Silence and #1

Today was a great day! This morning was rainy and chilly outside, so I curled up on my couch, sipped my cup of delicious Ethiopian Gobena Coffee, and continued reading a book I've fallen in love with: Lost Women of the Bible. Just as the sky was gray outside, my spirit's been a little gray these past few weeks. God's just been silent. It's felt like nothing is happening with our adoption. Then, I read this about Hannah, an Old Testament heroin who struggled for years with the pain of an empty womb.

Hannah was as yet unaware of how much God was doing in the silence. God's silence is not an accurate way to measure what he is doing. It's easy to forget he often does his best work when, so far as we can tell, he doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. But looking back on those long agonizing stretches of God's silence, most of us will say those were the times in our relationship with God when he was doing the most. In Hannah's case, although there was no physical evidence of his activity - no thunderbolt, no voice from heaven, no positive pregnancy test - God was doing a mighty work in Hannah's heart.

The silence has been deafening, confusing, and unnerving on my worst days. Then, an email came today.
Our case manager emailed to let us know that we are "on deck" for a referral. THE NEXT REFERRAL WILL BE OURS! The stretching part of the email was asking if we were open to potentially receiving a referral for our older child being up to 4 years old. Hmmm. After a couple hours of processing with Brian and my dear friend, Erin, we said YES.

We simply feel like we need to remain open to whatever God might have for us. We're already approved for a child up to 4 years old. Maybe there's a reason? Maybe there's a little one over 3 years old who's supposed to be a Diaz? Maybe God just wants to test our trust in him more? Maybe he's not done stretching us? The truth is, our entire journey toward becoming parents has been about releasing expectations, desires, time lines, and letting go so God can do his thing.

God knows the desire of our hearts: 2 biological siblings - boy under 3; girl under 1. But if he matches us to kids that don't meet those qualifications, we will say YES. We will obey. We made that commitment years ago when we started this process. And we trust that God knows best for us and our 2 babies.

PLEASE continue to pray for us and our babies. We won't know when THE CALL will come, but we are hopeful it's soon. There's still so much that needs to be worked out from our perspective. But tonight we celebrate!

Psalm 147

Last Sunday I woke up feeling especially tender toward our adoption. I just felt homesick for our babies. No reasons. Just a deep sense of missing these babies I've never laid eyes on. Then at Newsong we meditated on this Scripture [below] as a worship response. It was timely for me as the service was filled with orphan and baby talk. I spoke to our congregation about the good news of 1,104 children being sponsored from Malawi. I led our infant dedication part of the service. Dave Gibbons talked about the "maturity of a church is measured by how we care for widows and orphans". And a Newsong couple shared their miraculous adoption story. It was pretty emotionally intense, but this passage nourished me...

Psalm 147

¹ Praise the LORD.
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

² The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.

³ He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

⁴ He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.

⁵ Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

⁶ The LORD sustains the humble
but casts the wicked to the ground.

⁷ Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make music to our God on the harp.

⁸ He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.

⁹ He provides food for the cattle
and for the young ravens when they call.

¹⁰ His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;

¹¹ the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.

God Found Us You

Last week has come and gone, and a referral wasn't a part of last week. Yet it is well in our soul. We believe in ever-deepening ways that God's in control of our adoption. It sounds silly to say because it's so obvious, but it resonates more and more within us...actually mainly me. Brian has an uncanny ability to trust God more with this than I do, believing in God's perfect timing. It's annoying to this wife of little faith, but comforting to that my man has that posture.

Last week, one of my dearest friends gave us this book, God Found Us You. She wanted to give it to me for Mother's Day, but she couldn't wait. Erin gets our process in ways that we so desperately need. It was a gift last week because we know that God's in process of "finding" our babies.

Thank you for your prayers and fasting last week! We have to believe that while nothing happened last week in terms of our referral, God's doing something to connect our 2 children to us. Last week we were bombarded with emails, conversations, and confirmations that God's not only growing our hearts for our kids, but he's growing our communities hearts for our kids. When that day comes, our babies will be bombarded with kisses and love. For that - and so much else - we are grateful.

Also, tomorrow marks 6 months that we've been on the wait list. Who knew it would take this long? But grace has sustained us this far, and will sustain us today.