What I Feel the Most...

I wasn't entirely expecting it, but there it is again.

For the past 23 days, I've been over-the-moon excited for Lil' A and Baby T coming into our lives. I've saved their pictures to my phone's home screens, my laptop background, printed some for our fridge and we actually framed 2 of each of them. We are fully in love! They feel like ours already, even though we are very aware that something devastating could happen and our adoption could fall through. We deeply celebrate everyday that what was lost is now found.

What I wasn't entirely expecting what how much grief I would feel for their birth mothers. Overwhelming compassion. Deep sorrow. Soulful mourning. While I have never been able to conceive a child, a woman who was had to give hers up because they wouldn't survive without it. I cannot imagine. Simply cannot imagine that grief of giving up a child you love because of poverty.
I've found myself praying frequently for their birth family. Praying for peace. Praying for healing. Praying for comfort. Praying for restoration. Praying for confirmation that her sacrifice was courageous and right. Praying the Holy Spirit - in ways only he can - will let her know that Brian and I will passionately love their child.

Tonight I was reading my blog roll and found THIS POST. I wept as I read. It's a snapshot into my heart and a prayer I have for our children to someday find some answers for their identity. The reality is that adoption is FILLED with grief and pain, but God - as only God can do - bring beauty from ashes.

Struggle Well! Wait in Hope!

A blog friend emailed this to me today and I thought it was so beautiful and spiritually mature. While sometimes well-intentioned Christians want to cover up the pain with spiritual language and slap Bible verses on pain, this is such a deeper spiritually formative way to handle pain and struggle...

"God says, never ignore your struggle with how I do things. Ask every question that rises in your heart as you live in this world. But prepare yourself to struggle even more with My response. You must stumble in confusion before you dance with joy.

Know this: those who live by faith will struggle in ways that those who live to make their lives work will never know. It is that struggle, to believe despite desperate pain and confusion that a good plan is unfolding, that will open your eyes to see Me more clearly. Is that what you want? Will you pay the price?

The price is this: you will tremble in agony as you live in a sinful, self-prioritizing world. You will learn to wait in emptiness and frustrated desire for My plan of love to reveal itself. With confidence in Me and hope in My plan, you will not only feel the pain of living in the valley but also see My glory from the mountaintop of faith.

Only those who struggle in confusion and wait in hope will be strengthened to struggle well and to wait with confidence.

Struggle well! Wait in hope!"

[from 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God that Invites You into His Story by Dr. Larry Crabb, copyright 2009]

Persistent Prayers

I've been pushing my friend, Maria, to get into her prayer closet for us and pray for our referral to come soon. I got an email from her on Saturday morning saying she'd spent time in that closet at 1am praying for us and our babies. God gave her a Scripture that I hadn't spent time in throughout our adoption, but it was SPOT ON. Tears streamed down my face as a I read her email and what God had said to her about us. For now, I'll just share about the Scripture.
May it encourage and push you in whatever is stretching you these days...

Romans 5:1-11, but mostly 3-5

3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

The very next verse starts off with “6: You see, at just the right time”….

From Maria's email: "I feel it is SO close and God is planning it all. But I also felt that there needs to be a sense of “humbleness”. I’m not sure what that means to you, but that word just kept coming. But I kept feeling like God has been humbling you and He wants just a hair more."

I'm so grateful for friends like Maria who've carried us through this process and are waiting with us, showing us more of God and ourselves in the process.