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In Our Wating...God is Working

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In the waiting…God is working!!!  Has anyone else ever had to wait for something they really wanted, and it seemed to take forever? Maybe it was in the supermarket line when you just wanted to get home!  How about after school when your child seems to take forever to get out of the building?  What about when you just want a prayer answered?  Waiting is not something I am good at, how about you?

From the time I was little I remember confessing my sin of impatience…spoiler alert, I still confess this sin.  The mantra I heard from my parents, especially my mom was, “patience is a virtue!” I pray for this virtue daily, and guess what?  God gives me ceaseless opportunities to grow in patience, and I fail daily!  My inability to be patient is something that truly drives me crazy about myself! 

As I reflect on the virtue of patience, I realize just how impatient I have been in the past, how much I have changed recently, and where I hope to be in the future. 

The thing, up until the last three years, that I have been most impatient about was my desire to be married.  From the time I was 18, I wanted so badly to find the perfect person to complete me.  (Heck, I dreamed of it from the time that I was 8!)  I watched all my college roommates get married, begin families, and here I was, ALONE!  22 came and went, 23, 24, 25…I prayed and prayed.  I shed so many tears.  Then at 26 the love of my life entered my life, without any warning.  He was perfect!  So perfect that it only took four months to figure out we were meant to be together forever.  God was working…in my waiting.  He was preparing me for the perfect person meant to complete me. 

Fast forward about eight years and the love of my life and I knew we were called to expand our family, but my body could not sustain a pregnancy.  I lost two babies in the matter of three months and I knew that I just could not do this anymore!  I was impatient with knowing that God called us to expand our family, but my body just couldn't do it!  Why did He put this desire in our hearts, if He would not allow us to fulfill it.  We had three biological children and Dan and I were always open to fostering and adoption, but we did not know this was the time to do it…but it was.  God was working…in my waiting.  He was preparing me to be ready to welcome our sweet son from China into our family in July of 2017. 

Again, God called us to expand our family through adoption.  This journey began at the end of 2018.  We completed all the paperwork and I resigned from my job at the end of 2019 to be able to be home more with our new son from China.  This son has Down Syndrome, like our first child from China, but along with that, heart issues.  I knew I could not keep the job I had and be the mother I needed to be. We were due to travel in February/March of 2020.  You know what happened in 2020 don't you?  THE WORLD SHUT DOWN!  Today has been 1335 days since our adoption was complete and we still do not have our son home in Bismarck, ND with us.  Instead, he is across the world still in his orphanage in China.  This waiting has been the worst waiting I have ever endured and the thing about this waiting is that nobody (other than the other families) know how we feel.  We often feel very alone in this waiting, this suffering.  However, we trust that in this waiting...God is working. We know God is with us. We know he is using this suffering to help the world...somehow.

We do not know when the day we will receive the call from China to say..."You may come and get your child!"  But, we believe it will happen.  We live on the hope that God is working hard to unite our family.  God has great plans for us and we choose to hold onto that hope! 

The next time you start to feel impatient in your life, I challenge you to remember, that in the waiting…God is working.  Even if your child is taking FOREVER to get out of school, remember, maybe they go slowly to make you holy!!!

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