A Banner Over 551 Days and Beyond

Today marks 1 year, 6 months, and 1 day into our adoption process.  That's a year and a half, folks.  551 days to be exact.  551 days since Micah and I agreed we would contact a small orphanage in Haiti to let them know we believe they have a child for us.  There are moments when these days have actually seemed to fly by, but more often than not, these days achingly move forward as if in slow motion.  It has been 551 days of my mind and heart being in two different worlds all day long and it has started to wear on me.  To give you some perspective, a typical 9 month pregnancy seems SO long to the woman carrying that child and that is approximately 279 days.  We are at 551.

I just told a friend and fellow adopting Mama yesterday, I've avoided writing a blog post for a little while now because I just don't have much positive gumption left in my attitude.  I'm trying...I really am trying to keep a more positive perspective, to be grateful and remember there are others who have been in this hard place much longer than we have been (which actually just brings guilt), and even reminding myself we truly are getting closer and closer to the day we'll bring Nora home.  The problem is all of these are honestly not touching the ache in my heart--they are just a trick to try to make me believe this isn't (or shouldn't be) as hard as it is.  All of it is not working.  Day 551 just hurts.

Yes, I can hear some of you saying right now--isn't this what you signed up for?  Didn't you know from the beginning it would take at least 2 years to get her home?  What else did you expect?  Well, yes, we signed up for this adoption knowing it would take this long.  Yes, we knew it would be long and hard, but what you think you know at the beginning of something this long never equates what it actually feels like when you are in the thick of it.  When it's day 551, the excitement of the beginning has worn off, the ending seems too far away, and you feel left alone in your constant dwelling on a daughter in a different country and how you long for your family thoughts to rest in one location.

This is where Satan begins to have fun.  Despite the fact others are praying for you and thinking of you, by day 551, you begin to feel very lonely.  In the beginning many people asked about your adoption.  They openly approached you and asked you what country you are adopting from or if you are fostering to adopt or doing a domestic adoption, if you have been matched to a child yet, what all the steps will be, how much money you need to raise, and how long is it expected to take, etc.  You are busy raising funds and spreading the good news that you are "expecting" again.  It is joyous and contagious and those around you, for the most part, are very supportive with hugs and conversations.  They all seem involved.  As time goes on, however, the questions diminish and the thoughts others are still thinking for you/about you become thoughts in their heads instead of verbal affirmations to your face.  Prayers become private instead of corporate.  The key here is not that others actually DO stop thinking and praying for you, but they just aren't as known to you so Satan starts to inch in those cracks ever so slightly with his lies.  He begins to weave his way into your thoughts by making you doubt people even care anymore.  He makes you question who is really even a friend anymore by thoughts such as, "If they are your true friend, they would still be asking you all about the adoption and they would sit with you while you express your frustrations, sadness and desperate desire to get her home.  But, HA!,  just look around...no one is asking.  You don't really have any true friends.  You are alone."  Unfortunately by this point in the battle, you are so worn out and tired yourself that these lies of Satan are too easily believed and everything begins to spiral out of control.  This fuels your misery even more and depression over the fact your family life seems completely split in your head and heart is compounded by this new lie that on top of that, you also have no real friends.  It's sickening.  It's a lie.  It's Satan's work that needs to be combated with Truth.  I, friends, I, I, I needed a big ole' dose of TRUTH on day 551.

The source of Truth can not come from friends.  It can not come from talks with fellow adopting families.  It can not come from anything but God Himself.  Unfortunately, in the moments of loneliness, weariness, and frustration, our human nature typically doesn't just pick up a Bible first thing to regain momentum.  Instead, it tends to throw out short prayers of desperation followed by a faint hope that those prayers "worked". Currently those hopes and prayers are then followed by an obsessed Mama checking her email for an elusive message miraculously saying our paperwork (that has been held up now for over a month) will have entered the next stage of the process.  But, that is not happening.  Eventually, your negative attitude settles just enough to realize how absurd all of your thoughts are and you resolve to open your Bible again and pray for the words to speak to your soul in a way that breaks through all the lies, all the depression, all the frustration, and all of the silence.  Today, on day 551 I finally did just that.

