Sweet to the soul

So, waiting is hard.  There is a Proverb that says, "Hope deferred make the heart sick...".  I know that heartsickness.  I have hope that God will bring my little girl home.  I have hope that He is working things out even when I can't see it.  I have hope that He is paving the way even as I type this.  But it hasn't happened yet.  It has been a journey of several years of hoping in what is to come.  It can get hard to hope for so long.

Not that I have started to doubt God at all.  He promises me that, "What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do." (Isaiah 46:11)  It is just that when you are looking forward with so much of your heart to a blessing that God is giving, it gets hard to be in the wait.  You see it, you trust that it is coming, but it just isn't time yet.

How thankful I am that the second part of that Proverb says, "...but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" and later it says, "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul".  Oh, how I look forward to my longing being fulfilled.  I look forward to that sweetness of the soul.  To look back at what God brought has us through and to be on the other side.

I know that it isn't going to be all bubbles and lollipops once she is home.  I am sure it is going to be hard on all of us in ways that we can't even foresee.  We will have a little girl adjusting to living on the other side of the world with sights and sounds and smells and tastes that she has never experienced before.  We will have two other little ones adjusting to a new sibling that has had her life as she has known it thrown into complete chaos.  And M and I will be trying to help the three of them sort all that out while trying to keep up with the demands of everyday life.  On top of that, we will then have a little one with certain physical needs that we will have to figure out on the fly and Dr appts and then surgeries at some point, as well.

No, I know it will be hard at times.  But in the quiet of a moment, the kind that take you by surprise and make your heart pause, whether it is the first time that we feel our little girl leaning into us for comfort because she is starting to trust us, or the other two learning to protect and love their little sister that isn't blood but just as real, or the first time she calls us momma or dadda and really knows what it is to have a mamma and dadda, I know that I will feel that tree of life blooming within my heart because of God's faithfulness in fulfilling a longing.  I look forward to holding those moments in my heart and saying, "Yes, Lord, a longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul."