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You may not know your child’s name yet or what their face looks like when they laugh or cry, but God has already gone before you in this. He’s already connected your heart to theirs in a way only He can.
There is purpose in the waiting, Lauren. Don’t allow yourself to lose sight of that.”
“It’s tough keeping our hope alive when there seems to be no end in sight. But, Lauren, there will be an end to this season. I wish I could tell you the exact date and time, but only God knows that.
Every adoption story looks different, but every one of our children joined our family on the perfect day. God is always on time.”
The season of waiting that you’re in is just one example of why we need to lean into our support systems. When life feels hard, it’s imperative we reach out to our loved ones and communities and share our burdens. And in due time, those same support systems will be the people who will get to share in our blessings, too.”
But I’ll tell you what’s real, Lauren. Trauma is real. And it’s all-consuming.
“It’s a myth that babies don’t remember trauma. They do—and so do the parents who care for them. Where’s
my child would have needs beyond what my limited life experience could offer him or her. There would be moments I wouldn’t know what to do, moments I’d need to reach past my comfort zone for help, moments that would stretch me as a mother and as a human being.
“When my Minnie couldn’t get pregnant for the first five years of her marriage, I just kept encouraging her to protect her hope. Without hope, life feels so empty.”
Only motherhood wasn’t a prize to be won. Adoption was a privilege, a blessing, a responsibility so much greater than myself.
It was the kind of happiness that stuck to your bones and pumped through your heart and made you undoubtedly aware that you’d never actually known the true meaning of the word until right then.
But making a difference starts with being willing to help where and how we can right now.”
“Because folding your laundry is how we can love you best today.”
“Just one day at a time.”
what if Joshua had been the door I’d been meant to open from the very beginning?
Because if my calling was even a shadow of Mary’s, then why hadn’t God offered me the same strength to endure my trial? Where was the faith I’d been promised? The unshakable peace? How had I gotten it so, so wrong?
“We had Joel, and as my wife likes to say, he removed the scales from our eyes. All those things we thought we needed, we thought life owed to us, maybe even that God himself owed to us . . . were actually just wants. Not needs. Joel brought us a lot of sleepless nights, but he also brought us perspective.
My testimony can be summed up in one phrase: God’s way is rarely easy, but it’s always better than mine.”
“I hadn’t understood how much He cared about all the personal details in my life until I saw you open that little boy’s file. It was like all your struggle and sacrifice to get to that point was nothing in comparison to the reward of your faith in Him. It made me believe that He might have a plan for my life, too. That maybe the very things I’ve been so afraid to say yes to all these years are the very things He wants me to trust Him with.”
“Have you asked Him? Have you asked God what He thinks about all this? About Joshua and this new match?”
“In my experience, it’s really difficult to hear God’s voice when my ears aren’t tuned in. But I can tell you one thing, Lauren.” And even as she spoke my name, my bottom lip began to quiver. “God doesn’t trick His children. He loves us, and everything He asks of us, or allows us to walk through, has a purpose.”
“Ask Him those questions. He’s big enough to handle your anger, your confusion. Your hurt.”
the sounds, the smells. Everything will be uncharted. Adoption is beautiful, Lauren . . . but it’s not part-time. We often say in group that parenthood is a hamster wheel of self-denial, sacrifice, and unconditional love.”
We aren’t powerful enough to mess up God’s plan. Can we deny it? Yes. Can we delay it while we chase our own way? Absolutely. But sometimes our character needs time to catch up to our calling.”
“The Bible says God pursues us with unfailing kindness. And it’s that same undeserved kindness that leads us to repentance.”
Whichever the case, I no longer wished her to be someone she wasn’t; I simply wished her here.
“There’s an old Chinese proverb that those of us in the adoption community love to share with those new to the journey.” Gail pointed to a scripted piece of beautiful rice paper inside the box. I retrieved it and read it out loud: “‘An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.’”
God’s connected you both, Lauren, since before the beginning of time, and His provision has made a way for you to meet. We’ll be praying His love encircles you both when you’re finally united as family.”
I’d imagined this day a million times, prayed for every detail about the significant moment to come, and yet there was still a part of me that felt like I was observing somebody else’s life, somebody else’s adoption story.
The day an orphaned child would become a daughter. The day a childless woman would become a mother.
“I’m excited to meet her, too.” An understatement of the highest degree, yet there wasn’t a word in any language that could possibly define the feelings coursing through me now.
As if all the minutes of all the hours of all the days of my life had added up to this one God-ordained moment. I could do nothing but sit in awe of the precious gift in front of me.
I’ve never been more proud to call you my friend.”
letting me be a part of this.” She smiled as a tear nestled in the corner of her lips. “I’ll never, ever forget it.”
But that, I’d learned, was adoption in a nutshell, a recipe for all things bittersweet. In the same mixing bowl were often heaping amounts of celebration and challenge, gratitude and grief, hope and heartache.
I’d tell him how God had broken my heart over and over and over, pruning away my limited views on love and grafting in His own.
yet lately it seemed my entire life could be summed up in the impossible becoming possible.
Love isn’t about instant gratification, it’s about showing up for the journey and riding out all the twists and turns along the way . . . together.”
Awe overwhelmed me at the thought of God’s intricate and grand design. Six years ago, when Aria’s birth mother made the heartbreaking sacrifice to surrender her sickly daughter over to the Chinese welfare system for reasons I’d never judge, and likely never know this side of heaven, God was already at work, preparing my heart and growing my faith for the call to adopt one of His precious children as my daughter.
isn’t about the events of the climax at all; it’s about you. Specifically, it’s about a question I hope you’ll ask yourself: What is the hard that God’s asking me to partner with Him in?
yet I will myself to remember where we’ve been and where He’s taken us. Because God’s best for us rarely comes without the stretching, and it’s in those stretching seasons, those periods of complete and utter dependence on God’s faithfulness,
You can trust Him to take your doubts, your fears, and your ten thousand reasons of why you couldn’t possibly be the right candidate for His calling on your life, and allow Him to create the kind of story only heaven can script.
