd be but after we have held him and soothed him for 4 months, we've already seen some changes in our parenting decisions as a result of knowing our son more. The answers will come to you, just do the best you can in answering them, but in the end it's all up to God anyway. Things will change as you meet your child and get to know him or her, and it happens to every single parent whether biological or not. Grace, grace, grace. What a great Psalm you shared! Love, hugs, and prayers friend. And a listening ear or shoulder to cry on any time you need it.
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