When Hope Gets Long

I've felt compelled to write numerous times in the past couple of weeks.  I've started more times than I care to admit and deleted it all.  Longing with all my heart to be authentic in this process while also longing with all my heart to walk it well for the Name and Fame of Jesus is always what prompts, propels, or stops me.  He has taught me there is a balance that allows me to do both... I have simply been around enough to know I don't have to share EVERYTHING to be authentic. Let's be real, no one wants to hear or know how many days I fight wanting to curl up in a ball and cry all day over this process. At the same time, I've had some of the most intimate, tender moments with the Lord through the process that I want to keep just between us.  So, therein lies the issue... what to share and what NOT to share.  How much of the good, bad, and ugly do people REALLY want to hear and care about? More importantly, how much will they really pray about?  I don't ever want to pass on info for the sake of passing it on or giving anyone (or everyone) something to talk about.  The reason behind the posts is central: prayer.  The community God has graciously surrounded us with has been unbelievably supportive, prayerful, and loving through this journey and we want to include everyone with "the latest."  I am the one who lacks in passing this information along because I get weary trying to sort through it myself sometimes, I certainly wouldn't ask someone else to try to (someone please laugh or smirk at the mere thought of trying to understand or comprehend this process). So, in an effort to let you know what has been in my head and heart over the past few months, I will simply give bullet points of random thoughts/lessons/updated info.  I will preface it all by saying how grateful I am the Lord has led me to start a new Bible Study in this season, "Children of the Day," by Beth Moore.  It is an in-depth study of First and Second Thessalonians.  Over the course of the last 3 and half months I have been memorizing First Thessalonians.  However, it wasn't until this study that the Lord opened my heart and eyes in a fresh way to one of the very first verses of the book.  First Thessalonians 1:3 reads, "We recall, in the presence of our God and Father, your work of faith, labor of love, and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
Faith. Hope. Love.  The way Beth Moore explained this verse, jumped off the pages like salve to my wounded, raw, hurting heart.  She wrote the three themes Paul was addressing like this: Faith can be work. Love can be labor.  Hope can get long.
As I sucker-punched these truths straight into my gut, I prayed they would make their way to my head and most importantly, to my heart.  This process has tested (and continues to) every one of these themes.  Faith CAN be work.  Believing God is working and moving despite what my eyes can see takes active, growing, fighting-for faith.  Love CAN be labor.  Sometimes I want to focus on the labor part more than the love part; somehow wanting to justify how I am supposed to keep loving someone when it is so stinkin' hard.  I am sure someone reading this can identify. And finally,

HOPE CAN GET LONG.

I am so thankful for a sympathetic Savior Who knows all too well this truth.  Repeatedly, He calls us to endure.  Not to sprint and hold our breath.  Persevere.  Don't quit just because it doesn't go your way or it gets tough.  Tougher than you ever thought it could or would even.  I have engraved these four words permanently over this season of life, knowing hope can get long, BUT it never runs out.  Ever.  I tend to want to be done.  To wither up and cry and think of all the "what if's?"  Not hope.  It might get long, but it never gives up or runs out or gets too emotionally exhausted to fight another day.  So.... here are my bullet points, all framed around this one theme:

HOPE CAN GET LONG.

*Mother's Day in the wait is hard.  Perhaps harder than Christmas or Easter or birthdays.  Combined.  God has grown my heart to be more tender toward those who are in different seasons of waiting or grieving on Mother's Day.  Celebrating motherhood, blessings of children, and mothers gifted to us is certainly one important side.  On the other side, however, are those longing, hoping, waiting, fighting back tears at the mere thought of their arms being empty. still. again.  I certainly am not alone on this one.  Many of you are right here in the wait.  As we walk through these next few days, don't buy into the lie the enemy has told you... one that somehow has convinced us a magnifying glass is passing over us on this day so everyone can see how we handle ourselves.  How we are holding up.  It's a lie.  Don't buy it.  Cling to the promise that He sees. He knows.  He cares.  He said it Himself. Psalm 56:8, "You keep track of all my sorrows.  You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book."  You aren't alone, even though it can be lonely.  I am not alone. You are not alone.  Not on Mother's Day or any other day. But, the truth is, it is still hard.

*This is a grieving process.  It has taken me over three years of waiting to finally be able to look at a friend recently and say,"I am grieving," with tears streaming down my face.  I told you it can get ugly.  This grief is so different than losing someone you love.  It's complicated to love and miss someone you've never held or known.  It's no less grief.  And, allowing myself the freedom to walk through the emotions of that, even when it isn't understood by everyone, has allowed so much healing for me. I am thankful for friends who understand and cry with me.... where I don't have to justify why it is grief.  The fact is, I am heart broken and missing someone I love very much.  I am in no way saying I understand what it is like to lose someone as dear to me as a child... I would be a fool to be as presumptuous as to do that.  Walking that path with friends has certainly taught me the two aren't the same.  Both grief.  But, different.

*We are one day closer.  Hope can get long.  But, several nights a week before our eyes close in sleep, I say to Mark, "We are one day closer."  And, it's true.  For the first time in over a year the Ethiopia program seems to be having more referrals coming in and being given to families more consistently in recent months which (hopefully) is a move in the right direction.  Literally, we could get a call any day.

