The Stockings were hung....

Today, I finally put up the stockings. I went to pull them out earlier this week and wasn't able to put them up. You see, last year after Christmas (and, yes, a good sale), I found some extra stocking/stocking holders in anticipation of having a new family member here to celebrate Christmas with us. When I opened that box of Christmas items earlier this week, I just wasn't prepared to see those items and be reminded again that we are still waiting. It seems to be the little things, happenings that I don't see coming, that send me down that road of yearning and aching and tears.

We know some of you see us with four awesome, healthy, wonderful children, jobs we enjoy, a marriage that is strong and those things are blessings way beyond what we deserve. But, God has also placed this ache, that we just can't put into words, into our hearts to adopt an orphan. And, the longer we wait, the deeper and heavier that ache becomes. When we started the process, it was expected to be a 9-12 month process. Later this month, it will mark 20 months of being "in process" or "paper pregnant". We knew we signed up for a marathon - but at this point, it feels like it has turned into a triathlon with Ethiopia changing their rules and regulations in the middle of it all, and the loss of the referral of those two children we already loved so much! Our hearts and minds and emotions are running on fumes and it is all taking its toll in various ways. In many ways, our spirits are just exhausted.

We have questioned God and really wrestled with what is going on in our adoption. We have wondered if God just wanted us to attempt to adopt to test our faithfulness and obedience, as he did with Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22:1-12. After much prayer, discussion and searching, we believe that it is more like that story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 25:24-26. Isaac and Rebekah had to wait until Isaac was sixty years old (okay, we hope we're not waiting that long!) and had to plead with God to give them a child. That's where we are at - we are pleading, pretty much on a daily basis.

And, today, as I pleaded, I hung up stockings. Eight of them......as a sign of HOPE for what IS to come. As I was hanging up stockings, I was listening to "Mandisa" and her album "Freedom". How fitting the words to "Broken Hallelujah" were as the stockings were hung....

"With my love and my sadness, I come before you Lord

My heart's in a thousand pieces, Maybe even more

Yet I trust in this moment, You're with me somehow

And You've always been faithful, So Lord even now

When all that I can sing is a broken Hallelujah

When my only offering is shattered praise

Still a song of adoration will rise up from these ruins

I will worship You and give You thanks

Even when my only praise is a broken Hallelujah"

So, I continue to give God my broken, teary, hanging on by a thread at some moments, Hallelujah, knowing He accepts my praise even in broken ways.

Because of the Joy and Hope that only Jesus brings - we continue the journey.