The past two days God has been whispering to my aching soul "Read the passage of Moses raising his hands in battle to gain victory."  The passage was somewhat familiar to me--I remembered that Moses was up on a hill raising his staff in his arms while the Israelite army fought a battle in the valley below.  I remembered that when his arms holding that staff were held high, the battle was being won, but when his arms dropped down, the army began to lose.  I also knew two others were there with Moses and by the end, Moses was too tired to hold his own arms up so they helped hold Moses' arms up to ensure the army's victory.  Despite knowing these details of the story,  I felt as if God was saying there was a little nugget of Truth in that story I needed to hear and it probably wasn't in the facts I could remember own my own.  So, I turned to the story to re-read it this morning...Exodus 17:8-15.

Truth, friends.  Truth is like nourishment to the soul.  Sure, I had some of the facts of the story there, but some were wrong and some were missing and those were the very things God wanted to remind me of on day 551.  Moses was lifting his hands up on a hill inevitably with a staff in them, but it was not "his" staff.  It was God's staff.  There is a major difference there.  So long as he had God's staff lifted up high in his hands, the battle was going in the Israelite's favor, but when his hands were lowered and therefore the staff of God was lowered, the battle was swung the other way.  You see, it wasn't about something Moses owned that made the difference--it was something of God's that made the difference.  Yes, Moses was involved in the work of the Lord in those moments on a hill by raising his hands, but it was not his efforts that made the battle victorious...it was God's staff (I think, symbolizing His presence) that made Moses' role critical.  If Moses would have simply raised his hands with no staff, who knows if the battle would have been won or not.  Something of God had to be present for the victory.  There are moments in this adoption process where it is very easy to think my own efforts are what is the driving force behind movement.  It is easy to think it is because I'm holding my hands up that Nora is gaining the victory of a family who will love her and care for her daily, but that is not Truth.  Truth is the fact that God is the One making things progress towards victory.  I am just the one He has chosen to hold the staff up high.  He doesn't need me to do anything but lift Him up during this journey...the rest is His to make victorious.

Secondly,  Moses, who was only human, grew tired of holding God's staff above his head...who wouldn't.  Have you ever tried to hold your hands up in the air for a long period of time?  I can barely make it through several worship songs at church let alone an entire battle.  However, when he was tired and weary, Moses had been proactive with a backup plan in his time of need.  I doubt Moses invited Aaron and Hur up on the hillside with him to simply watch the battle unfold.  I wonder, at least, if he deliberately brought these men along to be his helpmates when he needed them most.  Maybe he knew his own weaknesses well enough he knew he would not be able to hold up his hands for the entire battle all on his own.  When his arms grew weary, Aaron and Hur got a stone moved over for Moses to sit on and proceeded to hold his hands steady until sunset.  Here is the second lesson God wanted to teach me today.  I thought the lie Satan was saying to me in my moments of feeling so lonely was that I had no friends who really cared about me right now.  Although that may have been the lie I was hearing, there was an even deeper lie discovered when I read this story of Truth today.  The deeper lie was that it is a friend's responsibility to know I'm feeling frustrated, sad, or lonely.  Lie.  Truth: it is my responsibility to invite a few others to come with me on the journey up a hill.  Just as Moses asked Aaron and Hur to come, I am the one responsible to ask my friends to help hold me up in my moments of weakness and tire.  Satan has a wonderful way of making us believe we are not the ones at fault in our loneliness or whatever struggle we are facing--that the blame is on those who are not giving us what we need.  He also has a wonderful way of making us believe each battle is ours to go through alone--that we can do it all by ourselves and don't need others to be involved anyway.  He twists the story in such a sly way it is only revealed when compared and contrasted to Truth.  Today, I walk forward knowing the Truth is: it is my responsibility on day 551 to not do this thing alone, but to find people to hold my hands up and see this battle become a victory.

Lastly, the ending of the story was a key factor to what I believe God wanted me to hear.  At the end, when the battle was won and the events were recorded for memory sake, Moses built an altar and named it "The LORD is my Banner".  A Banner.  Just as Moses had held God's staff above his head in his hands, the Lord is a Banner over each of our stories, our journeys, making all of the battles victorious if we will only continue to hold Him up high for all the world to see.  I am sure in the thick of the battle, especially in those moments when it seemed to not be going their way, there were soldiers on that battlefield wondering if God was really there.  If God was really moving on their behalf or working all things together for their good.  But, the Truth is HE WAS.  He was there--overhead, like a banner, covering the whole day's events until the victory was captured.  Even though this adoption journey is much longer than a one day battle, I have to remember that the Lord's banner of love is still over me.  My hands, as weak as they are, are still raised and my energies are still invested in what He has called me to do.  His Presence is there, still being upheld by my trust and faith and determination to see this battle through to victory.  To do whatever it takes to uphold the will God has for this adoption.  He is still honoring those efforts, as little as they are some days, and using them for His victory.  On day 551 I needed a reminder that the Lord is my Banner too!

