I’m not a person who is necessarily good at waiting. Waiting in line, waiting in traffic, waiting for dinner to cook. Waiting and I don’t get along. In fact I am fairly convinced that it is my lifelong task and goal to learn patience. I have 6 kids and the most common thing I hear from people when they find that out is, “Wow, you must have a lot of PATIENCE!” No! I don’t, at least not nearly as much as you would think. I usually just laugh and tell them they have no idea. I am learning patience. I’m learning, in the waiting, to wait well. It’s not easy, in fact just when I think I’ve got this waiting thing mastered, God sends a new challenge, a new and longer thing I have to wait for. My first few pregnancies, for example seemed to drag on, and on (it should be noted here that never have I actually carried a pregnancy all the way to the “due date”, I’ve gotten close, but always have had my babies “early”). That’s called being impatient, reaching the goal early and celebrating like you’ve overcome some great obstacle. I see now, those first few pregnancies were only the training ground for the waiting. All my babies were born between 36 and 39 weeks. The nature of learning to wait well is that when you master the challenge in one area, you sort of graduate to the next. By the time I had baby number 6 (who was born just 1 day before his “due date”) I felt I had mastered it! I got to the point where I was at ease with the waiting, and I had surrendered to God and said, Lord have your way. I’m completely content for this baby to come on your time table, not mine. I thought that was great, like I had passed this test, I had figured it out. Finally, I had attained this elusive “Patience” everyone was always telling me I had an abundance of.
That was only the beginning of the lesson. Shorty after our baby number 6 was born we felt the Lord was leading our family into a new season. For us this meant a season of being done having children biologically and the beginning of our journey into adoption. Adopting a child was something we had talked about for years prior, but always knew for our family it was not something we could pursue while I was pregnant or nursing a baby, we also felt as seasons change, that it would happen in a season when our biological children were all out of the “baby” stage. When my husband come home from a prayer meeting one day (which I didn’t attend because I was home with our newborn baby #6) and told me he had heard from the Lord it was time. I almost jumped for joy. I knew that meant it’s time to adopt. But in my impatient head I thought that was the green light. I was ready to start calling agencies the next day and getting a home study started. At this point we had already been waiting about 5 years to adopt. Waiting, patiently waiting. Not really talking about it, not really telling anyone except to say we wanted to “someday” when we were asked if we wanted more children. But just waiting. Adoption has been a dream in our hearts at this point in time, for about a decade. For 10 years I have been in the waiting. It’s been a dream in the heart of God even longer, we’ve only known about it for 10 years. That’s the mystery of God. He has dreams for us and if we grab hold of and latch onto them we can dream with Him. It’s a wild adventure, and it often takes longer than we expect. God’s timing is perfect, and it’s often not the same as ours.
Many things in life require waiting. Yes mommas have to wait for their babies to arrive, through adoption, or through pregnancy. Dreamers also have to wait for the fullness of their dreams. Adoption is a personal dream of mine. I have literally had dreams, multiple dreams, of a child. A daughter who is not from my bloodline. God has given us a name and I’ve seen her face in my dreams. I feel that I’ve been pregnant with this dream for almost a decade. I haven’t let go, I’ve wanted to! Many times I’ve said to God, “It’s too hard!” I can’t just keep waiting. I’ve tried to give the dream back to Him, but He won’t accept it. It’s part of my destiny, it’s who I am and part of my calling. A funny thing happens when you take up the mantle of prayer for a certain thing, it becomes interwoven into the very fabric of who you are. That is what has happened with me and this adoption thing. You can’t spend 10 years praying for the ending of abortion, and a heart of adoption without it somehow changing who you are. Habakkuk says it best in Habakkuk chapter 2:1-3
I will climb up to my watchtower
and stand at my guardpost.
There I will wait to see what the LORD says
and how he will answer my complaint.
Then the LORD said to me,
“Write my answer plainly on tablets,
so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.
This vision is for a future time.
It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
for it will surely take place.
It will not be delayed.
This is my way of writing the vision plainly on tablets, so that a runner may carry it to others. There is a time coming soon when abortion will be a thing of the past. We are already seeing the shift in the culture where the next generation is turning away from the mindset of the past. They are, in large numbers, rejecting the theory that a child in the womb is “property” of the mother to do with whatever she wills. What happens when abortion ends in our nation? There will still be unplanned and sometimes unwanted children who are conceived. The people of God must arise and say, I will take that baby. I will raise him, or her as my own. And not only be available to do so, but have a heart desire to welcome these little ones like Jesus. It takes more than a willing heart to say, I will raise that child. That baby that you don’t want or aren’t capable of raising. it’s takes a heart willing to be content in the waiting. Adoption is hard, it’s costly, and it requires patience at a level that many people don’t possess. Adoption is also a beautiful picture of a loving God who gave everything, even his own son so that He could adopt us as sons and daughters. #AdoptionIsRedemption #WorthTheWait