Let's Change Perspective, Shall We?

Welcome to the land of adoption.

It's very confusing here. Things change constantly. Your hope gets lifted up so many times, and then dropped so many times, that you start taking emotional Dramamine and praying for an end to the sea-sickness.

That is where we are living.

I cannot (and at this point will not) go into more details. Since I am I woman, I want to share every detail, but since I am also a rational being, I recognize that in thirty minutes, I could have an entirely new set of details. Everything is fuzzy. Everything is transient. Nothing is stable. Nothing is reliable.

That's domestic adoption.

Right now, we have no child. We have no baby. There is no adoption court date. We have talked to several moms, we have had phone calls with multiple social workers. Nothing is written in ink, nothing has even been sketched out in pencil.

We are learning so many things about God, that I have a slew of blog posts until the end of 2012. I've even started writing in a daily journal... there's just too much to even keep up with on a blog. I am astounded at the greatness, goodness, patience, sufficiency, sovereignty, constancy, joy, support, grace, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness.... (you get the idea).... of our God. What a blessing to walk through this with Him. I have no idea how you could do this without Him...

But as we walk through this roller coaster, we have had a shift in goals and perspective.

We want children. We started this process because we want children. In fact, we want so many children, we are crazy. And we know that. (Does 9 sound like too many?) But in our pursuit of children, we tried to be very careful that our first priority was the sharing of the Gospel. We want children because we want to raise a generation that fears God. We wanted to interact with the social workers, the lawyers, the birth mom, and all extended family in a way that showed who we serve and who we worship.

God was gracious with these desires.

And He expanded our narrow thinking.

He took our view of the Gospel and made it bigger. He took our view of the cross and stretched it farther. He flipped our expectations and dreams around, and showed us an entirely different perspective.

In short, God made this journey bigger than us. He made it bigger than getting children. He made it bigger than creating our family. He made it bigger than displaying love through welcoming any gender, skin color, or birth condition. He made it bigger than our dreams, our desires, and our (hopefully) huge future family.

He made it about HIM.

We desperately want children. But that is not why we are in this adoption. Our views have now changed. Our goal is to give God glory. That's it. So you may hear us doing some crazy things. We may get involved in some messy lives. We may have promises broken, take scary risks, and cry often. We probably do "crazy" things and live in a way that is not entirely safe... because we are learning to love as Christ loved.

If we have no children.
Fine.
If we have a million-and-one adoption chances fall through.
Okay.
If our hearts are broken again and again.
All right.
If I never earn the title "mommy" and Scott is never called "daddy."
It will be fine.

In fact, it will be wonderful. Because God has only good planned for us, and we know that "no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless." Right now we are enraptured with the beauty of God's glory. And we are delighted, children or no children, to share that with the world. We don't know what that looks like, we don't know what tomorrow holds. But if, while we walk this journey, we fall deeper in love with our Savior, and we fulfill our roles as His children in our interactions with others... that is a beautiful thing.

And I would not dream of asking for more.

We have been blessed beyond measure.

You have said, "Seek my face," My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
~Psalm27~