So many, many times in my life, God puts a cherry on top of His revelations to me through songs.  Today, it comes in the form of two current favorites of mine..."Banner of Love" by Luminate and "Kings and Queens" by Audio Adrenaline.  "Banner of Love" is the reminder of how important it is for us to be waving high that banner of love for others to see.  "Kings and Queens" gives me a beautiful picture of that purple banner being waved overhead...a banner of love to the children who need it most.  Plus it is a beautiful video of some special children in Haiti who no doubt had a BLAST on the shoreline getting to have fun like they probably never have had before.

I Know Who Goes Before Me

At this point in our adoption process, we are tired.  We know we still have quite the road ahead of us, but with being one year, five months, and six days into our journey, I think it's okay to say we are just tired.  Tired of not being with Nora, tired of communication issues, tired of delays, tired of the unknowns, and tired of the wait.  I woke up this morning having a dream about Nora for the first time.  In the dream I had decided to head to Haiti and spend some time with her.  She was looking adorable as usual in a pretty red dress and was posing for pictures with me as she said "cheese" with a big ole' cheesy grin on her face.  Waking up with this dream left me smiling and yet sad...I'm tired of feeling this dynamic mix of emotions--joyful and sad in the same breath.  Micah and I talked recently of how God must have been laughing at us as we said we'd follow His call to adopt--we knew we were done having our own biological children because we didn't want to go through another pregnancy ever again.  The labor part was actually a wonderful experience for me, but the pregnancy itself was just a bit too much for us to ever want to do it again.  Ha!  Little did we know this adoption pregnancy is close to doubling the 9 months of a physical pregnancy and it has been just as grueling, if not maybe even slightly more.  I guess I'm just ready for labor.  Bring on the pains of the home stretch, bring on the pressure and breathing and pushing...I'm ready for some intense movement to get our daughter into our world.

Even though we long for those moments and eventually that glorious moment when she is in our home, we still have more and more months of an adoption pregnancy to take care of.  As far as the process, we are still stuck in Parquet court with no knowledge of when we will get through it.  The typical time frame is 1-2 months and we have been there now just over 2 months.  No word of movement.  Over 2 weeks ago our director let us know she should be getting our adoption decree that week, but it has yet to be signed.  Nora is still not officially ours and I'm bummed about that today.  On top of that, our birth parent interview that was scheduled for Dec. 5th didn't end up happening.  Nora's birth-mom did come for the interview, but she forgot her ID card so the US Embassy would not interview her.  They rescheduled her for February 12th.  Ouch.  We were hoping the process would continue in such a way we could potentially be bringing Nora home not long after that date, but now we have no idea how much longer it would take after this interview to get our visa approval.  It was a hard blow in our process, but one we can't do much about.  I did contact them to see if the interview could be moved up, but they denied the request.  So, now we continue sitting, waiting, wondering when the labor will begin.

In the midst of the lull, it is easy to stay focused on how tired, disappointed, and frustrated we are with the delays.  It is easy to roll our eyes and huff a "who the heck knows" when someone asks how much longer it will take to get her home.  What is the harder choice in those moments is to still remember God is in control of it all.  To Praise Him for the ways He is orchestrating this whole journey.  To place it on His shoulders and rest in the fact He is by our side in each step--whether we are rejoicing or weeping, being frustrated or delighted, still pregnant, in labor, or in the joys of bonding.

There is a new song scheduled to be released in January--"Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)" by Chris Tomlin.  It is a favorite of mine already.  It sums up this adoption experience for me.  If you haven't heard it yet, here it is...

