Even though shadowy valleys will make up many chapters in the story of your life, you are always safe to hope again. Because He is with you.”
-Ronnie Martin, The God Who is With Us.
**Note: I wrote this back in December but decided to wait to post until our home study was actually finished. **
This excerpt from our advent readings this week stopped me in my tracks. All the thoughts I’ve been thinking and feels I’ve been feeling but not quite able to articulate, summed up in one line. We’ve always wanted to adopt again and have really built our life around it, but we kept hitting walls.
Over the last 5-7 years we’ve seen mountains and valleys. We’ve had incredible experiences, moved internationally, made new friends, hiked volcanos, learned a new language and love people from a whole new culture. We got to live a life that most people only dream of. We also lost our son during pre-term labor, our ministry and adoption plans were shifted due to a global pandemic, we found ourselves in a new city living a new plan. And shortly after making the decision to stay stateside my sweet grandma, who we were living with at the time, passed away.
I was tired. WE were tired.
I felt as though I couldn’t handle one more disappointment or I might break apart.
Have you ever felt like that?
Adoption has always been in the fabric of our family, and it is not at all a back up plan. We adopted our son in 2012 and had planned to adopt again much sooner, but we kept hitting walls.
After so much travel, we needed roots and we just wanted to take a bit to make sure it wasn’t something we were white knuckling all the while God was redirecting us. And though we kept making decisions as if adoption was on our horizon we simultaneously gave the dream back to God for a while.
But then last year at Christmas I saw this ornament come across my instagram feed.
And I wept. I ordered the ornament and put it on our tree but then I also kept it out all year long in my kitchen. Many glances at that little onesie..and even more moments spent praying, crying, stomping my foot at God and asking Him why building our family was so hard.
And then I began to pray that terrifying prayer …that even if nothing changes, for God to grow contentment in me. And slowly but surely I began to become content. Not because my circumstances had changed, they hadn’t.
One day I looked at that little ornament and thought “Even if I have to wait for the rest of my life, I know it won’t be wasted.” And without even noticing it, the Lord had been healing a deep wound in my soul little by little. Just like He says He will.
I think it’s really dangerous to throw out the statement “everything happens for a reason” in the face of someone’s grief. Scripture doesn’t promise us an answer to why some things happen. But I know God doesn’t waste anything. And I know He is good. He doesn’t cast us away during dark times and He isn’t afraid of my ranting questions.
Last March, after much prayer and consideration it was abundantly clear to us that we should pursue adoption again. And so here we are, hoping again.
Safe to hope again, because of our good Father. Praying expectantly for an addition to our family. Our homestudy was approved in June and we are on to the next steps.
Please pray with us as we walk through this process. And don’t be afraid to hope again!
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