"It must be hard to wait..."

That's what our investment advisor told us at the end of our last meeting with him. He knew from our prior meetings that we were working on an adoption, and to him it seemed like a hard thing to wait when you don't have a "due date".

And he's right in one sense.

Unlike pregnancy, we have no date to anticipate. We may be close to having a baby come home, or we may be a long way from it...and anything in between. Like a 5 year old, the beginning of the long wait doesn't seem so bad. We're just SURE that it will be any day now. But as time passes, we begin to wonder just WHEN it will happen. Then even longer into the wait we begin to ask, "Are you sure it's going to happen?" Given enough time, we might even be tempted to despair as we become convinced it will never happen. Unfortunately, that's the trap many adoptive parents fall into when they've waited a long time (and for reference, a long time is 12+ months).

Recently I've been catching myself questioning God's timing as we wait. Each time, I have to confess it and give it back to Him. I have to remind myself that:

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11

The gift of a child is arguably one of the best God gives a couple. I have to remember that when I rush His timing or try to run ahead of Him, what I end up getting is not nearly as good as what God wants to give me. So I have to learn to trust Him and wait for HIS timing.

A friend of mine was telling a story about her daughter, who really wanted some pretty pillow cases to go with her new bedding that she recently got. My friend kept saying no to her daughter's pleas. The reason, as the daughter found out later, was that my friend had already purchased some new sheets that matched the rest of the bedding - including the pillow cases. Not only had my friend blessed her daughter with the pillow cases, but with sheets - something the daughter had not even requested.

The Lord is like that. What we want (and what we can't see at the time) is not as good as what the Lord wants to give us. If left to my own devices, we would have had the baby home 3 months ago. And I would have been frantic trying to get all the clothes, diapers, crib + bedding, changing table (and let's not forget the nursery was formerly a "catch all" room that needed to be cleaned out) and all the other things babies need - all while I functioned on less sleep than normal and a crazy, off-beat schedule.

I can see now that these last 3 months have allowed me to get many of those things done so that we can at least function for the first few weeks and months. Only the Lord knows how much better prepared I will be when He finally DOES say, "It's time!"

But more importantly, there's the emotional and spiritual preparation that takes place in our lives and in the lives of the birthparents. Simply put, either one party or both parties simply are not ready for one another. I have no idea what issues the birthparents are dealing with, but I do know that God wants to work through those circumstances to draw them closer to Himself. That's what He's doing with us, too. When everything is just as He wants it, He will open the door to allow us to walk through and accept the gift He has been preparing.

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

Psalm 62:5