 

This song reminds me of so many key things throughout the journey.  It reminds me of the MANY, MANY, MANY ways the Lord has shown Himself to me and others in this journey.  It reminds me of the incredible ways He has opened my eyes to the spiritual realms and all that must go on while we live blindly unaware of it all.  It reminds me of the fact that God is the Victor and will reign at the end of this day, this week, this month, this adoption.  It reminds me that it is not me, our orphanage director, the lawyer, the Haitian government, or the US government who will win this battle against the enemy--it is the Lord God Almighty.  It reminds me He has the whole world under His care (including Nora in Haiti) and nothing standing in front of His will will remain standing when He gets done with it.  It reminds me of the One who goes before me in everything--adoption process included, the One who stands beside me in my weary moment today, and the One who is behind me--marking His hand at so many places for me to glorify Him, thank Him, and trust Him with an unknown future.  It reminds me that even though today trouble lingers still, God is my strength, my shield, and the One I can trust...I do not have to fear anything because He is with me.  It reminds me that God promises me wonderful, good things and HE alone is trustworthy and faithful to seeing those through to completion.

I am humbled today that my God would love little ole' me enough to send armies, quite literally ARMIES of angels to my side to help me whenever I need it.  This picture takes me back to an earlier time in our process when God laid a vision in my head of the battlefield this adoption truly is and who all is on my side in the heavenly realms and who all is against me (see this post for a further description).  It is amazing and awesome to know that Truth today in the tiredness of the battle...I have an army of angels at my side ready and willing to carry on in battle while I am just too tired.  I can simply rest today and pick up my weapon again tomorrow.  I am also humbled the same God who draws up an army of angels for me considers me His friend--not His subject or project, but His friend.  Today, although I am still tired, I am blessed and honored.  I am right where He can minister to my needs, teach me even more about His love for me, and be glorified even greater for the work He is doing in my life.  I can look forward towards the remaining months of this "adoption pregnancy" knowing the Friend I have going before me--the God of angel armies who is always by my side--and it brings hope and encouragement to my tired soul today.

The Dreaded Question

You know those moments in a long van trip when the kids in the back seats are screaming, "Howww muuuch loooonger???" with a long, drawn out whine that completely makes it's way under the thick skin of a mom....(insert complete Mommy shutter and wince at the sound your ears just heard, eye-roll, and screams plea to just BE PATIENT!)  Yep, I thought you might know what I was talking about.  Well, to be honest and hopefully not rude, I wanted to say for the record in my personal perspective, that being asked the same question about our adoption process makes me feel much the same way under my thick adopting-mom skin.

Given this adoption "trip" is a long one, the number one thing people ask me is "How much longer will it be until she comes home?" or the slightly different question with the same preface "Why does it have to take soooo long?"  Just like I dread that question being asked by the kids in the back seats of the van, I have to admit I dread it in this adoption too.  With this second trip being on the calendar now, it seems this question is once again being asked even more frequently.  I am constantly having to tell people "No, this is not our "take-home" trip.  We still have an estimated 6-9 months more to go." which ALWAYS leads to...THE dreaded question above.  So, I've decided to take some time today to help explain why these questions are so dreaded and to give some alternative ideas for those of you who find yourself asking them to me or anyone else adopting.

• I can not make this trip any shorter.  I love my kids and I know they are not TRYING to be annoying when they ask me why the van trip is taking so long, but it really does become frustrating to hear that question when there is nothing I can do to make the trip any shorter.  Unless my van (with rust and all) can magically become a jet plane, there is no way I can make the trip any faster.  To hear the complaints along the ride makes me feel like I'm not driving well enough, that I am not meeting their needs, that I am making them suffer through something (even though I know the end result will be enjoyable), or that somehow I am responsible for their misery in the van.  It becomes very hard to detach my emotions from my responsibility.  As much as I would LOVE to have the trip shorter too, I am just the driver of the van, not the determiner of time it will take us to get there.  Now, similarly, I love my friends, family, and supporters in this adoption and I know you are certainly NOT trying to be annoying when you continually ask me about a time frame for our adoption, but just as it is hard to separate my responsibility from my feelings in a long van trip, it is hard here as well.  The truth is I have no control over the adoption "trip" I am on.  I am simply the person driving the van (saying yes I'll do this adoption) and I, unfortunately, do not have a magic potion that will make our journey become shorter.  When you continually ask me how much longer it will take to get Nora home, I find it hard to separate my responsibility from my feelings that I am the cause of all the misery on the journey because I said "yes".  I tend to feel as though I am not meeting your needs or simply disappointing you when I can not answer your question with what you really want to hear.  Which leads me to my next point...

