Okay, so I do PROMISE to return to my recap of our time in Ethiopia and Germany ~ sorry for the unexpected interruption of our extended stay in our "waiting room." However, before returning to the recap, I want to share with you how I am finding peace through your prayers...........
If you have been following my blog very long, you can recall the lessons God has had for me regarding continuing to BELIEVE in His promises for me and my family; as well as having EXPECTANCY, rather than expectation. Well, He is using this time to put to use these tools He previously added to my armor.
Initially, upon hearing that we had to wait another ~4 months to bring our precious babe home, my mind began to spin in negativity. I began to focus on all that time we were going to be missing out on. I worried that K's pure joy and peace might get tainted, spending more time in orphanage life. I struggled to understand the WHY behind all of this. I felt forgotten and abandoned by God. I listened for God, but didn't hear anything, thus, further convincing me that He had forgotten our family.
I know in my head that those are all LIES. I just needed time to reconnect the TRUTH from my head to my heart. I have recently relinquished the need to understand WHY Baby K has to live in ET longer, when his mommy and daddy ACHE to bring him HOME. And, I believe, that was the beginning of my progress forward. "Letting go and letting God."
As Karon Goodman puts it, in her book, "You're Late Again, Lord!"...."the only way out of the pain is straight through it, with the Lord right by your side." Literally, as soon as I stopped fighting the extended wait, and began accepting it as reality, God began to show me how I can wait purposefully. By drawing myself closer and deeper into Him. Ah, yes, another lesson He had planted seeds in my heart about, a few months back. It is all coming together.....
He is showing me, through this book, that "our relationship with Him suffers when it is based on me giving to God only those things that I thought I could trust Him with and keeping the rest for myself." You see, I quickly snatched up my son and his homecoming when I heard that it would be a longer wait. I lost trust in God and tired to "figure things out" on my own. Doing this only brought upon me a grave sense of hopelessness. There was absolutely positively nothing Jeff or I could do to prevent this delay. The Lord needed me to replace Baby K back into the palm of His loving hands. Which I was once again able to do. With God's help.
God is showing me that, although He is not offering me a way around this hurt, He desires to show me a way through it. Bringing us to a better place ~ a higher ground ~ on the other side of it all. He wants to join Jeff and me in our "waiting room," and He is providing us with instruction that comes with a promise: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6 NIV)
Once I allowed Him to remove the ugly lies filling my heart, and again welcomed His presence and lessons into our waiting room, He immediately wanted to address the vast array of emotions my heart was harboring: elation in meeting Baby K; gratefulness for the gift of our amazing son; a yearning to hold him in our arms again.......mixed in with feelings of frustration, anger, hurt, and helplessness toward the delay. Toward God Himself, as He revealed to me.
He used friends, and many of your sweet personal emails/phone calls to help me realize that it was okay to be angry at God. He is a big enough God to handle it. Heck, He already knows my feelings, He just wanted me to admit them and bring them to Him, rather than carry them within. He wanted to help heal me of them! Can you believe it?!? I carry a grudge toward Him, and He wants to help heal me! Steadfast love, indeed!
I was reminded of the Psalms in all of this. How David often started in negative feelings but by end of his writing, he was praising our Lord. God. does. that! He does that with our negative feelings toward Him! That is why He wants us to bring such feelings to Him! So that He can help us work through them!!! So that He can bring us to a place of trusting Him again! Astounding!
It's okay to feel hurt toward, or angry with, God. It's what we do with these feelings that matter. I needed to give my feelings toward God.....to God! I don’t have to understand Why. I just NEED. TO. FORGIVE. GOD!!! Which is exactly what happened when I relinquished my feelings to Him. He showed me that I needed to "forgive" Him for letting me down. For letting my heart hurt so deeply. Instead of making me feel guilty for these feelings, He helped me release them to Him in the form of forgiveness. Does that make sense? Even though He never did abandon or forsake me, He wanted me to go through a form of "forgiving" Him......when, really, I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness for carrying such doubt and fear toward HIM! A-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!
God knew. He knew that I needed to give Him my negative feelings so that He could remove them at the roots. In so doing, He is nurturing me back into my BELIEF and EXPECTANCY!!!
