"The Call"

This news has been like a fire shut up in my bones.  It has been KILLING me not to be able to shout it out all over the FB and internet world the way that God has been faithful to His promises, but our agency recommends not posting about it until we received our Pre-Approval making it official.  Well, guess what? After a two and a half week wait, it is official and I can finally post this blog that I wrote the day after we received the best phone call EVER!  :)

We got a phone call last night.  A phone call that we have been waiting over three years for.  A phone call known as , "The Call".  That's right, folks.  We got the call to tell us that we had been matched!!!!!!!!!!

Let me start by saying that the last couple months have been hard for me.  Really hard.  Since the let down of not getting matched a few months ago and then having to go back into the land of the unknown timeline because of the delays of getting the new system in place in China, I had sort of sunk down into a funk.  It was a very uncomfortable thing for me for it to last for as long as it did because it is just not my natural state.  I tend to be a very optimistic person who tries to look for the best in every situation.  To have my heart be heavy and despairing was hard.  I spent much of the time wrestling with God about why He had put a passion in my heart and then was not moving to allow me to follow it.  I knew that God's timing and plan was perfect but in my flesh, the waiting and the wanting of the present was so strong.  I felt like I fluctuated between despair and apathy.  The emotions were so strong at times that then I would almost go into survival mode and try to numb them out.  

It might sound extreme to some.  It might sound overly dramatic and under spiritual.  But if you have ever wanted something with every fiber of your being, something good and right, something that you knew without a doubt was a desire planted by the Lord Himself, and then kept hearing, "Wait. Not yet. Trust me.  A little longer.", then you understand the places that your mind and heart can take you.  You understand the raw ache of 'hope deferred making the heart sick'.  

The past couple of weeks, I have felt that darkness lifting.  I have started to feel more like myself and more able to press into God's heart once again trusting His timing and plan not only with my head but with my heart, as well.  Then Monday comes.  We get an unexpected email that they are going to be releasing a list that night but they don't really know how it will go because it will be the first time using the new system to do it.  I definitely was very aware of it all day and the possibility of seeing her face that night but felt very cautious emotionally, not wanting to get my hopes up again.  Monday night came and around midnight, I got an email that the new system was not working and our agency could not lock any files for review.  They would try again Thursday night and hope that the CCCWA could get some of the kinks worked out by then.  I was certainly disappointed but felt much more at peace than the last time.  Probably largely due to the fact that there was still a chance later in the week.  

Through out Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I felt 'a peace that surpasses understanding'.  I really could not explain how my heart was so at peace even with the idea that if it did not happen this week, that would be ok.  We would continue to wait on the Lord's timing with trust.  It wasn't just something that I knew I should feel.  I felt it from my heart.  

Thursday came and I really felt like it would not happen that day. I continued praying the verses that I had come across this week that I felt like God gave me the words to ask what my heart was begging Him for. 

        "Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me." Psalm 69:16

       "Give me a sign of your goodness..." Psalm 86:17

But I also continued to ask for peace if/when the call did not come.  

To make a long story short, I was surprised when the phone rang at about 9:30.  That was much earlier than I would have thought she would call for one thing.  But it was her.  It was 'The Call' that I had dreamt about and longed for.  And wouldn't you know it, M was stuck in the airport in Chicago on his way home.  As soon as I got off the phone with her, I called M and half cried/ half laughed the news that we had another daughter.  Unfortunately, he only heard the word daughter and thought that I was crying not laugh/crying and started to panic thinking something had happened to Sissy.  :)  After clarifying the situation, we decided that it would be too torturous to wait until he got home to find out about her so I forwarded the email to him and we both saw her face.  Her beautiful, sweet little face.  

And now the really good part.  :)  Zhao, Chenjiao (Last name is said first so her name is Chen-jee-ow Jow) is 15 months old.  She has a cleft palate and cleft upper lip on the left side.  We are naming her Eleanor Chenjiao and we are completely smitten.  I can only imagine the way God has been smiling down on me, enjoying me enjoy His blessing, since last night and the silly way I was dancing through the house all by myself any time I changed rooms with a smile from ear to ear and my heart bursting with praise and gratitude.  The Lord has surely shown me a sign of His goodness.  :)  He has answered prayers beyond my expectations and I am relishing in this joy of a longing fulfilled.  I want to shout from the rooftops, 

"Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things"!!! Psalm 98:1

I sit here and sigh a happy sigh being able to be at this point finally.  We are still probably 2-3 months out from being able to go get her but she is real. We have a face to put with the longing and prayers.  We know where she is.  We know what she looks like.  We know that we are moving towards wrapping our arms around her and bringing her home to her forever family.  And that, my friends, is something to rejoice in.  :)

You didn't think I would let you leave without showing you our beautiful girl, did you?  ;)

Don't you just want to pick her up and squeeze her and kiss those cheeks?!  :)

Worth it

So I have been pretty quiet on here since the disappointment of not getting a referral a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I haven't really known exactly how I felt about it all or even able to articulate it as I processed through it.

