Waiting

The Waiting Child

I saw you meet your child today
You kissed your baby joyfully
And as you walked away with her
I played pretend you'd chosen me.

I'm happy for the baby yet inside
I'm aching miserably
I want to plead as you go by,
"Does no one want a child of three?"

I saw you meet your child today
In love with him before you met
And as I watched you take him out

 I knew it wasn't my turn yet.

I recognize you from last year!
I knew I'd seen your face before!
But you came for a second babe.
Does no one want a child of four?

I saw you meet your child today
But this time there was something new
A nurse came in and took MY hand
And then she gave my hand to you.

 Can this be true? I'm almost five!
And there are infants here you see?
But then you kissed me and I knew
The child you chose this time was me. ~ Debbie Bodie

 While it is hard to wait to embrace our son, it is harder still to think about the children who do not have someone waiting anxiously to hold them. We wait to bring home our little boy, yet I can't help but think of the thousands of other boys and girls who are waiting in orphanages in China. Waiting for a Mommy and Daddy to love them as their very own child. Waiting for their turn to hold a hand and know it is forever. During the first several years of Jessa's transition to our family, it was hard. I'm not gonna lie - it was brutally hard. Nightmare comes close to describing it. There were many times that folks stopped me to ask me about adoption and about our calling, and I'm not proud to say I was "done". Famous words of mine when I get fed up with something. "Done" with adoption. "Done" with God's heart for it. "Done" with telling others what a blessing it is. "Done" because it hurt to much to keep on keeping on. Ashamed that these words actually left my lips, "I am NOT an advocate for adoption."

Yep, I said that.

More than once even.

Why?

I'm not sure. Maybe I was bitter from having gone through everything and realizing that my expectations were NOT even close to being met. I know I was hurting. Still not sure that God realized what He was doing. Wanting the easy way and always, ALWAYS, getting stuck with the harder path. Just seems like God has a plan to stretch me and grow me whether I like it or not, whether I ask for it or not, and whether I want Him to or not. And believe me, if I could choose, I would choose NOT.

Despite my adult-sized temper tantrums, God was gracious and sustained my marriage and our adoption. He has showered me with forgiveness, mercy, and grace. And the reward has been an amazing, beautiful healing between my daughter and me. Love has come - softly. It is deep and wide now. It stretches over the landscape of both of our hearts and is so intertwined with our past and our present that I am blessed to say it feels like "it has always been this way." But, I know that it hasn't. And I'm realistic about these things. Truth be told, there was a time that I cringed to read blog posts like the very one I'm writing today. Adoption. Waiting children. God's heart. All of it seemed to put added pressure on me and made me feel like I'm not doing "enough" for God. Like 1 adoption isn't nearly as good as 2 or 3 or more! There is an attitude out there that unless you are currently adopting, you aren't serving Him.

hmmm. Humbly disagree with that one.

God's love for us is not based on performance or good works, and He created each of us with a special and very unique plan. Many of us have been called to adoption, but many are called to serve Him in other areas of the world. We are all the Body of Christ. Each of us a part that makes up the whole. There is no heart that is purer or more righteous {right with God} than another. God is our Father. God is our judge, and it is not our place to put limits on His ability to work in us and through us in whatever way HE CHOOSES. It is His choosing.

So while things in my own heart have changed 180 degrees, and I have repented and once again embrace God's passion for the orphan and know that He is choosing us to adopt again, I do not in any way want to pressure a family to do something that God, Himself, is not preparing their hearts to do. The first step in any journey of faith is prayer. I'm talking down on your knees, faces in hands, lifting up heartfelt cries of desperate seeking - prayer.

Then, and only then, can you faith walk out onto the raging waters knowing HE is going before, behind and beside you. Because He has promised He will. And believe me, without God's calling to look back on when we adopted Jessa, without His tangible and clear signs validating our journey, when things got TOUGH and beyond me to cope, if I didn't have an "Ebenezer Stone" erected in my heart, I would have given up. I would have been "done". That stone of remembrance was a testimony to God's faithfulness and calling and solidified what my current trials and surroundings would not bear witness too. He had called us to go. We had gone. It is not what we expected. But it was what He expected. It was long. It taught us long-suffering. It was hard. It taught us hard fought love. It was dying to love her. It taught us to love her while dying to self. Without her presence in my life and her struggle to open these places in my heart, I would have never been able to truly taste the unconditional love of the Father. She has changed me - for good. He has changed me - forever.

I know that we are called to care for the orphan. God's word is clear. But even more than caring, what if God is calling you to love them - love one - as your child. If you are feeling led to adopt a waiting child, perhaps you don't know quite where to start. There are many in the adoption community who are advocating for waiting children. Some children have special needs - both major and minor - depending on your perspective. Some children's only "special need" is that they are older, no longer an infant. Before we can decide in our hearts that adoption is not God's plan for us, shouldn't we ask Him first?


Have you asked Him?

God, what is your plan for my family?

What is Your purpose for my life?

Am I fulfilling all that You've created me to do?

I read that Your word calls me to act on behalf of the fatherless.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ James 1:27

Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act. ~ Prov. 24:12

What role do You want me to play in this Kingdom work?

Dear Father, break my heart for the things that break Yours.

If you are seeking Him and His will for your life, I know He will show you how to reach out to these waiting children and help bring them hope and possibly a forever home. Whether through your finances are your prayers, isn't it time you got involved and touched God's heart by loving and helping a child that has no home? I want to encourage you to visit one of the sites below, and print out the photo of a waiting child. Place it on your fridge, or your bathroom mirror, or in your Bible. Then pray for that child as though they were your own. Pray for their family to find them. For God to give them a hope and a future. Pray until your heart begins to ache for them, and then...pray some more.

Wonderful Waiting Kids  (blog created by an adoptive mother to weekly advocate for China's waiting children)

Rainbow Kids (an exhaustive list of children from various countries and various agencies: in order review the photo listings you must first register a username and password - it is FREE. I was printing off children from this site last year to pray over when God called my heart again to adopt and found us our son!)

A.A.C.'s Waiting Special Focus Children (children from China & Korea listed with our agency)

Reece's Rainbow (children waiting with down syndrome)

Lifeline (adoption agency with special focus list - advocating for waiting children in China)

WACAP (adoption agency with special focus list, must request password and register - free)

New Day Foster Home (a wonderful organization that works in China fostering waiting children)

New Day Foster Home blog (blog that shares the journey of the children and their amazing impact)

Not every child I pray for is meant to be mine, but I know that God works through the prayers of His people, and there are many children who have found a family because God opened hearts through prayer. You see, I know, because this is how He opened ours - and George Mason is no longer on the list, he is no longer labeled as "waiting", because he has a family!

Our children arrived exactly as they were designed. There was no mistake here. They are a direct and unmistakable gift from God. He has given us children capable of copious amounts of unconditional love because we haven't been open to receiving the more indirect ways He's been showering it on us for the previous years of our lives. ~Courtney Heigele 

Maybe, just maybe, God has an unmistakable gift for you too!