• I wonder if your question is really reflecting your "truth".  In the van scenario, the kids are asking their questions for more information (How much longer will it take to get there?), but their "truth" is an undercurrent desire to just be done with the trip and enjoying their final destination.  To them, it's really not so much about what has to happen to get to their ending point (their question), but that they simply want to be AT the ending point...and quickly (their truth)!  When the trip is taking longer than what they deem acceptable, they become squirmy, restless, discontent and ready to get answers from someone.  That "someone" will undoubtedly be the person driving the vehicle because surely they will know exactly how to get them what they really want...not the details of the journey, but the enjoyment of the ending.  Truth be told, even if I gave them a GPS-like detailed read out of each and every turn it will take to get the van from point A to point B, it would not make their trip any shorter.  Unfortunately, these facts don't seem to appease the real desire--to just be done with the trip.  Instead of asking "How much longer?" or "Why aren't we there yet?" my kids should really just be saying, "Mom, I wish we were there already" or "I'm tired of being in this van.  I can't wait to be out."  That would be their truth and I would be taken out of the equation since I would not have to answer a question they really don't care much about anyway.  And so it is with our adoption.  I'm doubtful, at least,  you really want to know the detailed answer to the question of "why does it take this long" when you ask it (your question), but instead you are really just trying to express your desire to see us at the end (your truth).  Because it is taking a long time, however, you are getting squirmy and restless with your unmet desires to have us done with the adoption and are trying to get answers from someone in the driver seat of the adoption (which happens to be me).  Also, like the van example, if I answered your question with a GPS-like answer with all the twists and turns and narrow pathways our adoption has to take to get to the end (so many it would make your head spin), it would not make the time of the trip go by any faster.  The fact is there IS a reason this adoption takes this long.  The process is grueling--not just for us, but for our orphanage director and lawyer doing all the work on the other end.  It is mind-boggling, but knowing all of that does not make the "trip" any shorter.  This all leads me to believe, in my opinion, when you ask me your question:"why does it take this long?" the answer (that won't make the trip any quicker) is not really what you are looking for.  Instead, you really wanted me to know your truth: you want the adoption to be done for us (or maybe for themselves) so we could be enjoying the end of it.  Yes???  So, if you are a person known for asking this question to an adoptive family, I would advise to ask yourself a simple question first...what are you really wanting when you ask "How much longer" or "Why does it have to take this long"?  Do you really want to know all the details of the trip or do you just want to tell me you wish we were at the ending point of the trip?  If your answer is the former, I would love to give you more details of the this adoption as long as you know that by finding them out, it will not make things go quicker--it will just make you understand it better (which I would truly LOVE for more people to have because it makes the miracle of adoption so much more clear).  If your answer is the latter, I would kindly ask you to rephrase your question to reflect your real intentions--your truth.  Perhaps instead of asking "How much longer?", you could ask, "How can I best be of help to you during the wait?" or "What new things have you been learning about Nora recently?" or "I sure wish I could make this time go faster for you, but I know I can't.  Is there anything you want covered in prayer?"  Those kind of questions speak your truth--your heart--your care for me and this adoption--and would do wonders for my heart.

• We don't have an ending time.  In a van ride, I could at least tell the kids what time we were expected to arrive at the final destination. I could say, "It should be 4:45 p.m. when we park the van for good", but, again, it still would not make the actual time in the van go quicker.  The knowledge of a concrete ending time may make the trip "feel" quicker, but it won't make the tires turn any faster.  In our adoption, unfortunately, we will not know what that "4:45 p.m." will be until the very, very end of the trip.  When you ask me how much longer it will be, it reaffirms something I see as a frustration of this process...it reaffirms that I can not answer your question...that I simply do not know when the end will be here.  That is a very hard reality in any adoption.  This does not make me feel encouraged or sympathized with, which I would bet was your original goal.  We do have some best case scenario time frames (6-9 months), but nothing that can give a stamped day, hour, or minute of when Nora will be on US soil or in our own home.  I encourage you to think about this scenario from my perspective for a moment: how would you feel if you were continually asked the same question you had no answer for (nor could you have an answer for)?  For example, what if every day or several times a day you were asked when your phone will ring.  It's something you know will happen at some point, but you would never be able to really answer that question because it is impossible to actually know.  After a while, you would probably just get tired, frustrated and a wee bit cranky when the next person asked, "Hey, when is that phone of yours going to ring?  I, too, tend to get tired, frustrated, and a wee bit cranky when faced with the same question of how long it will take to get Nora home because I just don't have the answer.  I regret that anyone has to be the person at the other end of my crankiness...that is not my desire at all.  So, instead of asking me a question I can not answer, I would encourage you to ask questions I CAN answer.  Questions I can answer will go a long way to making me feel like I have the ability to be involved in an ongoing, positive, and uplifting conversation about our adoption.  Questions I can answer could be focused on anything in the past or the present, but not in the future.  I, unfortunately, can not predict the future for this adoption trip no matter how much I would love to.

