It doesn’t matter who or what or when you are waiting for. There is often an element of pain to a big wait. The adoption wait…. well I can say from a personal (long) experience it’s a tough wait.
I know there are a lot of people here who are foster and adoptive parents and dare I say that waiting for a child to be a forever part of your family, or waiting for a child to be in a place of safety and certainty is one of the most agonizing waits in life.
My husband and I, are in a deep season of waiting. As much as we try to make sense of the wait, we never seem to quite grasp it and we know we just need to surrender to it. One day God will reveal it to us, as he has over and over again in our lives. He always has and always will continue to prove to be faithful.
Instead of trying to figure it out, I have been focusing on the good that the wait has brought to our lives and maybe I can help inspire you to find the good in your season of wait.
Relationships will be strengthened
My husband and I can only cling to each other as we wait for our daughter to become officially a part of our family. She has been since day one, but we can’t travel with her. We still have to get permission from the agency for most things, I can’t show her face on social media etc.
We want to move but we can’t really do that in the middle of paperwork because we have to prove we have a stable home to provide for her.
We feel God is calling us to a ministry but we can’t really start anything until her adoption is official.
So through all of this our marriage has been tested but more importantly strengthened. We are in this together.
God is teaching us about His Faithfulness
Throughout this almost 5 year long process to adopt a child God has proved to us over and over how faithful He is. We just keep trusting Him and even though the journey hasn’t always been smooth he shows us His faithfulness to guide us, protect us, comfort us, lead us and bring us closer to him.
God is Testing us and Strengthening our Character
At first glance this may not seem like a positive. But in order to strengthen our walk with the Lord we need to be tested. There have been times I have wanted to run away from this process altogether. Times where it has seemed just too hard. But the testing of our faith produces endurance. It glorifies God.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
God is Strengthening our faith
Just as he is testing us, he is strengthening us. Whenever we have trials to walk through we are able to minister to others walking similar paths. God uses the wait to strengthen our characters.
Preparing us for a Blessing
I have seen God do this before in my life and I know I will see Him do it again. Sometimes we need to wait and walk through hard trials in order to appreciate the fullness of a blessing God wants to bestow upon us. I know that our daughter is one of the most amazing blessings we will ever receive in our life. When we finally sign those papers, after all we have been through I am going to be rejoicing and praising God with all my might.
Why did Moses wait 40 years? Maybe because he couldn’t do it in 39. Why Did Abraham wait so long for a child? Look how much he had to learn and the mistakes he made in the process that God covered in grace.
God cannot trust His authority to us when we are arrogant, self serving and prideful. Lessons such as humility, surrender and discipline need to be learned. And sometimes re learned. And really drilled into our human nature.
God has a plan for each and every one of us. He gives us dreams in our heart but so often we need preparation to fully step into our dreams and our roles within those dreams. Our faith often needs to be greater to walk into our full potential.
So if you feel called to adoption and now you are waiting and waiting and waiting. Remember these words. I repeat them to myself oten to get through the wait. I try to find the joy and embrace the wait.
One day I will have all the things I am now praying for. And if I don’t, well then that is God’s will. But He can. He will. And even if He do