He is showing me that I do not have to carry guilt for my forms of doubt, fear and unbelief. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NIV) p72
He is showing me that, instead, I can still approach Him confidently. I can BELIEVE that God is FOR us not against us. That He did NOT abandon or forget me and my family. I can BELIEVE that He is right here with us. Loving us. Caring for us. Protecting all three of us.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14 NKJV).
Once again, I give to you, Lord, our son. This adoption. Our family. I trust you to bring us all together. I trust you to bring good out of all of this waiting. I trust you to complete what you have started. I trust you to protect Baby K and shower Him with love. I trust you to knock our socks off with continued blessings. I thank you, Lord, for helping to bring me back into this sweet place of belief, expectancy and trust in You. AMEN.
If you have been following my blog very long, you can recall the lessons God has had for me regarding continuing to BELIEVE in His promises for me and my family; as well as having EXPECTANCY, rather than expectation. Well, He is using this time to put to use these tools He previously added to my armor.
Initially, upon hearing that we had to wait another ~4 months to bring our precious babe home, my mind began to spin in negativity. I began to focus on all that time we were going to be missing out on. I worried that K's pure joy and peace might get tainted, spending more time in orphanage life. I struggled to understand the WHY behind all of this. I felt forgotten and abandoned by God. I listened for God, but didn't hear anything, thus, further convincing me that He had forgotten our family.
I know in my head that those are all LIES. I just needed time to reconnect the TRUTH from my head to my heart. I have recently relinquished the need to understand WHY Baby K has to live in ET longer, when his mommy and daddy ACHE to bring him HOME. And, I believe, that was the beginning of my progress forward. "Letting go and letting God."
As Karon Goodman puts it, in her book, "You're Late Again, Lord!"...."the only way out of the pain is straight through it, with the Lord right by your side." Literally, as soon as I stopped fighting the extended wait, and began accepting it as reality, God began to show me how I can wait purposefully. By drawing myself closer and deeper into Him. Ah, yes, another lesson He had planted seeds in my heart about, a few months back. It is all coming together.....
He is showing me, through this book, that "our relationship with Him suffers when it is based on me giving to God only those things that I thought I could trust Him with and keeping the rest for myself." You see, I quickly snatched up my son and his homecoming when I heard that it would be a longer wait. I lost trust in God and tired to "figure things out" on my own. Doing this only brought upon me a grave sense of hopelessness. There was absolutely positively nothing Jeff or I could do to prevent this delay. The Lord needed me to replace Baby K back into the palm of His loving hands. Which I was once again able to do. With God's help.
God is showing me that, although He is not offering me a way around this hurt, He desires to show me a way through it. Bringing us to a better place ~ a higher ground ~ on the other side of it all. He wants to join Jeff and me in our "waiting room," and He is providing us with instruction that comes with a promise: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6 NIV)
Once I allowed Him to remove the ugly lies filling my heart, and again welcomed His presence and lessons into our waiting room, He immediately wanted to address the vast array of emotions my heart was harboring: elation in meeting Baby K; gratefulness for the gift of our amazing son; a yearning to hold him in our arms again.......mixed in with feelings of frustration, anger, hurt, and helplessness toward the delay. Toward God Himself, as He revealed to me.
He used friends, and many of your sweet personal emails/phone calls to help me realize that it was okay to be angry at God. He is a big enough God to handle it. Heck, He already knows my feelings, He just wanted me to admit them and bring them to Him, rather than carry them within. He wanted to help heal me of them! Can you believe it?!? I carry a grudge toward Him, and He wants to help heal me! Steadfast love, indeed!
I was reminded of the Psalms in all of this. How David often started in negative feelings but by end of his writing, he was praising our Lord. God. does. that! He does that with our negative feelings toward Him! That is why He wants us to bring such feelings to Him! So that He can help us work through them!!! So that He can bring us to a place of trusting Him again! Astounding!
It's okay to feel hurt toward, or angry with, God. It's what we do with these feelings that matter. I needed to give my feelings toward God.....to God! I don’t have to understand Why. I just NEED. TO. FORGIVE. GOD!!! Which is exactly what happened when I relinquished my feelings to Him. He showed me that I needed to "forgive" Him for letting me down. For letting my heart hurt so deeply. Instead of making me feel guilty for these feelings, He helped me release them to Him in the form of forgiveness. Does that make sense? Even though He never did abandon or forsake me, He wanted me to go through a form of "forgiving" Him......when, really, I am the one who should be asking for forgiveness for carrying such doubt and fear toward HIM! A-m-a-z-i-n-g!!!
