Thoughts on Adoption

Where are we at? Read on for our journey so far (including the current status with COVID), my Word of the year that holds me through…plus a heartwarming update 💕

Going into this, we never had the guarantee of an easy journey.

And honestly, anyone adopting right now – particularly from China – is having quite a rough time of it.

~The couple just beginning finds their dossier paperwork moving snail slow…
so slow, in fact, some of it is expiring before it’s fully processed –
necessitating the paperwork be started over.

A mountain of disappointment over the mountain of paperwork that’s equivalent to scaling Mt. Everest in terms of difficulty and time. They call a dossier a “paper pregnancy” for a reason.

~The couple like us is over the incline of monstrous paperwork, but they bear another problem. Our paperwork has been sitting so long that some of it is now expiring – necessitating more paperwork, more time, more fees.

~The couple that’s matched owns a photo, a face, videos, records…but carries a tender weight in their heart, painful to manage. A child so close in heart, yet so far away, an out of reach dream in the darkness of night. Some have resided here on the cusp of a year now.

~The couple that’s not matched has to face the fact that China is no longer sending out new files. They haven’t done so since Summer of 2020. They must wait in silence – no picture, no name, nothing except for the desperate internal pleas for China to start moving again.

And what of those 500+ orphans, matched and waiting, hoping to go home, yet held back? Travel to China for adoptive parents is closed until the pandemic is over.

I don’t know where you stand, but I think it’s apparent COVID19 is far from over.

All this is hard.

All this hurts.

And I know all about these situations because this is where we sit. 

Our situation. Our adoption. Once upon a time, we dreamed a dream of bringing her home…yet that feels so long ago now. She was a nameless, shrouded face to us, just an inkling in our heart.

Nameless. Unknown.

Until three months ago.

Could She be our Daughter?

October 5.

We were still reeling in grief over having to release our prior match – a sweet, little girl with newly uncovered special needs we found too much for our family to handle.

My fragile heart, with wounds too fresh to comprehend, felt compelled to check out an agency website I’d never been to before.

Enter password – the same name as my son’s and his story a key parallel to this one (hope to release that story later!) – Wow, that’s a good sign…

A few keystrokes in the search field reveal two young ones – little fingers, tiny toes, claps and bangs and smiles all around in posted videos. And potentially manageable special needs.

All good signs.

I hurry from here on out, as I know time is of the essence in all adoption cases. Emails sent, information obtained, deep and involved talks as a couple, the hush hush around our own kiddos –

We would never so quickly reveal this possibility after the heartache of losing our first. Not until we were sure –

But time seals all things, and the cascade of the next days brings one of those two little girls straight to the home of our heart.

In the midst of a pandemic, where the probability of us finding our newest family member in the midst of a grossly stalled adoption process is nil –

God matches us to our little girl.

MIRACLE –

that this precious beating heart would be intertwined with ours in this whole mysterious, crazy, unpredictable, journey.

Crazy…yes.

Unpredictable…absolutely.

Delayed…sadly.

If things weren’t at a standstill and we were on normal schedule, we’d be flying to bring her home now.

Oh, my aching heart.

Yet I must stop myself before my passions and emotions carry me away on a frantic train wreck –

For I cannot discount His hand in all this. 

Not God above, who with one year is as a thousand days (2 Peter 3:8). Put otherwise, his timing and ours do not look the same.

His timing.

His perfect timing.

A Timing Unknown

Try as I might to plan my life, I can hardly say I’ve had control.

I missed out on typical childhood experiences only available in youth, despite my desperation for a normal life.

I got married straight out of college, despite my plans to do other things first.

We had our first child 6 1/2 years into our marriage, despite attempts to get pregnant and start a family earlier.

And biblically speaking, God’s timing has often defied the ideas and plans of man.

Abraham and Sarah were promised a son when they were already advanced in age…God waited even longer before Isaac was born – a full 25 years longer. (Genesis 18:10-14)

Joseph had dreams early on of others bowing down to him…his route took him through betrayal of his brothers, slavery, a false accusation, and prison. (Genesis 50:17-20)

Jesus died a crucial death…to the horror and confusion of His follower, who thought his time to reign on earth was then and there. (Luke 24:20-21)

In all of these surprisingly-timed circumstances, the outlook beforehand didn’t match the outcome.

The walk down the broken path was anything but easy. 

But the afterwards…

the 20/20 spectacles given to us at the other end of the story…

then, we see.*

We finally see and understand that God knew what He was doing all along.*

2021. Word.

If you haven’t guessed my word for this year yet, it’s trust. 

Trust in a God who knows what’s best.

Trust in the One who’s had the perfect plan all along.

I don’t think it’s a shock to your or me that this perfect plan comes with a perfect timing that isn’t always cohesive with our desires…

Yet what this perfect timing grows is worth it’s weight in gold.

For one – 

His Perfect Timing grows our faith as we wait on Him and trust Him.

That word, again – trust.

Also – 

His Perfect Timing gives the glory to Him and Him alone.

And honestly? He’s getting the glory already in all He’s done thus far, in all He’s done in us internally. 

He’s the One who birthed that inkling in our hearts those many years back when we first started foster care – and He’s the One seeing us through.

He’s the One who started us on the adoption journey when we had no money to do so – and He’s the One who’s provided.

He’s the one who brought her to us – and will bring her home at the right time.

No, it’s not an easy tale to live through.

But we have the ever-wise Author penning the lines and, when we reach the end of the story, I’m sure we‘ ll see for ourselves –

His plan was perfect all along.

JOIN US IN PRAYER!

Time races on. China gave our dear girl a birth date in January – this month, she turns three.

The name we’ve temporarily given her means “yielding in prayer.” We’d love for you to join us in prayer for her, and the 500+ other Chinese orphans, to make it home this year!

And as we pray and and watch and wait…we trust in Him to work this year in the way He’s already chosen. 

To God be the glory. 💛

*Please note: we don’t always see the reason for the pain after the fact. There are some things that remain hidden from us…maybe for many years, maybe for the rest of our lives, perhaps to be revealed to us in heaven. There are things in my own life I anticipate I wont fully understand this side of eternity.

**What about you? Is there something you’re waiting on that’s hard to bear? Are you in the midst of an adoption that’s stalled? Would love to hear your story 🧡