Obviously, we did not get the referral that we were so greatly hoping for.  The list that was released was very small and there were not any children that were a match for us.  This meant that under normal circumstances, we would have to wait another month for the next list to come out and another chance at being matched.  Well, like most of this journey so far, normal doesn't really apply.  Today, would have been the normal time for the list to be released.  It is usually released the last Monday of the month.  However, they are in the process of implementing a new online system for how they log families in and are directing energy and resources towards getting that up instead of working through files.  It seems likely that that is why the list was so small a couple of weeks ago and also why the list did not come out today.  This coming week is when they are switching over to the new system and so there has been no word on a list.  We have absolutely no idea when we might hear something.  Maybe they will release a list after this week of getting the new system up and running but maybe they will just wait until the end of next month and skip this one altogether.  The list might be really small again when they do release it if they haven't been working through files as much and there might be a bigger pool of families waiting on those files because there has been such a delay.  Really we are just right back to having absolutely no idea about what to expect by way of timing and absolutely no power to do anything about it.  It has been a hard couple of weeks to process all that.  After feeling like we were so close to seeing her face, we are back to not knowing anything about anything.

I have had moments of intense discouragement and frustration and doubt these past couple of weeks but God has been in those moments with me whispering encouragement and hope at the same time.  I am reminded of a quote about adoption from Jen Hatmaker (one of my favorite bloggers):
           
   "When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of "your perfect plan" means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the "show me a sign" or "this is a sign" or "this must mean God is closing a door" or "God must not be in this because it is hard," but all that is garbage. You know what's hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will."

I am encouraged by her heart and passion for adoption.  I am encouraged to keep fighting (even if most of it is just a battle within my own heart and mind) to keep strong in the wait to bring our little girl home.  I am also encouraged by the idea that just because something is hard or doesn't seem to be going 'right' does not mean that God is not in it.  Every friend of mine that has adopted have had journey's that were not what they 'expected'.  Often harder and more challenging and uncomfortable than they imagined.  But do you know what God spoke to me today?  It is a blessing.  It is a blessing to have your expectations challenged and changed.  It is a blessing to learn that sometimes it is ESPECIALLY when things are hard that God is in it.  

After all, if it were an easy and smooth process to get your child home and everything went exactly as you planned, then what happens when things get hard?  What happens when your child has a hard time adjusting?  What happens when there is a medical condition that you did not expect or plan for?  What happens when paperwork doesn't go through when it should or caseworkers make decisions that they shouldn't?  Would you start to doubt that maybe adoption isn't what God called you to after all?  But thank goodness for The Lord having deepened our resolve and determination before that child was even ours.  We already know what it is to fight for them and to change and adjust our expectations as we go.  We know heart ache and heart break.  We know what it is to question where God is in it all and wait for Him to show us.  We know that when we don't understand any of the 'whys' we can trust the One who leads us on.  We know how to celebrate each little 'victory' and success even in the midst of confusion and doubt.  We know how to live one step at a time, because each step, however small, gets us that much closer to our child. 

I have had a couple of friend's asking about adopting from China in the last couple of weeks.   Even in the midst of my own emotional struggle with it, I have not hesitated to excitedly answer any questions they had or to encourage them to look into it and consider it.  That tells me that even as hard as it gets sometimes, it is so completely worth it.  Growing deeper in my faith is worth it.  Allowing God to grow me and teach me is worth it.  Adopting and redeeming a life is worth it.  My child... is worth it.
                 

"Prisoner of Hope"

Let me just start by saying that we have gotten word this week that the list is, indeed, being posted Monday evening.  I am so excited by this but at the same time, I feel like it is now a cautious excitement.  I have shared with M that it seems like with all of our kiddos, I have not been able to have the naive, innocent excitement of expectation that many do.  Before we were pregnant with our little man, we had two miscarriages and because of those, I went into both of the following pregnancies with excitement and hope but an excitement and hope that were tempered with the first-hand knowledge that just because you are pregnant does not mean you will have the joy of meeting that baby on this side of heaven.  It feels that way a bit with this child as well.  After having two times of hope and excitement being dashed and pushed back, my heart feels a bit more guarded knowing that just because the list is supposed to be coming out, you never know what might happen.  I also know that just because the list is being released, we might not get matched this time around.  So I am hoping, but cautiously so.

