It's just a practice ...

Adoption; the act of the Lord pruning, refining, and constructing who he wants you to be SO THAT ... he can then bless you abundantly beyond your imagination as a reward for your persistence.

O.K., O.K., so maybe that's not the actual definition of adoption but if you asked any one of my friends walking down the road of the journey, I am certain they'd agree with me on many levels.  You see, we set out on this journey thinking it's about a son or a daughter.  We set out thinking it's about THEM only to discover somewhere along the way that we are oh so wrong!  Nope, it's definitely also about us!  The reward for our "Holding on" is the sweetest joy and the sweetest love he could ever bestow!  Oh how I wait and long for that sweet reward ...

You can't walk the road of adoption without learning a lot about yourself and the lovely "Fruits of the spirits" we all work to attain.  Patience, oh the patience!  Don't pray for it, you might have the gestational "paper pregnancy" of an elephant or wait forever for those court dates and embassy dates.  Don't you know, you pray for it and he'll give you lots of opportunities to practice it!   Joy - you better believe the process will be full of joy.  But you will also have days where you'll get to put that "joy amidst trials" into practice.  Adoption is full of joy and learning to have joy even in the middle of trials is probably on the top of the list.
Self Control; let me tell you, this one takes the cake on some days.  There is NOTHING about adoption you control and you have no choice other than to surrender, gain your composure and practice!  Peace; if you don't simply let go and live in it, you'll have grey hair when it's done.  I am telling you, this go around, I am proud to say I have been much more at peace in knowing God's timing.  I think having done this once and seeing the end result ... the daughter he so perfectly crafted for us, I have peace knowing that this time will be no different.  His timing, his peace = my peace!   Amen!  Gentleness, Kindness, Goodness; sure, you get to work on these.  But often, the Lord loves to show you these through OTHERS!  That's the fun part of adoption ... when and if your community comes along and joins the adventure.  What an amazing blessing to see Kingdom right here on earth!  Along the way we've been blessed by the kindest people who have given on our behalf, worked tirelessly to do a bake sale and garage sale or simply purchased one of our T-shirts and showed us a little Goodness and Kindness.
Faithfulness; the whole process is full of this.  You simply have to trust that the Lord said "GO" and if he did, then he'll provide, direct, and complete the work he has begun.  Faithfulness .... simply knowing and trusting that his Yes was Yes and he WILL complete the journey and path HE set you on!

So, we continue on our road to Levi not knowing what day will be "our day".  It's a little like Christmas each morning, waking and wondering if their will be a glorious present on that day.  Some days, I simply live life in the chaos of our home and rest in knowing it will come.  Others, I find myself day dreaming of the who's, where, when and how of it all.

This week I e-mailed my family coordinator to let her know I'd be out of the country the end of February for a few weeks.  Since I know there is a timeframe on accepting a referral and that more than likely she didn't have Doug's cell number, I thought I should let her know. I also had to let Doug know that absolutely without a shadow of a doubt, if he saw area code 703 on his cell .. he'd better STOP what he was doing and answer it!
 I had to laugh a little with my e-mail back from my awesome FC, the Lord left me a little breadcrumb to let me know ... it's coming!  But, once again, he didn't let on to any more of his plan!
Here's what she said:
I am not sure what the time frame is for your wait, but I can tell you that there are not many families before you who have a similar age request. However, with international adoption this could mean a few weeks or a few months! But knowing that you will be away February 15-27th I will make sure to call Doug, should a referral happen during that time. If you were to receive a referral you would have 2 weeks to decide to accept or reject. Obviously, should a referral come right when you left, we could extend the time to give you a chance to process the information once you were to return home. 


Hmmmm, what I tell ya!  Just enough bait to let me know we'll be "soon" ... and just enough to let me continue to practice all those fruits: patience, peace, faithfulness, self control.  


You watch ... Doug will get the call and leave me some sort of twisted message about how he's staring at our sons face.  I can see it now, him gloating that he got to "See him first".   That would bring him JOY ... and me the opportunity to practice it!