Still Waiting...

I don't really want to blog today.  Still no news from the judge.  She has eleven more days to respond.  Praise God there is a legal cap on this part of the waiting season.  Waiting is hard.  Waiting for something you so desperately want is harder.  Waiting without knowing how much longer you must wait seems to be the hardest. 

There are a lot of things we don't know right now.  We don't know when we will see our son again.  We don't know how much he has grown in the last three months.  We don't know what we are supposed to be doing while we are waiting.  We don't know how much milk to buy when we go to the grocery store.   We don't know how to plan for a trip to see my family for the holidays.  I don't know how to plan Scentsy activities and since that is the only way I'm bringing any income into the house, it's a little nerve-wracking.  We don't know how to answer the countless questions we get asked every day.  We don't mind the questions because we are so grateful that people care, but we just don't know how to answer all of them.  It's easy to get bogged down in the "don't knows", but it's easier to positive and thankful in the "here's what I knows".

We know that time after time God has performed nothing short of miracles in His timing, His provision and His strength.  There  are so many people  who tell us daily that they are  praying for us in this season and we can't tell you what that means to us.  We know that this season cannot last forever and that there is a specific purpose to it.  We know that God does not delight in making us miserable, but He does delight in developing our character.  We know that He knows.  We know that His ways are not our ways and that His ways are higher.  We know that this delay is not the result of God being incapable or negligent.  He is able and He has a purpose for season.  We know that we can trust Him, that is is faithful and He is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or even imagine.

I've been thinking a lot about the Israelites' journey to the promise land.  God could have just "teleported" the entire Israelite nation into the promise land.  After all,  in Acts 8.38, it says, "...the Spirit snatched Peter away and the eunuch no longer saw him..."  But He walked them through the wilderness.  He performed miracle after miracle.  He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  But they just kept complaining and God kept letting them wander.  I think I understand why they were complaining.  They ate the same food every day.  They wore the same shoes and the same tunics every day.  Once, for three days they had no water and then when they finally found water it was bitter.  I would love to picture myself being more spiritually mature than they were and tell myself that I would be amazed everyday by the provision of manna.  I would like to say that I would rejoice over the fact that my shoes and tunic never wore out, but I don't know.  And here we are, faced with our own opportunity to choose. God has lovingly and faithfully called us out of our Egypt of childlessness and into the promiseland of parenthood and we have had to walk through the wilderness to get there.  I am not equating childlessness to slavery, but I am saying that both Brock and I have felt very much so that there was something more for us in this life.  We have wanted to be parents for so long and finally, we have been chosen to go.  I also know that parenthood will not be all milk and honey.  There were battles the Israelites had to fight in the promise land, too.  I don't want to focus on all of the inconveniences and hiccups.  I want to stay focused on all of the ways that God has proven Himself faithful.  We can't turn away now.  Not when we need Him the most. 

So, yes, waiting is hard.  But God is faithful.  We don't have to have all of the answers today.  We just have to trust the One who does.  He knows exactly how many seconds we have before we can see our son again.  I believe that with my whole heart.  Until then, LORD, protect him and keep him.  May You cause Your face to shine upon him, be gracious to him and give him peace.  Tell him we love him and that we will be a united family soon.  Please move quickly, LORD.