How He loves

I'm just going to level with y'all, I've got me some post-baby assignment blues.  Oh yes, that's a real thing, trust me.  The time between when you've been handed a picture of your baby and when you're allowed to bring your baby home is the suckiest part of adoption.  You can quote me on that.

I went back and read through my posts during this time in 2008 just to make sure I felt this way last time (I did) and then I went and read my agency's guidebook to make sure they say you'll fee this way (they do).  So I guess that makes me feel a little better, I may be sad, but I'm supposed to be sad, so there's that.

Adoption is such a time of learning about yourself and about your relationship with God.  For me it is one of the fires that God has asked me to walk through in order to refine me, so I keep praying that I walk through it well, that I don't come out of this unchanged.  It hurts, God, please don't let the hurt go to waste, if I'm going to hurt, please use it to make me more like You.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and I had one of those revelations, when you say something out loud and realize that you have just stated a deep truth that you were not conscious of until that moment.

I told her that I had been from the beginning preparing myself that this adoption was going to be different from Jack's adoption, that no two adoptions are the same.  But I never considered that this adoption was going to be different in positive ways, that it would be faster (not slower), that we would get a girl (a miracle), that she would have no medical needs (not lots).  I realized that this stems from one of the lies I believe about God, that I can't fully trust Him, that I need to be on watch for the bad things coming my way.  I do not fully or maybe even partly understand the way God loves me.

I haven't made much progress since my revelation because here I sit, sure that God is not going to bring Chloe home by Christmas, that it's going to take forever and that I'm not going to be able to handle all that waiting.

The good news is, my perception of God, the lies I believe, are just that, and it will never change who He really is.  He's teaching me right now, who He really is, the ways He really loves, the all consuming power that belongs to Him alone, and the trust that He has earned.  And I'm learning, really slowly, but I'm learning.  When I look back on this adoption, on this time of waiting, I will see that through the fire I learned one of the most important lessons of my life, how He loves.

"So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."  -The Bible, Ephesians 3:17-19