One Lesson

God is my Shepherd

And I am his little lamb.

He feeds me

He guides me

He looks after me

I have everything I need

Inside, my heart is very quiet.

As quiet as lying still in soft, green grass

In a meadow

By a little stream

Even when I walk through

the dark, scary, lonely places

I won't be afraid

Because my Shepherd knows where I am

He is here with me

He keeps me safe

He rescues me

He makes me strong

And brave.

He is getting wonderful things ready for me

Especially for me

Everything I ever dreamed of!

He fills my heart so full of happiness

I can't hold it all inside.

Wherever I go I know

God's Never Stopping

Never Giving Up

Unbreaking

Always and Forever

Love

Will go, too!

Psalm 23

from the Jesus Storybook Bible

When we started the adoption we thought it was something God wanted us to do for Sam. Now as we near the end of the process I have learned that adoption is something God wants us to do for us. God has revealed himself in so many ways that I can't begin to list them all. When the Bible says that true religion is visiting orphans and widows we tend to put that into a box. God wants us to help those people because they need help. What I've learned is that God wants us to love those people to show us how he loves us.

This whole adoption has been about Jesus. I was guilty of putting Jesus in a box. Demarcating the parts of my life where Jesus went and keeping other parts separate from him. I was on my schedule, doing my own thing, and asking God to help me when it was convenient and to live on my schedule. I had made myself a pocket sized Jesus.

At the end of the adoption I have learned so much. When my arms ache to hold my child I am reminded of how much more God's arms ache to hold us. When I think of how much love there is in my heart for him I have just a small idea of how much God loves me. And when I think I know everything and that my plans are perfect, God shows me that his plans are bigger and grander and more incredible that I could even imagine.

On Friday we got an email saying "Hey, you're documents aren't going to get here until Monday and by the way Sam was sent to the hospital with appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery. He's doing fine and will be out of the hospital in a week."

And for the first time in the last 16 months I made myself be still. I didn't freak out, I didn't have a panic attack, I just came home and sat in Sam's room. I sat in the rocking chair and asked God why my baby had to be in the hospital without his parents again. Why this couldn't have waited one month until he was home. And God spoke.

The Peterson family gave us "The Jesus Storybook Bible" at our baby shower last week and it was sitting on Sam's nightstand. I picked it up and opened it and it opened to Psalm 23. It was like Jesus himself was reading it to me. And assuring me that he was whispering it in our Sam's ear as well. "Even when I walk through the dark, scary, lonely places I won't be afraid because my Shepherd knows where I am." God was assuring me that he knew exactly where Sam was, that he loved him more than I could, and that he would comfort him when I can't.

Our God is mighty. He's big and powerful. But He's also small enough to comfort us when we cry and hear us when we call. He wants only the best for Sam because He loves him.

The truth is God wants only the best for me too. He loves me too. So much. All I have to do is trust. He wants the best for you too. Only the best. Because he loves you too. This whole adoption was about learning that one lesson. And it was a good one.

Dedication

Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

If you'll take a good, hard look at my pain,

If you'll quit neglecting me and go into action for me

By giving me a son,

I'll give him completely, unreservedly to you.

I'll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.

Before the year was out, Hannah had conceived and given birth to a son. She named him Samuel, explaining, "I asked God for him."

When Elkanah next took his family on their annual trip to Shiloh to worship God, offering sacrifices and keeping his vow, Hannah didn't go. She told her husband, "After the child is weaned, I'll bring him myself and present him before God—and that's where he'll stay, for good."

1 Samuel 1:10-11, 20-22, The Message

When we started our adoption I had a cursory knowledge of the story of Hannah and Samuel. Since then it has taken on a special significance. We didn't name Sam "Sam", it was simply the code name Bethany had given him on their list. But the story took hold along with the name. Sam was a son desperately wanted by his mother. I related to the pain Hannah feels in her waiting. For almost a year I thought of Hannah and her fervent prayer and felt it in my heart.



The thing I didn't remember is the second half of Hannah's prayer.



We had baby dedications this week at church. I expected them to make me sad because I really thought Sam would be home by the time these dedications rolled around. But I wasn't sad. I was happy for the parents up there and looking forward to the day I can dedicate Sam to the Lord. Hannah didn't just ask God for a son. She also dedicated his life to God. I am really learning that Sam's life belongs to God. Any moment I get to spend being his mom is a privilege and a gift. I think about how Hannah must have cherished those moments every year when she could visit Samuel at the temple and how proud of him she must have been.



God had big plans for Samuel's life. God has big plans for Sam's life. I'm just lucky that I'll get to play a small part in them.

Detour

I drive to work everyday on a sort of country road. It's two lanes and it passes through a golf course but it also goes back past some historic houses and in my opinion it used to be one of the prettiest drives in all of Nashville.

And then about 9 months ago someone, somewhere, decided that the road needed to be widened for reasons I still don't understand and they yanked up all the trees and pulled done the crumbling stone walls and ripped up the concrete. And then a couple of weeks ago they started rerouting everyone around on the same road I usually turn off on. On this road is a tiny church and the church has one of those signs that they change weekly with a new pithy saying. For a whole week once the first line said "God is up to something." I liked that. I don't remember what the rest of it said but I liked the idea that God was up to something.

This week the first line is driving me nuts.

"This detour was planned"

Not exactly what I want to hear. I wanted to be mad and rail against God and shake my fist and stomp my feet. In essence I wanted to throw a temper tantrum because I felt like God had stolen something precious from me. We are missing precious weeks of Sam's life that we will never get back. Ever. And I felt robbed.