• I need others to be patient too.  Lastly, do you remember the final part of my initial response to the kids in the van scenario?  It was a scream plea to just BE PATIENT!  When you are trapped in a van for a long period of time with kids questioning each minute when this ordeal will be over, it proves they are not having patience.  One of the traits, if you will, we adoptive parents have been labeled with by others who have yet to adopt is that we must be incredibly patient to go through this process.  To some degree this is true, however, there are also plenty of moments in the past year where "patient" could have been replaced with "manic" in my book.  The truth is we do have to be patient as we wait for Nora to come home, but we don't have to be the ONLY ones having patience.  The long time frames in a van would be oh so much more smooth if the kids were being just as patient as the driver, don't you think?!?  The long time frames in an adoption would be smoother, too, if we were ALL willing to shoot for the same level of patience as the adoptive parents are, for whatever reason, expected to have.  Folks, always being questioned of an end not yet in sight by people acting more impatient than myself is not going to do a whole lot to help my own patience level...it might challenge it even more, but believe me, the last thing I need added to my plate right now is another reason to practice patience-ha!  Please do me a favor and practice being patient as you await WITH me for the answer to your question.  Come up with other things to do WITH me during the trip instead of focusing your questions on an end I do not know.  In van rides, for example, our family likes to play games like "I Spy", sing songs, or even watch movies to pass the time of the trip.  Those things do not speed the trip up necessarily, but they do make the trip more enjoyable.  Doing things with me along the trip to pass the time will be much more supportive than focusing on the unknowns or an end that is not in sight yet.

Does all of this make sense?  I know your hearts, friends, are meant to be supportive and sympathetic to me when you ask the "dreaded question" but I hope with this post, you will understand why I dread that question as well as how to better express your care to me during this time.  And, as I said above, if it is the details of the trip you actually want to know--feel free to ask me when we have enough time for me to tell you all about it.  It would take time, but I could talk your ear off and enjoy every moment of it...just ask my poor hubby.  Thank you, friends, for caring for me.  Thank you for caring about Nora.  Thank you for talking to me about our adoption.  I am sorry if you have ever had to suffer the consequences of my frustration with your question of how much longer it will take to get her here...may grace abound on each of our ends of that question, eh!?!  Blessings.

**I encourage those who have read this post to see my updated answer towards this question posted on February 13, 2013.  Here is a link to that post. Thank you!**

Day 322

Day 322.

Yep, we are 322 days into our agreement with the Lord to adopt.

What's the significance of day 322?  Well, it marks the 100'th day of being in IBESR/Haitian Social Services.  100 days of officially being "in the system" on the Haitian end of this adoption.

222 days were spent at the beginning gathering paperwork, getting everything notarized, authenticated, legalized, translated & sent to Haiti, waiting for a little girl to arrive at the orphanage, meeting Nora for the first time, waiting for her paperwork to be ready to join ours, and then finally having it turned over into the hands of IBESR.  222 days of work and wait and work and wait.  Now, we've added 100 more days of "wait" to that number. 

What have you spent 100 days waiting for?  And I don't mean haphazardly waiting for, but eagerly and intently waiting for?  I am waiting for an email.  An email that says we have passed through IBESR and into dispensation (more waiting for the President's signature, but it is still a huge step).  An email that says your days in IBESR are over and now you can begin counting the days involved in the next step of the process.  I wake up in the morning and hope to find an email from the orphanage director giving us great news.  I check it periodically all day long waiting for that same email.  I check it before I get in bed at night hoping maybe, just maybe, she would have sent something before she got in her own bed.  So far, I am still waiting...and counting...days, yes, but also counting my blessings too, I suppose.  Blessings of a God who has walked each and every one of those 322 days with me.  He has been faithful in giving me hope, encouragement, and a new set of eyes to the spiritual world.  A world that needs people who desire to see God's Will happen NOW instead of whenever...a world where we spend each of those days sending up prayers for His Will to be fulfilled on earth as it is in Heaven that day.  Each of these 322 days have also been a blessing because each one is one day closer to the day our Nora arrives on American soil and in our home.

