Feeling Caught

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" Romans 12:12

See that verse? It's a short one, but has plenty of instruction to share in those 10 words. Right now, I'm having a lot of trouble with two out of the three instructions......

Be joyful in hope Adoption is a journey of hope. Hope for a child who needs a home, shelter, security, love, provision. Hope for parents who long to provide all that a child needs. Hope for parents who long to complete their family. Hope for prospective siblings who desire more joy, laughter, memories, and yes, even another person to fight with. Hope for fulfilling a deep, almost unexplained call to embark on the journey of adoption. Hope for paths to cross, paperwork to be completed, phone calls to be made, referrals to be offered. Hope for a reunion with someone you've never even met - but still when you meet them, you know it is a reunion of a very special kind.

So many reasons to hope and hope I do. But, being joyful in it? Really? Not right now. I think I can speak (or write, rather) for both Dave and I and say that we are definitely not finding a lot of joy in this journey currently. There is a strong sense of emptiness at the loss of adoption referral, but a whole different sense of emptiness because we are back to waiting and longing for a new referral. Do we doubt that we should be adopting? Not at all! But, we are having a lot of trouble keeping our Joy. We are feeling pretty weighed down with a lot of baggage at this point in the process - especially because we are at this point in the process AGAIN.

Patient in Affliction Patient in affliction? Patient.....in........affliction? I am not feeling very patient. I am struggling at times to the point that if you asked me how I'm doing at the wrong moment, I may just start crying, AGAIN. (I seem to do that a lot these days). I am "feeling caught" in the process; in the emotion of it all, in the hope, in the lack of fulfillment of hope, in the fact that millions of orphans are waiting, but procedures slow down their hope and ours. My patience is wearing thin - thankfully, Dave is one of the most patient men I know and he walks with me through all of this - but even his patience is wearing thin with where we are AGAIN. We need to consider purchasing a car (we currently are a one car family). We feel caught about how to go about making a decision about that because we don't know WHO is in future. We had started to make some plans to changes in the household for preparing for 2 kids to come home - we feel caught because we don't know what to do about those plans. We feel caught because we don't know what the financial future is in regard to our adoption - so we are sort of on an "only necessity budget" right now.

Faithful in Prayer This part I can do. I am in communication with God through prayer all the time. My great big God hears me knockin' on heaven's door all the time right now. I am thankful that He is such a great big God, because otherwise, He would have shut His ears to me a long time ago. He's got Big ears and can handle how much I am talking to Him these days. He can also handle the fact that sometimes I seem to be talking back to Him. I know He can handle me telling Him that I'm angry, I'm weary, I'm struggling to be hopeful and patient with His plan.

Because we know how Big our God is, we will continue to have hope (with a little bit of joy mixed in soon?) and He will provide just enough patience in this affliction. Would you please join us in the Prayer Part? Would you please knock on Heaven's door and ask God to bring us our referral SOON? Pray that our Social Worker would know without a doubt who it is she is to offer to us as a referral. Pray for our family as we work through all of this together. Pray for our child/ren in Ethiopia - for their protection, for their hearts, for their health and for their preparation for life as a Jansen. Pray that we would be "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" (Romans 12:12) and that God would be glorified above all!

Thanks for reading - we can not share with you how much it means that you take the time to read, and more importantly to pray.