Contentment

I spent the afternoon talking to our pediatrician, talking about Jack even though it was Kylynn's appointment, we were chatting about great pastors and listening to their sermons, we were talking about new research on cleft lips, we were talking about doing this adoption thing all over again, and what I can handle, what our family can handle and what our kids can handle.

He is a dear man, whom I adore, but I know that although he understands my love for God, he does not understand my love for adoption.  He gave me advice on looking over an assigned child's medical records and new research on children born with a cleft and what that could potentially mean for our next child, he wanted me to look at this rationally, to separate my self, my heart, from the process, and consider the science.  He is a doctor, that's what doctors do, they make decisions based on the latest science.

I started to answer him, to tell him the truth.  To tell him that I can't do what he wants me to do, I believe that God will assign us our child and I will not turn my back on my child.  Out loud I only nodded and said I would try.  I didn't think I could make him understand how terribly difficult it is to be given a picture, a small life story, a name and say, 'no'.  I know people do it, but I don't know how.  How does one refuse a life being offered to them?

Just like when a woman becomes pregnant, I do not know what my child will be like, and though I feel like I have less control than a woman giving birth, I know that's not true.  So I trust and I pray, I pray for our child's protection in his first mother's womb, I pray for the choices she makes, I pray for ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes.  And I wait for when it is my turn to say the yes out loud that I said long ago to the Lord, when I chose to allow Him to be the one to add children to our lives.  When I gave in to Him, when I said yes to allowing His plan for my life, my children, my family to unfold, I finally found contentment.  There is such peace in knowing that I am not in control, that I can follow the lead of the One who has a good and perfect plan for my life, that I have traded in my dreams for something so much better.