And I did not want to be reminded that every second we are alive and have breath in our lungs is a gift from God. Every minute we get with Sam, the fact that we get to be Sam's parents is a gift. God can't exactly steal something that was his to begin with.

Am I still sad? Yes. Am I trying hard to believe that this detour was planned by an almighty and sovereign God who knows something I do not? Yes. Is it easy? No. Is it good for me? Probably.

This detour was planned. And it's only a detour. We'll still get where we're going. It just may take a little longer than expected.

A long time coming

I've been thinking about this post for months it seems like. It's weird to talk about and hard to think about, so posting about it was not exactly on the top of the list of things I wanted to do.

This is the post about Ellie.

We really wanted Ellie. We bought some little girl clothes and were planning where to put the crib and even painted Sam's room a gender neutral color. There were several months where it sounded like we would get her. And then a few months where they weren't sure. And then we got to Russia and were told that basically she was too sick to be adopted and that even America probably wouldn't let her enter the country.

At the time we were consumed with being in Russia and meeting Sam and it was easy to push it aside.

But I think about her daily. I'm sad that Sam won't know his sister. There will always be a little hole in our family where she would have gone.

But God has plans we don't know about. We rest in the fact that this was God's will and have to try and be the best parent's to Sam possible.

Levavi Oculus

The theme of my life is "Levavi Oculus." My Hollins girls are going to make fun of me for this but it's true. Even before I went to Hollins my favorite bible passage was Psalms 121 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth."

This weekend I was struck in the face by how horizontal my gaze had become. In this whole process the Lord has been imploring me to look to him and instead I look to myself and worry when things spin out of my control. The message at church was a profound and moving one about taking a leap of faith and trusting the Lord to catch you when you fell. Instead we are like Wyle E. Coyote after he walks off the cliff and realizes he's falling and starts waving his arms, frantically trying to stay afloat.

I was struck by how insidious the enemy is, especially in this process. Somewhere along the way I convinced myself that the mere fact that I was adopting made me a good Christian and I could let the other stuff, the actual important stuff fall by the wayside to be replaced by busyness and service. And there were good, well meaning people reaffirming this for me everyday. Adoption doesn't make us good. Adoption proves how good God is.

I am now making a concentrated effort to go back to the things that are important. I am getting back to prayer, and bible reading. I have committed myself to attend church for the next 4 weeks in a row because corporate worship is important. Adoption is not the end of the journey, it's just the beginning of a bigger journey of parenthood and these are the things that will help make us good parents.

Already we are tested. I am determined to believe that God is in control of all of this. But there are papers I sent to the FBI and I don't know that they ever got there and I don't know that they are being processed. I've emailed them but I'm not guaranteed a response. The controlling part of me wants to just redo them, get a new tracking number and send them back in. This is the part of me that wants to ignore that still small voice that says don't worry, I've got it. I'm resisting. I'm waiting. God is a big God and he has Sam's best interests at heart.

I was also reminded this week that faith is the assurance of things not seen. It is not a great time to be adopting from Russia. I am not going to say that in the past week I have not asked God why this is so hard, why we couldn't have gone an easier way. But there are things at work that we cannot see and we have faith that God's plan is perfect.

God loves Sam more than I ever could. God has plans for him that I cannot fathom. God's timing is perfect. We rest in this knowledge and hope that God brings Sam home soon.

Would you dare to believe?

Maybe there are things you can’t see

And all those things are happening

To bring a better ending

.

Someday somehow you’ll see, you’ll see

.

Would you dare would you dare to believe

That you still have a reason to sing

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

It can’t compare to the joy that’s coming

.

So hold on you gotta wait for the lig ht

Press on and just fight the good fight

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

.

It’s just the dark before the morning

.

I heard this Josh Wilson song on the radio last night after talking to my mom about E. And I don't like to wax poetic about songs being inspirational or whatever but this is exactly the song I needed to hear. I needed to hear that God was working even if I couldn't see it and that soon all of this pain and sadness and hurting would just be a memory and none of it compares to what's ahead.

There is a box of clothes on the kitchen table. They are little girls clothes I ordered off ebay several weeks ago. They came the day before we got the email that said they didn't think we could have her. And they are still sitting there because I can't bear the thought of taking those tiny little clothes up stairs and putting them on hangers and then having to take them down and put them away. I couldn't stick them in a closet or give them to my mom, they just needed to sit there. Which seems silly to Tim. It's like if they are sitting there then there is still hope. We haven't given up.

I think I'm going to hang them up. I'm going to do it because there is something comforting about having those little clothes hang there in anticipation. And I need to believe that God is bigger than this and that he has a better plan for all of us. Other than that we are just waiting.

Waiting,
waiting,
waiting.

Hope Produces Perseverance

"And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:2-5 Adoption is not a sprint, it is definately a marathon and in the last few days it definately feels like we hit the wall. Along with the joy of potential travel dates came an email that basically says that people in Russia feels like E would require too much care, that trying to adopt her may hurt our chances to get S and that we should basically give it up and move on. This was extremely hard to hear. In our hearts E is our daughter and I could not picture going over there and knowing that she was being left in an orphanage. This is where hope becomes so important. We will try as hard as we can to bring her home with us this time. We will persevere. But if it doesn't come to pass we will not give up. In two years when we can adopt again we will try again to go back and get her. I cannot imagine doing this all over again, or how long that two years will be but in this case hope will produce perseverance not the other way around. And we still have hope in the knowledge that God is sovereign over every single bit of this process. If he wants E to come home with us she will. And if we have to wait two years for that day than that is God's plan too. God did not leave us and so we cannot leave her. We hope. We pray. And we trust that God is bigger than all of this.