Which leads perfectly into the idea of being a 'prisoner of hope'.  I was reading through some verses the other day about what God says about disappointment.  A verse that I came across was Zechariah 9:12.  It reads, "Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you."  As I read the words, I could feel my heart catch.  Prisoners of hope.  I wasn't even quite sure what it meant, but I knew that it resonated with me.  I am still puzzling through it some but this is what I have been thinking.

To be a prisoner of something means to be captive to it.  You can not get away even if you 'wanted' to.  So to be a prisoner of hope means to be captive to hope.  There is a bit of a paradox going on in this statement that feels so true to me.  You generally think that to be a prisoner would be a bad thing and that hope is a good thing so the two would not initially seem to go together.  But what better thing to be captive to than hope?

As much as my heart wants to close down and protect itself when disappointment comes, especially when it happens time and time again, I can not help but to keep hoping.  Even when it hurts to do so, and I try to tell myself that I won't anymore, there is always a seed of hope that begins to sprout again.  When our hearts desire something deeply enough, especially when it is a desire that God has planted, He will remain the gardener that tends to that little seed to nurture it and protect it and grow it until it blossoms.  Sometimes it takes longer than we would like.  Sometimes it ends up looking different than we thought it would.  Sometimes the process is so very different than we expected.  But with hope, that little seed will eventually blossom into exactly what the Gardener planted and desired.

We don't, and ultimately can't, lose hope when we fully understand and trust that God is who He says He is. He is 'faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made' and he will 'satisfy the desires of every living thing' (Psalm 145:13, 16).  I am a prisoner to hope because I trust God's faithfulness and goodness to me.  When my flesh is hurting and doubting, I want to choose to have my spirit continue to trust.  Just like David did when his feelings were telling him one thing about his circumstances, he commanded his spirit to choose to praise God and trust in Him until he could see a clearer picture of what God sees.

For all I know, our daughter's file was not ready two weeks ago and so God in his loving kindness delayed the posting for a few weeks so that her file would be available to us.  Did God enjoy seeing me hurting and doubting.  No, of course not.  But He can see things so much clearer than me and because of that, I will choose to follow His lead instead of my own limited sight.

I do not know what Monday night will bring.  I am praying that it will be one of the most joyful and memorable moments of my life- seeing the face of the child that I have been longing for for years now.  But if that doesn't happen?  I will take time to be honest with God about my hurt and disappointment and doubts and then give them over in trust of His will. And then? Then, I will return to my fortress as a prisoner of hope, trusting and waiting for God to restore twice as much to me as I have even asked for whatever that may look like.

The day that should have been

There is nothing more disappointing than disappointment- and I have had my fair share of disappointment in this adoption journey so far.  The Lord has closed doors, redirected when I was sure we were on the right path, taken longer to draw M's heart alongside mine than I would have liked, and asked me to wait and trust time and time again.  This Thursday was another one of those times.

We had been told that the list ('The List' is the release of new files of children that are eligible to be adopted) was going to be coming out on the 22nd and I was so nervous that we wouldn't get logged into the system in China in time to be eligible to be matched then.  Well, we got word on the 17th that we had been logged in and I was ecstatic!  We were visiting my sister since M was in Budapest for work so he totally missed my jumping up and down happy dance that I tend to do when we have hit major milestones for the adoption.  I could not believe that we could be getting to see our little girl's face in less than a week!

Then disappointment came.  The list was not going to be coming out on the 22nd after all, but the following Monday instead.  We were so close only to be pushed out another week.  Very disappointing, but I only had to make it another week.  I could do it.

I had made it past the 'day that should have been' on the 22nd and was almost to the home stretch of the weekend when disappointment came again.  On Thursday, I was talking with one of our contacts at the agency and found out that the list was most likely going to be pushed back again because of a holiday in China on Monday.  Oh, my lands.  My heart did not want to hear that.  Thursday morning was spent with a very puffy face and a heavy heart.

