April 19, 2015 – a Sunday.
Ok, here is a big one. For several reasons, I must be vague in this post: this
story is not over, it involves the lives of others which should be kept private
and we do not know what will happen in the future. So, here we go.
Our family suffered a huge blow
two weeks ago. After waiting on a court date and waiting to get our hands on
the Private Investigator’s report, it came. I opened up my email one morning
while getting our boys ready for school
and there it was. I could hardly pull myself away. It all came down to the fact
that our daughter may not be adoptable after all. Here’s the vague part –
family has been identified and they may not want to proceed with the adoption.
Our first reaction was shock. This was not planned or expected.
Secondly, I fought to rejoice in
the fact that our little girl is not an orphan! Praise God! The downfall of
this of course is how much it physically hurt. For two days, I did all I could
to just breathe. I was so thankful that my boys were in school so that I had
more personal time to grieve, cry, pray, cry, pray, cry and pray.
We reached out to a few people
asking, begging really, for prayer. We needed to grieve the fact that we may
never bring our daughter home. Or, that we may not bring her home yet. We have
waited so long, jumped through all of the national and international hoops and
all we want was to have her join our crazy family. This type of news can really
take your breath away.
We know that having people pray
for us help immensely. I was able to insure that my boys were properly loved
and taken care of while still dealing with my grief. It also helped once the
Big O and I made time to talk about it all. At first, we both just went through
the motions of staying busy and processing the information. This type of thing
will work for a while, but will not bring people closer. We took time after a
few days to communicate and comfort one another. It truly helps us both to heal
and makes us stronger.
So, what’s the plan now? Well, we
have two plans that have been put into motion simultaneously. First, we are
doing a double-check to insure that the facts that we were presented with still
stand. And, if so (which is probably likely), we have asked our lawyer in
Uganda to help that family enroll her in a reputable international organization
so that we may sponsor her. Our hearts are invested now. We want her to have
every possible thing she may need – medication, food, an education. It pains us
greatly to think that she may never physically join our family; however, we are
trusting God and will do everything we can to parent her from afar.
Option two is for our kind
adoption agent to go ahead and find another placement for us. This step is hard
for obvious reasons, I think. We love our daughter! We do not want to simply choose
another. However, leaning into God and searching for His plan for our lives has
told us many things. 1- He saw this and He deemed us able to walk through this.
We can trust Him. 2- He loves our little girl even more than we do and knows
what is best for her. 3- When this news
came down I felt very strongly that we whispered the word “Sponsor” to me. I didn’t
want to, no way! We want to bring her home. But, He is the one in charge here. 4-
We are grateful that He has used us in something way bigger than ourselves. Our
Lord allowed us to witness something that could reunite a family (vague again –
sorry). And, he did it using people who have never met one another, all
thousands of miles away – incredible! 5- As my husband and I have started
saying during our hard days or difficult moments, “this sucks”. It hurts. Our
hearts were sad. (They are still sad but the last two weeks were brutal).
However, we are trusting that our God knows this too and has a plan. We must rejoice in the fact that we allowed our hearts
to open, we loved with abandon, without reservations. This is pure love.
Will our agent find another
precious person for us? I am sure she will. I also have no doubt that we will
be able to sponsor our daughter. We will not give up hope of bringing her here
until God closes all of the doors that would make this possible. Or, perhaps we
just need to wait right now. Ah, wait. Here we go with that patience again. God
has done much to aid us in strengthening that muscle this past year but it does
not mean that I have to like it. Ugh- more waiting.
So, what can you do? If you are a
person of faith, please pray for us. We are only human and this process is
mentally and emotionally draining. Please, pray that we have enduring patience,
please pray for our daughter and please pray that God’s plan for her life will
come to fruition. If we only get a small piece of knowing her through sponsorship
then we chose to be at peace with that if this is God’s will for us.
This trial also reminded me of
the many friends that we have who sponsor children overseas. I believe that God
wants you to be praying for these precious people as you pray for your own
children. Giving money in order to aid these children is a tremendous gift but
please do not forget to pray for them.
Anyway, we are healing and just
want to do what our Lord calls us to do. So, we will continue to love this
sweet child. Perhaps, she will come home with us, perhaps another child will.
But, still, we will love, even when it hurts.
Here is a song that describes our
feelings right now. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfosSggwQS0
