And it Begins....

We received our first call from our caseworker, B, three days after her approval of our profile. I had sent it to press and we didn't even have copies in hand yet. It was an insane week, as I was in Houston for work and Jacob was preparing for finals. It was a tough first call, a very hard situation. Jacob and I prayed over it and wrestled with it and slept on it and decided it wasn't something we should say "yes" to. There's so much more to it, I just can't give details. We believe the Lord was working in our hearts, and know without a doubt that we made the right decision. The next day, YES....the next day, B called again with another opportunity. This opportunity we said YES to, which means our profile was shown to this birthmother, who we will refer to as H. H had already had this baby, a little boy, he was three weeks old. Talk about crazy to wrap your mind around, we could have a son! She narrowed it down to us and one other family, and was putting together a list of questions for each. Then Thanksgiving came and went and we heard nothing. After another week, I emailed B and she said H was under a lot of pressure from her mother and the agency was backing off to give her space. That's the last we've heard. I've prayed for H as often as the Lord brings her to mind, she is young and has much on her plate. It is a privilege to pray for her.

Yes, it was so exciting and unexpected to get calls so quickly. We had been prepared by the agency for 9-12 months of waiting, and it could still very well be that length, but it was a shock for it to be DAYS. Yes, it been a little bit of a let down to feel like we were close and then to hear nothing for the last month. BUT God know and sees. I have to resist the temptation to think of these experiences as cruel...as though God was "holding out the carrot" for me. This was for our good, and even though I don't understand it...I don't need to. I just need to wait well and trust His sovereignty.

I read this today off the Christian Adoption Service blog and it was a great reminder for me. I hope it encourages you as well.

Waiting and Wondering
By Wendy Lawton
From Impressions in Clay
copyrighted 2005 by Wendy Lawton.
Published by Moody Publishers.
Journey November 2010
Pages 16-18

We spend much of our lives waiting. We wait in lines to buy food. We wait on a street corner for a bus. When we are children, we wait impatiently to grow up. As adults we wait with dread for old age to set in. Some of us wait for healing. Others wait for circumstances to change. When we read the word wait in the Bible, it often means an entirely different thing. In our everyday lives, drumming fingers, twiddling thumbs, or restless pacing usually accompany our waiting. The waiting we see in the Bible is all about supplication and relationship. When we hear "wait on the Lord," the injunction is to be quiet, to listen, to pray, to anticipate. It's the opposite of the everyday uneasy wait. It's not about lines and delays; it's about being still and getting connected. We can learn to wait on the Lord in the everyday bustle of life. As we spend precious minutes delayed at the airport or waiting for someone at the doctor's office, we can learn to really wait, to listen for God's voice. Back in Jerusalem, had Jeremiah seen the pot through to completion, he might have been dismayed to discover that even a perfectly formed vessel still has a long way to go. After the pot is made, the potter turns his back on the vessel while it's put on a shelf to air-dry. It's an image to ponder-- the vessel, set aside, becoming drier and drier. The image resonates with me. It parallels those times when I experience spiritual and emotional dryness. I've noticed that I begin to describe those strange wilderness times with phrases that begin with "I feel ..." or "I think ..." For instance, I may feel God is far away. Or I think He's turned His back on me for some reason. I feel as if I can't pray. I think God no longer listens. Imagine the feelings of htat set-aside pot, banished to the drying shelf while he hears the potter working on a new vessel. Perhaps he longs to have the potter's hands on his moist clay once again. Instead, he feels his clay body getting drier and drier. What he wouldn't give for the potter to simply turn around and acknowledge him. The sun comes in through the window behind him, and with way too much time on his hands, he starts noticing the shadows cast against the shed wall. How come he never noticed relative size before? Some might even characterize him as a modest-sized pot compared to the others. What if his mission in life is to be equally modest? He looks around, trying to compare his shape to the shape of the other pots in the drying room when he catches a movement through the doorway. It's a new pot rising from the potter's wheel. What? It's the biggest pot yet. Surely it will hold enough wine for a wedding feast. He feels further diminished, and still the potter never turns away from the moving wheel. Think ... Feel ... the words themselves give a clue to the problem. This set-aside time in our spiritual journey is often marked by words of emotion. The anthropomorphic pot in our example gave in to insecurities and started comparing himself to others. The more diminished he felt, the more his neediness grew. We've all experienced this. Sometimes insecurity is followed by other emotions life anger. "What am I?" "Why not me?" Or jealousy. "Why does God prosper that person's business when I've been serving Him for 20 years?" Or it may even take a self-deprecating turn. "I'm worthless and this proves it." The most important thing to remember is that emotions are great deceivers. Do not trust them. Our pot didn't have all the facts. The potter knew that if the clay body of the vessel didn't dry completely problems would occur in the firing and the pot could be lost. Just a bit of moisture could cause the glaze to crawl, ruining the pot in the end. The pot compared himself to the larger jar, but he had no idea what the potter had in store for him. What if the modest pot were to be decorated with a design of cobalt and gold and become a vessel to hold frankincense for a king? Or what if he remained a modest clay vessel whose only task was to pour drops of water onto lips of children dying from thirst? Who can begin to know the eternal worth of our mission? In the midst of a dry season in our life, we need to hold on to God's words. Did He say He'd never leave us? Grab that promise. Replace untrustworthy emotions with solid truth. Whether we feel connected, but we've made the intellectual decision to believe His promises. Hosea 6:3 says, "Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land." That's a promise, no matter how dry we feel.