On Running, and Waiting, and God

Here's where I out myself as a crazy person...

God speaks to me when I'm running.  No, really, that is where I got the "let's adopt a baby from a country a billion miles away" idea.  When I brought it up to Michael I prefaced it with "I don't want you to say anything yet, but..." and every time we talked about how it didn't make sense and it was too much (financially, emotionally) all I could come back to was that God told me to do it.  Not in an I-read-a-Bible-verse-on-adoption way, either.  I felt God when I was running.  I mean, there were other things that lined up to create the perfect storm of this desire, but it all started when I was running.  I even wrote a message to some of my very dearest friends asking them to pray for me as I felt the Holy Spirit moving in me but I couldn't figure out what He was trying to say.  All I knew was that when I laced up my shoes and strapped on my ipod (full of praise and worship music, which I'm sure is the choice of runners everywhere!), I would be in communion with God.  It's my refuge in this stormy life of picking up legos (which *must* procreate as there is no other explanation) and driving kids to ballet and soccer and the doctor and story time and making dinner every.single.night (for real, could we please take a night off of eating?  and the inevitable cleaning that accompanies making food?).  It's my chance to do something for myself that recharges me physically and spiritually.  And it is where I ask God what he wants from me and where I try my hardest to listen.  As my feet hit the pavement, step after step, I feel closer to God than I ever have.

Running is also where I try to give praise back to God.  I turn off my music and offer my full attention to Him (don't mind the lady who is simultaneously crying and talking to herself...).  I "stand" in awe of His creation, both within me and around me.  After years of struggling with body image and weight, I have come to a place of appreciating the health and strength He has given me.

We are almost to our 1 month DTE-versary, and let me tell you, the waiting is HARD.  I know that it is harder for those who have been in the process longer than us, and especially those who have pictures of their children but just found out that they will not go to court until after the "rainy season" or those who are waiting on just one more clearance so they can finally, after months and months, bring their child home. But, knowing there are others who have been waiting longer or endured more than we have does not make the waiting any easier. Friends and family ask me if there are any updates, and it's all I can do to not break down right then and there because I know that there will be no updates for years.  I am usually an optimist, but I am trying to be realistic and let me tell you, realistic is not a fun thing to be when talking about international adoption. As I try to figure out a way to make the wait go more quickly, God gently reminds me that, for now, this is His plan.  I try to tell Him that I did not sign up for this 4-5 year wait.  I try to explain what *my* plan for our family is.  At times I am at peace with the wait, and other times (like this week) I am wracking my brain and the google for what I can do to speed it up.  And, as happens again and again, God speaks to my heart.  I barely have to be on the treadmill for a full minute before I feel that stirring in me.  Today it came in the form of a song on my Pandora station and a quote that I read on a friend's facebook wall (don't laugh, God uses modern technology ;)).

Ok God.  You're hilarious.  Of course I place value on this child and am willing to wait for this as long as it takes, just like I did with the children we have.  Michael and I are no strangers to waiting for God's timing when it comes to children, as we struggled with a year and a half of infertility before conceiving our 3 perfect children one right after the other.  The problem is that I'm 1 month in to this wait and I am weary.  So then He offers up this song (courtesy of the best movie ever, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2") and it describes my heart and once again I am reduced to tears while running on a treadmill in the middle of the morning (stop staring at me gym-people!  it's totally normal to cry while you're running!). It was the "how can I love when I'm afraid to fall" and "I have died every day waiting for you" that did it, because that is how I feel.  I have heard too many stories of failed adoptions and country closures and bureaucratic slow-downs to feel secure in this adoption.  I feel broken inside both because I have a child out there whose face I have never seen and that I cannot protect, but that I love with all of my mama-heart, and because I know this child's story will involve, at the very least, the worst kind of tragedy I could have imagined as a child myself.  But as I say in pretty much every post ~ should be the theme of my blog ~ God's plan is bigger than my plan.  God's sovereignty is, well, sovereign.  I need to die to myself daily and cling to God.  Every moment brings me one step closer to His plan for our family, and as my header says, His Plan is My Hope.

Heart beats fastColors and promisesHow to be braveHow can I love when I'm afraid to fallBut watching you stand aloneAll of my doubt suddenly goes away somehowOne step closer

I have died everyday waiting for youDarling don't be afraid I have loved youFor a thousand yearsI'll love you for a thousand more

Time stands stillBeauty in all she isI will be braveI will not let anything take awayWhat's standing in front of meEvery breathEvery hour has come to thisOne step closer

I have died everyday waiting for youDarling don't be afraid I have loved youFor a thousand yearsI'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find youTime has brought your heart to meI have loved you for a thousand yearsI'll love you for a thousand more

One step closerOne step closer

I have died everyday waiting for youDarling don't be afraid I have loved youFor a thousand yearsI'll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find youTime has brought your heart to meI have loved you for a thousand yearsI'll love you for a thousand more

Thinking of Africa

"Children born to another woman call me “Mom.” The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me." -Jody Landers
(this quote showed up in my Facebook feed right after I had posted this blog; seems that I am not the only one thinking of birth mothers this Mother's Day)

Behind the beauty and joy and redemption and love of adoption, there is a dark, sad, ugly, painful truth.  Adoption is not the original plan for these children.  These children who have lost parents through disease and poverty and violence and every other misfortune you can think of.  It's easy to gloss over the pain and sadness when you think of the healing work that can be done when you bring a child into your home that otherwise would remain orphaned, but today, Mother's Day, I cannot help but think of the mothers on the other side of the world.  Mothers who experienced the joy and wonder of carrying a child in their womb and in their arms, only to have that joy taken away; diseases that could be cured or at least treated if only they lived in a different location, poverty so extreme that we can barely begin to understand, rape, shame, war.  We live in a fallen, sinful world, and this has never been more clear to me than when I began to try to understand how children, millions of children, are left without homes, without mothers.  This was not God's plan.  My heart is aching for our future child's first mother, and while I continuously pray for her, the sadness of what I know will happen is overwhelming.  I do not know her story, and it's possible that I never will, but what I do know is that it ends with a child, a beautiful, precious, amazing, perfectly created child.  A child who was born to her but will call me "Mama".  It is unfair.  I am so blessed, and look to the future with joy and anticipation as I wait for God to work, and yet I feel that I do not deserve such a precious gift.  But our God is a redeeming God, and while I may never understand why He will give this child to us and not her, I will forever be grateful for her sacrifice and will live my life in constant thankfulness for this mother who gave her child the most beautiful gift, life.

On this Mother's Day, while we remember our own mothers and friends who have children and those who long for both, I will also pray for the mother who gives up her child, whether her choice or not.  It is not the original plan, but I am so grateful to be a part of this mystery.