As I have said in the past, Lily has also been counting these 322 days. She is counting days until her little sister comes home not so much by numbers, but instead, by something more visual.  She is using paper chain links that surround the top of her bedroom.  We are getting very close to the starting point of our chain...it has always been my hope we would be back in Haiti for our second trip before we started overlapping the loops, but it's not looking too hopeful.  My new desire will have to be getting out of IBESR before those chain links overlap...I believe God would want nothing less.  Here is a short video of Lily's links to give you a visual of these 322 days.

While I'm "Waiting"

Waiting. Think about a time in life you have had to wait. Whether it's waiting in a line at the grocery, waiting for a doctor, for a child to be born, to open presents at Christmas, for the clock to say the workday is done, for the water to boil, or even for Christ to come back. What do you do in times of waiting? I do something--anything. I put action into the waiting so I don't fall asleep or get frustrated or "waste the time". What do you find yourself doing while you wait for something? Do you read a book, listen to music, people watch, talk on the phone, text friends, work on a project...things of action or do you simply wait?

These thoughts made me curious as to what waiting really is then. I wondered if waiting was an action itself or was waiting the process of doing other actions for a period of time until you have whatever it is you have been waiting for? I was prompted to look up the definition of the word "waiting" to see what scholars decided it truly was. Here's what I found--waiting is: The act of remaining inactive or stationary. What!?! Is that even possible? Can we actually not move until we have what we were waiting for? Weird, isn't it? I honestly don't know if this is possible...our lives are too full of activity.

During this adoption process I have found myself in a state of what I have been calling "waiting" daily. Whether it's waiting for a new piece of paperwork to come back from getting legalized or translated, waiting for money to come in, waiting for fingerprinting results to come back, or waiting to hear who Nora will be, it's been a constant state of waiting. But, in all that waiting, I have never found myself "remaining inactive or stationary" so have I truly been "waiting" or have I just been replacing waiting with action? Either way, I guess, I'd rather be involved in action than just sitting around.

It's pretty much a mind game, isn't it? We think if we fill the waiting with action it will make the time go faster. What an interesting concept. Time really can't move faster (or slower for that matter) yet for some reason, we think it can by what we do or not do. I mean, if I truly waited for Nora to come to our home and did absolutely nothing until it happened, it would take the exact same amount of time as if I filled that time with action. Can you imagine if I was literally waiting for Nora to come to our home? It's estimated this process will take 1-2 years after we are matched with her. 1-2 years of remaining inactive or stationary. Really? 1-2 years of doing nothing. Not possible. So, I guess what I've concluded is that I'm not really waiting for Nora. Instead, I'm actively doing other things until she gets here.

So, what are those actions? Well, I have a husband to love for starters. I have three kids to take care of. I have friends and family to share with. I have a church to be active in. I have a house to clean. I have prayers that need prayed. I have healing work to do in my heart and soul. I have errands to run. I have sisters to encourage. I have dishes to do. I have experiences to enjoy. I have more of freedom to discover. My plate is full. My cup is full. And every time God gives me a new blessing to witness or experience that draws me deeper in relationship with Him or towards freedom, I have this little thought that floats through my head..."Oh, God, thank You for allowing me to experience that before I find out who Nora is. I am a healthier woman for it, which means I'll be a better mom to her for it. What a blessing! Now I know why Your timing is different from ours." So, do these activities take away the sting of waiting for a daughter I have yet to meet? No, they don't. My heart aches and yearns to know who Nora is. Do these activities make this easier though? Yes, they do actually. I am grateful for a life full of activity.

As we posted last week, a mother who has a little 30 month old girl was supposed to meet with the orphanage director at ROH on Friday. I was hopeful for my current "wait" to be over and for God to finally reveal if this little girl will be our Nora or not. However, once again, "Haitian time" lives on and the meeting with the mother did not happen. We received word this afternoon this meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow (Monday, Oct. 17th) so I again "wait". But will I really be "waiting"? No, I'll be actively going on about life and eager to hear the news when we get it.

So, are you waiting for something? Is it inactive and stationary? Do you need to put some action into life to make it easier? If so, here is a song I have found to be very helpful in my waiting. It gives me direction as to what actions are the best actions to be focused on. I hope it gives you direction in your own waiting.