God knew. He knew that I needed to give Him my negative feelings so that He could remove them at the roots. In so doing, He is nurturing me back into my BELIEF and EXPECTANCY!!!
He is showing me that I do not have to carry guilt for my forms of doubt, fear and unbelief. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NIV) p72
He is showing me that, instead, I can still approach Him confidently. I can BELIEVE that God is FOR us not against us. That He did NOT abandon or forget me and my family. I can BELIEVE that He is right here with us. Loving us. Caring for us. Protecting all three of us.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14 NKJV).
While waiting, we can believe and expect Him to follow through on everything. He is the constant we can always count on. As Karon states in her book, He wants me to look ahead instead of back. He is waiting for me to expect what He has already guaranteed. He wants us to BELIEVE.
“So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea’ and it would obey you.“ (Luke 17:6 NKJV).
The Lord wants us to expect this waiting time to reveal to us a purpose far greater than anything we ever imagined. He wants us to draw closer to Him in this. Which we are. I was tempted to run from Him, initially, but when I asked for His help, He gently placed His hand on my shoulder and quietly turned me around, toward Him. And now, I am running straight into His loving arms to sustain me!
I am trusting that His ways are higher than our ways. I am trusting that He is still in control of this adoption, and that He WILL be bringing our son HOME to us. I am feeling Him stir an excitement of expectancy in me again. THANK YOU, GOD!!!
In Karon's wise words, "Your expectations will sustain and lead you in the right direction. Do not be afraid to expect too much from your Lord. He will use whatever you give Him.......Give Him everything and it will come back blessed."
“He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." (2 Corinthians 9:6 NKJV)
7 comments:
I feel the same way. I am totally out of control of my life right now, but so glad that God IS in control. He sees the big picture, and knows what is best for me and our boys. I need to just keep trusting in Him, and believing that He still does miracles.
May God bless you with His perfect peace as you wait, and may He wrap your little one in His arms until you can all be together again.
This is wonderful. Wow. Really remarkable words here for a completely applicable lesson. Thanks so much for sharing! It was one year TO THE DAY that we requested Eden's referral and that she and Nathan boarded a plane in Ethiopia, headed home. I had many many questions during that awful wait, but each question drew me closer to God's heart-- not just for my little girl but for me as well!
You are waiting expectantly and actively better than most anyone I've seen. I LOVE how you pursue God in the midst of this - beyond anything else or anyone else. Find your hope in God and you will not be disappointed. It WILL be worth the wait and God's allowing it so you can be transformed to be the BEST momma you can be to your son and ultimately the best disciple. THANK you for sharing! :)
Debb, so glad you are running back to His arms even when your heart still has so many unanswered questions. I memorized a short Psalm this summer that has a phrase in it I recite to myself when I am wresting with questions that are too big for me. It is "I do not occupy myself with things to great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul...(Psalm 131). Because our God is so big, so powerful, so full of mystery, there are pieces of our lives that will probably never make sense from our earthly perspective (surely in heaven we will look back and see it fit together like a beautiful tapestry!) The challenge for me is getting to the place where I can be ok with the mystery, trusting that nothing comes into my life without first passing through His hand, and if He allowed it to pass through His hand, then surely it can be used for good, because nothing but good can come from Him! Praying you through this wait!
Debb - amazing words of explanation; I get it and needed to hear it for my life too. Different situation, but same lessons learned. =) Lots of love to you as I continue to pray for your strength, peace, and wisdom (and for sharing all that you are learning!). xo
Debb, I loved your blog post today, and that sounds like a good book. This week was crazy getting things ready to go camping, then being gone for 3 days, and now trying to recover from it all, so I'm late with the blog I mentioned. :) Here it is: http://ashleyannphotography.com/blog.
-Tanya
(Google won't let me log in to post comments on your blog, so I have to do it as Anonymous.)
Awwww.....so blessed to have such wonderful blog friends! YOUR words further encourage me!!! THANK YOU for your kind thoughts. And for sharing in our journey. And for praying over us! I love how God has intertwined our lives! And, Carrie, I am clinging to your Psalm131....love it!!!!!
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