*We opened up to siblings (up to two).  A couple of weeks ago we had our home study update (we have to do home study updates yearly, background checks, fingerprinting locally every year/federally every 18 months, submit updated paperwork to immigration, etc... it's a process and it's ongoing...).  During the home study we are always given the chance to change our preferences.  Initially, we didn't open to siblings because we were interested in adopting a girl. Gender preferences get complicated in siblings, so to open to siblings would've meant being open to two boys.  So, since updating our gender preference in December to boy or girl, we opened to a sibling group of up to two.  Simply put, this means we might get one boy or girl or a sibling group of two boys, two girls, or one of each.

*I am learning to really trust God's processes.  As this journey moves on in time far longer than anyone on this planet ever suspected it would, I forced open the pages of scripture asking God to please allow me to walk with someone who had been called to some kind of God-given process.  I am tickled as I type that.  God flung the doors wide open on the pages of scripture.  Abraham/Sarah, Noah, King David, Children of Israel, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Jacob, Paul, John, Jesus.... the list goes on and on (and on....).  All of these were followers of Jesus who were called to do things that took a LONG TIME.  And often, scripture notes, they were called to do them BECAUSE of their faith in God.  Processes that took far longer than they expected, thought, or imagined.  120 years to build a boat you'd only need 40 days and nights?  God is SO in the process.  And, as a result, He has taught me to trust Him more, seek Him more, comfort in Him more, delight in Him more, rely on Him more, call on Him more.  In my study of God and the process I came back upon a verse I have known and loved for years.  Yet, again, it just lifted my spirits and my hope.  Isaiah 61:3, "To all who mourn in Israel, he will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair.  For the Lord has planted them that they may be oaks of righteousness for the display of His splendor."  He plants us, knowing what is to come.  Knowing to go from "a planting" to "an oak of righteousness" will come with rain, storms, heat from the blazing sun, and time.  A process.  In the end, if we don't give way to bitterness and cynicism, we will be able to display His glory.  However, it comes with a process.  I tend to want the Lord to plant me like a mighty oak... but, He knows I would wither and die in no time flat out of feelings of self-sufficiency.  The process isn't always fun.  But, I am believing Him that it is always worth it.

*I am convinced more now than ever that this is what God called us to.  As I  have searched my heart and mind and feelings and Bible over the course of the last 6 or 8 months, there are days I have wondered if somehow we missed what God was saying.  Tenderly, He has confirmed it over and over (often through those processes in scripture... they might get long and hard, but it's still what He called us to).  Recently, in one study of passages I could hardly write as fast as I felt like the Holy Spirit was speaking.  My hand wanted a break, my heart was just getting started.  To not bore you, in a nutshell, I realized in a fresh way (it wasn't new information, but it was new perception) how seemingly impossible it was for Gentiles to be adopted into God's family.  Gentiles don't look like Jews, act like Jews, know all the rules to be a Jew, don't hold the same Feasts/holidays as Jews, Gentiles aren't "qualified" to God's children, nor were they expected to be.  And right there, staring at those notes, I bawled.  To the watching world, physical adoption is the most tangible picture of the gospel.  Especially for Gentiles.  Intercountry adoption usually means adopting a child that won't look like you, act like you, know your rules, hold your same holidays, speak your language.  Nothing about it seems to make sense.  Nothing about it seems "right." The cost is high.  The risk is higher.  Yet, He did whatever it took to make a way for us, Gentiles, to be adopted.  In this, I sat back with tears pouring out of my eyes splattering on the floor.  Whispering into my spirit with tenderness and love, "It's what I called you to do BECAUSE it doesn't make sense.  Like YOUR spiritual adoption.  Because some people aren't going to understand... like the Jews didn't understand.  BECAUSE it's costly (and not just financial) and because it's risky."  God knowing the cost, Jesus paying the price, didn't look at the time, the risk, the cost, the ability for us to make sense of it all.  The focus was on giving us a future and a hope.  For that to happen, there was only one way.  On days I am particularly struggling, I remember this... Our child has a future and a hope, but getting there won't be easy.  Black and white.  Rich and Poor.  Named and unnamed.  educated and uneducated.  Jew and Gentile.
All are welcome here, at the foot of the cross.  Praise you, Jesus.

*Lastly, I have been playing our new Passion CD, "Take it All," on repeat for days.  I DO love the new songs, but more than that, I believe God is using them to, little-by-little, grow fresh flesh over some raw, oozing (sometimes hemorrhaging) parts of my heart.  One song in particular has been especially healing.  Like only she can do, Christy Nockels sings with authenticity of a life lived dependent on Jesus, the beautiful words, "And God I breathe Your name over everything. Let it be, Let it be Jesus."  Every time, I nearly cry trying to utter the words across my lips, while my heart screams the words so loud my chest hurts.  Even when HOPE GETS LONG... ESPECIALLY WHEN HOPE GETS LONG, I want to breathe His name over everything.  The lyrics go on... "Should I ever be abandoned, Should I ever be acclaimed, Should I ever be surrounded by the fire and the flame.  There's a name I will remember, there's a name I will proclaim. Let it be, Let it be Jesus."

So, there you have it.  Started out seeking to adopt one girl and we might come home with two boys.  Started out believing we would be into our second adoption by now.  Started out short on patience and long on hope.  Walking today feeling the reality that HOPE CAN GET LONG, but also confident of the reality of His steadfast love and faithfulness.  Thank you for praying for us.  I am asking God to bless you and your household 100-fold for your time invested in prayer for us.

Faith can be work.  Love can be labor.  Hope can get long.  Even still, "God, I want to breathe your name above everything.  Let it be, let it be Jesus."