I have learned a lot about waiting. As we wind down our 25th month of this process we have done A LOT of waiting. At times I have despaired that the process will ever be complete and we will live in limbo forever. But God is faithful. He called us to this path and I believe he will see us through.
At our church, we take communion on the first Sunday of every month. That meant that we were taking Communion on the 2nd anniversary of our beginning the adoption process. I was very discouraged that Sunday. As I came to the communion rail, I began to pray, not really in words but just a lifting up my heart to God.
Our associate pastor came over and repeated the same words I have heard many times before, "Lori, the body and blood of our Lord, broken and spilled for you." I looked up and made eye contact with the pastor and for a moment it was not my friend Brian offering me communion, but Jesus himself. In that moment, I could hear the Spirit saying to me, "I waited so long to bring my children home -- thousands of years until the time was right and all things were ready. I still wait for so many of my children to answer my call and come home. You are sharing in my cup of waiting and suffering. Can you bear it? Can you wait with me?"
Philippians 3:10 says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." In some small way, I feel that this time of waiting has been a time of sharing in the suffering of Christ. As we long to be able to go to Ukraine and find our children and bring them home, so Christ longs to gather each of his children in his arms and bring them home.
We are still waiting, although there are indications that we might travel in late November or December. May God grant us the grace to carry this burden until the appointed time comes for us to go find our children.
Then the LORD made answer:
Write down the vision, inscribe it on tablets ready for the herald to carry it with speed;
for there is still a vision for the appointed time.
At the destined hour it will come with breathless haste, it will not fail.
If it delays, wait for it; for when it comes will be no time to linger.
Habakkuk 2:2-3
1 comment:
When I had surgery for endometriosis (to assist in getting pregnant) our pastor and his wife gave us a framed print of Habakuk 2:2-3. God is faithful and does what he says he will do. Sometimes it just takes a longer than we think it should.
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