Trusting comes around sooner than we thought

Looking down the tunnel before deciding to slide down.















Walking into the strong arms of his father, with the support of his brother behind him.













I choose these two pictures to show how we are feeling right now in the adoption process. I really debated about sharing this on the blog, but after talking to Kevin decided to go ahead. Since this next adoption is a journey God has put us on, just as our adoption journey to Philip was, then we need to show the entire journey. That means sharing our triumphs as well as the sadness that is bound to come along the way. For those of you following this blog because you are in the journey yourselves, maybe this will help you. Help you to not feel so alone when the journey gets hard, when you don't understand where God is leading, when you feel you might never get there or not know the way there.

When you follow God's sure leading to a place that is a little unknown, a little scary, don't you feel a bit like Ted and Philip do looking down the slide? Don't you want to see what's at the end of the slide before actually sliding down? We do. Kevin and I really have to fight that urge to find out the rest of the story before going on. We also feel a little like Philip navigating a tough piece of playground equipment. He concentrates on getting the right step, all the while his dad is really near guiding him and ready to catch him if he falls. His brother, too, is behind him supporting him along the way.

These pictures help me put into words the feelings we have right now. We know God is there. We know he is guiding us and helping us if we should fall. We also know that we have people who love and support us.

Last Thursday we found a picture on the Waiting Children's List. It was a picture of a little girl with a cleft palate and cleft lip. She was beautiful. And there was something about her eyes that we just couldn't get out of our minds. She definitely captured our hearts at first sight.

Now. . . for the past couple of months Kevin and I have LITERALLY POURED OVER HUNDREDS OF PICTURES OF CHILDREN FROM THE WAITING CHILDREN'S LIST.

Up until that little girl's picture, no one had captured our hearts. They were all precious, but no one spoke to us. To make a long story short, we immediately felt this was our daughter. We contacted our agency, and they said somone else was already requesting her file, and they would call us if she became available. Kevin and I took her information over to our pediatrician anyway because we felt so strongly about her.

Later in the day our agency called and said that the other family had decided not to review her file. Did we still want to try to lock her in? Yes, we did. They said they would contact their Beijing office to see if she was locked in to another agency. They also said that she was one who needed a Log In Date to be able to do so. Big problem since we don't even have our home study completed yet. But then they said they would ask Beijing for a favor to waive that requirement and see where that led. Immediately upon hanging up from them, our doctor called to say her file looked fine. We just felt she might be our daughter from that point on. . . I know, I know. The shared listing on the Waiting Children's List is very difficult to manuever, and we know better than to get our hopes up. But we just felt that she was our daughter.

A Bible verse that had kept coming to mind earlier in the week swept across my mind. It was the verse in Proverbs that says, "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart; lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all of your ways, and he will make your path straight." As it turned out, the next day we found out another agency had her locked in, so we could not review her file. We know this process. We know this kind of thing happens a lot! But we also felt she was our daughter! We don't know where this will go. Philip was also locked in before we could get to his file, and look what happened.

We fight the feeling of wanting to know what will happen, what's at the end of the slide. What we do know is that the Lord is still in charge. Whatever happens, he already knows the outcome. We are both very sad that it appears she is not ours. We even have shed more than a few tears over it since yesterday morning, but we keep holding onto that verse about trusting in God. He is in charge and guiding us. He is waiting to catch us with open arms if we should fall, and he knows the rest of the story.