Patience is the key...

Patience is not one of my greatest strengths. Actually, it is most definitely a weakness of mine. We will go to Target (which is literally across the street) and buy a CD and I will have opened it in the 2 minute drive. I just don't want to wait...ever! So when we talked about starting the adoption process, I knew that God was gonna have to help me with this one. We took the picture above on August 8th, 2009, the day we mailed in our adoption application with our first (of many) checks. It was this day that we committed to ourselves, each other, and the Lord to be patient.

The first test of patience begins after this initial application is sent in. We had to wait for the agency to send us the packet for us to begin working on. Lucky for us this didn't take too long, only a week and a half or so. After getting this ridiculously long list of things we needed to have done in order to start our homestudy, we got to checking things off. Some of the items were easy, a questionnaire, picture of us, but other things took time and time off work. Like going to get a physical, fingerprinting, DMV verification. We both had to be super flexible to work hard at accomplishing the goal of finishing quickly.

The next big wait is during our homestudy. In my perfect little Type A world, I would have done all 3 meetings in 3 days, back to back. But because certain things needed to be done and Mike didn't want to use his time off (understandably), we had 2 weeks in between each one. Waiting to finish this was agonizing. Not only did I just want to get this process over with, but I also was nervous and anxious about what the meetings themselves would be like. I mean, someone coming into your home and asking you a lot of personal and deep questions is not something one just looks forward to.

Right now is the hardest. After getting through all the "hoops" of the adoption process, we are waiting. Our paperwork is almost all in (just one more left and it should be in very very soon), homestudy is complete, classes and books are read, our Dear Birthmother letter and profile books for the birthmom's to look at are with the agency, and most importantly, our hearts are pretty ready too! Now we are waiting for the call. The big call saying someone chose us. To tell us that they like us and think we will make great parents to their child.

At first, we were relieved that we had nothing else to do. We were content and comfortable with just waiting. But the agency told us that it wouldn't take long to be matched (which they probably shouldn't promise). But we are learning patience. Waiting on the Lord. We aren't calling the agency daily to check in, calling our Social Worker, or throwing hissy fits. We are just anxious and eager for the phone to ring. My phone actually rang last week and although it wasn't the agency, it was the first time that Mike and I both experienced the nervous and excited feeling we will have when they DO call. But it's hard waiting, and Satan has tried to trick us by making us think that they have shown our letter to a ton of birthmom's and no one likes us. This can bring us down, but giving this to God has made it better.

This process is not easy and it is not fast. If you are going through adoption or want to, I really recommend you ask God to grant you some patience. That you can truly rest on Him and His timing. If you know someone who is in this process and feeling the way my husband and I are, please be praying for their hearts. You can be the love and encouragement that they need in a time of uncertainty and doubt. Lift them up with love and attention. Galatians 6:2 calls us to "Bear one another's burdens..." and by doing this, Christ will be glorified.