This Gift

"A gift opens the way
    and ushers the giver into the presence of the great."

~Proverbs 18:16

I've been struck lately by so many things that seem to be gifts to me.  Gifts God has blessed me with.  Three in particular right now I wanted to briefly share with you.

1. The gift of God's Presence.  The month of May was really hard for me.  I was so focused on the frustrations of the process of adoption I was forgetting to be blessed during the process.  Out of much pain I chose to do some things God was encouraging me begging me to do in order to follow Him and receive the gift He had for me.  Let me be clear that following God in that moment was the last thing I really wanted to do because I knew it meant sacrificing some very precious things personally--sacrificing what I had deemed "right".  However, I wanted to follow Him because I have grown so incredibly much in my faith and trust in who God is and knew He would help me do what He was asking of me.  After the pain of the sacrifice wore off a bit, I found myself in the Presence of God's grace, mercy, love, peace, and joy once again.  Not just the way I had been in the past, but in an even more illuminated way.  I can not describe the amount of peace and joy I have in my heart right now.  Following Him, even when it hurts to the 100th degree, truly is a gift if you are willing to go through the pain of the sacrifice to gain the Presence of the Lord like you have never experienced before.  A priceless gift indeed.

2. The gift of God's "best".  One thing I've struggled with along this journey is not really knowing about Nora's day-to-day life and developing personality.  It is hard to know others get to experience her every day while I wait to know anything of significance.  Our director is an amazing woman who cares deeply for these children.  She and the nannies meet their needs the absolute best they can and their efforts are helping to make Nora an extremely well-adjusted little lady.  I'm so blessed by their care for her.  The "down-side" (if I have to call it something) to the amazing care Nora receives is that it there is not much time for emailing us and letting us know what all is happening with our sweet little girl.  When our director is not hands-on with the children, she is busy, busy, busy working on the process of paperwork for all the families.  She just doesn't have spare moments to gush out news for us.  As much as I understand this, it doesn't mean this hasn't still been hard to accept.  Being independent in our adoption (without an agency rep to fill us in regularly on Nora), we just miss out on regular doses of information.

One of the things God was asking of me recently was to give up the hope that our director would finally find a moment to spare and tell us about Nora.  He was specifically asking me to allow her to do what she does best--be the orphanage director, not what I was still wishing for--her to also be the "agency rep" for us.  Allowing her to focus more on what I know she is amazing at, frees me from expecting too much from her.  Instead, God also asked me to write down any questions I would normally want to ask of our director, and ask them instead of Him.  I had no idea how, but I felt He was reassuring me that somehow, in His way, He would answer those questions or give me a peace that would have never come before.  This was HARD for me to do!  However, friends, God is so amazing and has done just as He said He would!  He has certainly given me peace and even answers to my questions in such a unique and unexpected way.  He is so cool!  Recently the orphanage was blessed by the presence of an American pediatric physical therapist named Mary for 6 months.  While reading through her website and blog about her time in Haiti, I was able to find a way to contact her personally.  I wanted to thank her for serving Nora and the rest of the crew there and tell her we value her expertise she was willing to extend to these precious kids.  In response, she has been able to give us the most detailed report to date on what Nora is like and her day consists of.  It was a priceless gift.  God used this precious woman to answer my questions.  Not only that, but He used her to pass along beautiful photos of our baby girl and a video as well, which we have not yet figured out how to play, but just knowing she sent it was a gift in and of itself.  I'm so in love with the Lord--when I place my trust in Him, He not only delivers what I hoped for, He goes so far beyond my wildest imagination and gifts me with His "best" instead.  Oh how humbly I accept His love for me.

3.  The gift of Nora.  How can I not be thankful for the gift she is already in my life?  Just look at these precious photos of her.  Her inner beauty radiates out of those eyes and gifts anyone who sees her.

As I have released so much of my frustrations to the Lord, the joy of receiving the gift of Nora has returned 10 fold.  I have been able to focus on how excited I am for her to enter our family.  To dream about the ways she is going to enhance our home and family in ways I can only imagine.  To thank God for the gift she is already and will continue to be to my life.  I am beyond ready to hold her daily, show her love, guide her in knowing more of the Lord, and watch her grow and blossom into what God has created her to be.  Nora is such a gift to me and I thank God for her every day.

The other night, Micah and I were watching the movie "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and the song during the credits captured my heart.  I knew instantly it was the song of Nora's homecoming for me.  It is the song that will guide me through these last few months until she is in my arms.  And wouldn't you know, God has used a song that is literally entitled "This Gift".  Really, things like this should not surprise me at this point in my relationship with Him, but still...how amazing is that!  I'll let you take a listen and be blessed as well as we go through these last several months together...

So, as far as the process, if you haven't heard the news yet, our papers in MOI had just one tiny little spelling error in Nora's birth mom's name, so that has been sent back for correction and hopefully soon we will be moving on to passports.  At this point in the process we know "soon" needs to be held loosely.  It could easily still be another month before leaving MOI, which is all the more reason to pray for those papers to move as fast as God can make them.  Passports should just take a week or so at most and then we will move forward to the US side of the adoption process.  The US Embassy will issue Nora a visa and this has been taking approximately 4-8 weeks recently.  Our newest extension deadline for our visa approval is October 4th.  When I told our director that date she seemed to think we would not need another extension for it because Nora should be home before then.  Our hopes and prayers are focused on getting her home before September 30th, her 2nd birthday.  We want desperately to celebrate that birthday together as a family and we also (selfishly) want to get her home before she turns 2 because we would not have to pay for her flight if we can do that.  The financial strain is potentially coming with the extended time this adoption has taken beyond what we originally thought it would take.  Saving any money in the end would also be a gift!  So, please join us in praying for this spelling correction to be taken care of quickly and for everything else along the road to go smoothly so we can be welcoming Nora into our country, home, and arms before the end of September!  As always, we cherish your prayers and support along the road.

"A gift opens the way
    and ushers the giver into the presence of the great."

~Proverbs 18:16