I realized just this morning that I have been doing what I’m sure most people do when they experience pain/deferred hope/waiting … I’ve been pretending like the thing I’m hoping for just isn’t happening. It’s like the big purple elephant in the room, our adoption. I’m actually startled when people ask about it because in my mind I forget it’s happening. This is not at all because I’m lacking enthusiasm or desire, it’s more-so my protective mechanism.
If I pretend it’s not happening, then I don’t have to deal with this displaced longing inside of me for these two little girls.
Then, I have a moment of “weakness” and peek on another family’s adoption blog or look again at the slide-show Carolina Hope put together. Ohhhhh …then that all-too-familiar weight on my chest returns. I’m reminded of why I decided not to read too much of others’ blogs or immerse myself right now in Ethiopian cyber-world. It hurts. It reminds me of what I don’t yet have and am struggling to believe I ever will have.
I have an email hanging in space to our adoption agency asking when we might anticipate getting these girls. Just tell me what quarter in 2008 we’ll be getting these girls. Something. Anything. I realize now this is a vain attempt at getting my arms around something that only God can know and see.
And I’m left again with no other option but to curl up in His arms. This thirty-something quickly becomes like a 12 year-old who didn’t get asked to the middle school dance, crumpled up in a ball in her daddy’s arms. And I remember again why the Enemy, the one who is fighting the works/plans of God in my life, wants me to “pretend” like this adoption isn’t happening.
If I can let my heart be numb, then I don’t really need any help for my deferred hope (at least for now. We all know that this stuff builds up over time only to be released at the exact moment you’d least expect or want it, e.g. your husband’s work Christmas party or your family reunion 🙂 ) If I can go day-to-day with these girls on the distant periphery of my mind, then I won’t see a need to pray.
God is one that wants both the redemption of pain and my participation in His plans. Even as I type I think, “oh, but it’s so much easier to let this thing rest with all the other fantasies in my mind that I really, deep down, don’t believe will happen.” What is lost in my decision to disengage—subconscious as it may seem—is my partnership with God.
What’s capturing my attention these days is that the Bible reeks of this call to partnership with God. He didn’t create us as puppets to just respond to our strings being pulled by Him nor did He create us to rule and reign our own lives.
He’s made me to recognize my utter weakness without Him, yet at the same time be so filled with Him that the words out of my mouth are His words, the thoughts in my mind become His thoughts, the prayers that I pray are His prayers. (Yeah, isn’t that cool: the Bible says that Jesus prays to God on behalf of us, even now).
Yesterday I heard a particular, distinguishable drum-beat in a song and I thought, I want to taste the closeness to God in such a way that I hear His heartbeat as loud and clear as I can hear this drum.
And this morning, I wake up to the truth of my humanity. It’s just easier to live in numbness.
For weeks now, I’ve been pretending—running, you might say—from the very real heart ache of being a mom whose children are living in poverty halfway around the world. This tendency has kept me from letting Him do what He does best and be my comforter, my support, my refuge … and has kept me from doing what He created me to do: pray, search Him out, call out to Him on behalf of those little girls.
So I guess its back in the saddle for this one, who’s got the attention span of a 3-year old when it comes to God. God, heal my heart and bring my girls home.
