Hard Lessons

This week has been chock-full of hard lessons for me. Actually, it might have been the hardest set of lessons I've had to learn in quite some time. Perhaps that's the appropriate thing for the "anniversary" week of our family being available to adopt a baby. If you enjoy being refined in the midst of it, I commend you. I am more like the metal that cries, "What are you DOING to me?!" while being melted over the fire and can't quite appreciate it until everything cools off and I can see my beautiful new shiny appearance. How else would you get something so hard and stubborn to change shape?

Anyway, because I committed to being (mostly...haha) transparent on this blog, I think I am ready to briefly disclose my events and lessons in hopes that someone else can learn them the easy way.

Last week I had a beautiful baby born only 30 minutes after my shift started. I hadn't gotten to know the mother yet, but I knew there was an adoption planned through our agency and the mother didn't want to choose the adoptive parents. Now, in the midst of the situation I was presented with the thought, "this might be my baby." I mean, she isn't choosing, right? Then, in my "go get 'em" attitude I thought, "but what if she decides to choose, she should consider us!" So I told her. I told her we were waiting to adopt. This is the time in which I learned lesson #1, though only retrospectively.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak. Yes, this comes right out of the Bible, and yes, I have read it a thousand times. However, I didn't realize that's what I was learning until afterward.

This is the time in which she told me, "Actually, I would be fine with you adopting the baby, but I didn't want to choose because I don't want to accidentally recognize the parents on the street one day." Awesome, because here I am looking you in the face.

Clearly, there are a million and one ways I could have approached the situation before deciding to disclose my personal life to this woman, but I didn't try any of them. The reason is because I think I am going to do something. I am going to make it happen rather than be still and let the Lord do what He wants. I mean, if God isn't working on my timeline then I will just take it into my hands and get it resolved, right? Of course not. That was lesson number two. My nature is inclined to just take it into my own hands, but this whole adoption thing isn't a work of me and I'm not going to bring it to pass. It's a work of Him, and has been since the first day He put the vision in our hearts. This wasn't on the 5 year plan. Well, our 5 year plan. Until He spoke, of course.

After I found out we were out on this baby, I did what made sense. I cried. And I whined. And I said to God, "What are you DOING?! I am SO tired of this wait. I am so weary of waiting on the daughter you told us about. It's not FAIR!" I also happened to acknowledge that God was probably saying, "Great, because I never said fair was in my character set." Because "just," which God is, is not the same as "fair." The whole pity-party seemed justified until we went to church this morning and the pastor was saying that when we grumble to God about our circumstances or lot we are telling Him we mistrust that He has our best in mind. Ohhh. That one stung. It's true. When I whine and grumble about waiting so long on this baby I am telling God, "I don't trust your best for me, for us, for our baby girl." Lesson number 3, clearly. This is different than telling God we feel weak, because when we are weak He is strong, and His power is made perfect in it. Trust me, I know the difference.

Lesson number 4, also courtesy of the teaching at church: Rather than grumbling, we should let our circumstances be a testimony to our good God. I have the choice to be joyful. To say, "Thank you, God, that my daughter was longed for, desired, and prayed for long before she was conceived. Thank you, God, that you know her by name and have picked her especially for our family. Thank you, God, that you would use the journey of adoption to make radical changes to my heart and character. Thank you for the opportunity to minister to others while we wait."

Another odd observation I made about myself this week, though not necessarily a lesson in and of itself is as follows. Two years before Josiah was conceived, God told me about the son to come in two years. I balked and declined. I said, "No thank you, I'll pass on that blessing," though my terms weren't quite so cordial. However, every time I got in the car alone (and that was a lot because I was commuting to school at the time) the Lord talked to me about this son named Josiah. It took somewhere between a year and a half and two years for all of that talking and "no's" to turn into "praise God from whom all blessings flow. I long and welcome the child you have for me." About 6 months later he was conceived, completely by surprise, when I had decided that perhaps all that talking was really about submission and not a child in flesh. Surprise, right?! We wouldn't trade it for the world. Wow, how much greater God's plan was. Now, here I sit, 4 years post-pregnancy, 18 months after starting the adoption process, thinking, "How ironic I would try to sneak away from the first blessing for the same amount of time I've been begging and longing for the second?" It is quite comical, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, it was a hard week. But I rejoice, truthfully. I rejoice. I am not who I was when I took my first steps into this adoption process. I trust God knows exactly who she is...Evangeline, bringer of good news, just like her name implies.