Hard Stuff

First off my homestudy and dossier responsibilities are almost complete. All the reading and meetings are done. I am now just waiting on them to write up the documentation and then I will be able to send off all of my documentation and begin the waiting. I received a newsletter this morning from my placing agency that gave an update on several families that had just received their referrals from Ethiopia. Just reading it caused me to be hit with a new wave of how real this is. One of the things that my homestudy worker said to me in our last meeting keeps playing over and over in my head. She was talking about how quick my FEI Clearance came through and she said, “God must have your babies ready for you.” Knowing that my little boys are out there and God knows who they are, what they look like and all of the details that have to be worked out so that I can hold them in my arms makes me glad that I believe in a big God.

Although the past months have been extremely exciting on many levels in regards to the adoption moving forward, they have also been hard. Tonight I will be going to the second visitation in as many weeks for a close friend’s parent who died from cancer. Another close friend was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier in the summer and is undergoing treatment and the mother of another close friend was diagnosed with leukemia. There is an incredible song by Josh Wilson called “Before the Morning” that brings me hope in the midst of being sad for my friends. My favorite line from that song is “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.”

The closest I can come to that joy on this earth is knowing what God has called me to and running with reckless abandon towards that. This includes not only following this whole adoption thing through to its finish but also striving to know God more every day and mold my steps to follow after Him. Even though I fail at this frequently I find peace in knowing that He is continually there with arms open wide. The Starfield song called “The Hand that Holds the World” speaks to this – “No greater joy is there than this, to know for what we’re meant to live; to hold your hand, to touch your face, to find ourselves in loves embrace; I want to stand before the King, Join in the song that heaven’s sings, I want to hold the hand that holds the world.”