Our journey that led us to adoption has not been an easy one for me. Our inability to have children on our own rocked my world and made me question God in every way. God has seriously had to break me through this whole process and there were days when I thought that God was very cruel and like he had completely forgotten about us.
The question that I had to ask myself everyday was "Are you going to trust God and believe that he is good, even when he doesn't give you what you want?" This question always smacked me right across the face. Up until this point, my life had gone pretty much according to my plans; graduate high school, go to college, get married, and the next logical step would be have kids. So naturally when we had infertility issues I did not take it very well at all. I went through so many cycles of being mad at God, trying to bargain with him, distancing myself from him, being really really sad and then repeat. My view of God's goodness was blocked by my own selfishness, bitterness, and feelings of entitlement. I was missing the point of it all. The lesson that he had for me, even though it hurt, it was for my good.
God was calling me to a place of complete and total surrender. He was also bringing so many sin areas out in the open and showing me the many aspects of myself that were not very pretty. Despite this very painful sanctification process, I could see glimpses of God's grace along the way. Over and over again in my times of desperation, when I would pray and ask God, "Why?" for the thousandth time, I could hear him tell me ever so softly "Wait, just wait and see what I have for you." At the time the last thing I wanted was to wait, but now I can slowly begin to see his plan unfolding for me as I surrender bits and pieces of my life to him.
So that leads us to this point. Our adoption process is underway and we are truly grateful and overjoyed at the thought of welcoming a baby into our family. It is easy to get bogged down in the paperwork, the trainings, the finances, and just the time and effort that it all takes. Somedays it seems so overwhelming that I want to just say "forget it". It all seems too exhausting and costly. But through this adoption process God is continually revealing to me the cost of my own adoption, as his daughter. And the drastic lengths he went through to adopt me. Even in spite of my anger, bitterness, entitlement, and pride God still chose me. That fact in and of itself has been completely humbling.
I am now so thankful that God does not always give me what I want. Though it is painful for a while, he really has been shaping me more into the image of his son. He has brought me to a place where I can admit I can't do it on my own and I need his strength daily to get from one adoption detail to the next.
The question that I had to ask myself everyday was "Are you going to trust God and believe that he is good, even when he doesn't give you what you want?" This question always smacked me right across the face. Up until this point, my life had gone pretty much according to my plans; graduate high school, go to college, get married, and the next logical step would be have kids. So naturally when we had infertility issues I did not take it very well at all. I went through so many cycles of being mad at God, trying to bargain with him, distancing myself from him, being really really sad and then repeat. My view of God's goodness was blocked by my own selfishness, bitterness, and feelings of entitlement. I was missing the point of it all. The lesson that he had for me, even though it hurt, it was for my good.
God was calling me to a place of complete and total surrender. He was also bringing so many sin areas out in the open and showing me the many aspects of myself that were not very pretty. Despite this very painful sanctification process, I could see glimpses of God's grace along the way. Over and over again in my times of desperation, when I would pray and ask God, "Why?" for the thousandth time, I could hear him tell me ever so softly "Wait, just wait and see what I have for you." At the time the last thing I wanted was to wait, but now I can slowly begin to see his plan unfolding for me as I surrender bits and pieces of my life to him.
So that leads us to this point. Our adoption process is underway and we are truly grateful and overjoyed at the thought of welcoming a baby into our family. It is easy to get bogged down in the paperwork, the trainings, the finances, and just the time and effort that it all takes. Somedays it seems so overwhelming that I want to just say "forget it". It all seems too exhausting and costly. But through this adoption process God is continually revealing to me the cost of my own adoption, as his daughter. And the drastic lengths he went through to adopt me. Even in spite of my anger, bitterness, entitlement, and pride God still chose me. That fact in and of itself has been completely humbling.
Adam and I now feel the "cost" of adoption and the "pain" that it brings. But how much more did Jesus suffer for me? How much more did it hurt for Jesus to bear my burden of sin and take my punishment so that I might be adopted as his daughter? This fact is such motivation for me to keep going and press on. And in the craziness of all our adoption details, I have found that my inability to manage it well, is actually the beauty of it all. The days when I feel completely overwhelmed and like I simply cannot do it, those are the days when I hear God's voice telling me "you don't have to do this on your own." The days when it all seems so far away and out of reach I can hear Him saying "Wait, just wait and see what I have for you." I can now see that in those hard and desperate moments with God, he was preparing me for something much bigger than the plans I had for myself. He was preparing me for adoption.
I am now so thankful that God does not always give me what I want. Though it is painful for a while, he really has been shaping me more into the image of his son. He has brought me to a place where I can admit I can't do it on my own and I need his strength daily to get from one adoption detail to the next.
I really do feel as if we are on the edge of seeing God do something amazing. Something that I cannot even fathom yet. And I can still hear him say to me, "Wait, just wait and see what I have for you."
Lauren
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