It is hard to explain why it hit me so hard.  To most people it seems like, "Just one more week.  It isn't great news but not that big of a deal.  God's timing is perfect and He has it all worked out'.  This is all true, but to a heart that has been waiting and hoping for so long, there are times that yet another week when you had thought you were finally so close can seem like a hundred.  We have been on this journey for three years now and it has always been this surreal sort of 'concept'.  We know that we have done an insane amount of paperwork and process so that we can adopt this child that is out there somewhere but it has never been more solid than that.  We have never had a face to go with the waiting and wanting- nor a firm deadline of when we might.  Just hopeful indefinite waiting.

So to be put off from finally having the reality of what all this waiting and working and hoping has been for was extremely hard.  (Not to mention it was timed with some 'not so great at handling bad news' hormones, if you know what I mean).  I can not put into words how desperately my heart longs to see her face and know who she is.

Thankfully, I have a God who knows my heart.  He knew how badly that news was going to affect me right then and that I was going to deeply need to hear from Him to reassure me that all of my fears (like this is never going to happen) were not Truth and that my heart was safe with Him in the struggle.  I was able to spend some time reading my Bible later in the afternoon and God did what He often does through His word and spoke to me. He spoke the exact words I needed to hear that answered my prayers of questioning and doubt and longing earlier in the day.  This is what He told me,

"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.  The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them."  Psalm 145:13-19

He reassured me that He is faithful to all His promises. He reassured me that He loves me and that He is close by when I am hurting.  He reassured me that he gives us what we need at just the right time and that He satisfies the desires of my heart.  O, how I needed to hear that He satisfies and fulfills the desires of our hearts in that moment to be able to keep trusting and hoping.

Well, I have made it through another 'day that should have been'.  I am hoping that this means we are in the countdown again to seeing our little girls picture.  By Friday, we will have hopefully heard that the list is, indeed, coming out on the 6th.  I have plenty of fears of it getting moved back again.  I also fear that even if it comes out, we won't get matched that round and will have to go through it all again the next month.  But the Lord continues to speak to those fears reassuring me and I continue to be a 'prisoner of hope'.  Hope has gotten me this far.  It has carried me through today and it will carry me through however many days there are between today and the day that I have my little girl in my arms.


(Explanation of 'prisoner of hope' to come in my next blog. Just a little something to whet your appetite for the next post... ;) )

Family

My family is a little crazy. Come on all of you out there reading this right now that are in my family- you know it is true.  ;)  What I mean by crazy is that we are one great big bunch of blended-ness.  I have half siblings and step siblings, moms and step-moms, brothers that used to be step brothers that aren’t anymore but are still my brother.  You get the idea.  Our connections to each other seem complicated and strange and yet we are family.  What I cherish about this craziness is the way it has helped shape my view of family and the way it has made adoption such a natural thing for me. 

You see, in my family, we don’t define family solely based on ‘blood’.  Just because my sister is technically my ‘half-sister’ doesn’t make her one bit less my sister.  My in-laws aren’t just my in-laws.  To me they are my mom, my dad, my brothers and my sister.  I am blessed to have three moms.  A mother who gave me life and nurtured me through my growing years kissing my owies and tucking me in at night.  A step mom who has loved me well and is so good at speaking encouragement into my life.  And a mother in law who makes me feel as loved and supported as the rest of her children. 

In my family, we know that it isn’t just having the same DNA that makes us belong together.  It is love.  It is choosing to support and encourage and be connected to one another no matter what.  Isn’t that really how each family starts anyways?  M and I aren’t blood related (That would be a serious problem after all ;) ).  But we are family.  We chose to blend our lives together and create one family out of two.  God brought us together and we choose to stay together. 

And this is where adoption gets really sweet for me.  Because my family is the way it is, I have no fears of not loving my daughter the same as I do my biological children.  Why would I?  She is my daughter.  Oh, I know that she will not share our DNA.  Heck, she won’t even share our race, but it doesn’t make her any less my daughter.  God may have brought us together in a ‘non-traditional’ way but He brought us together as family. 

I also have no fear of my family not accepting her or feeling like she isn’t ‘real’ family.  Why would they?  There is very little about us as a family that is ‘traditional’ anyways.  We are family because we are family no matter how we came to be. 

Our daughter will be a Burton and a Nelson (that includes the Wagner and Ceran side too!) as much as our other two.  She will have another heritage from China that we honor and are grateful for as well-  A birth family that chose life for her even when they could not be the ones to share it with her.  But she will learn from the Burton’s to enjoy teasing and ping pong and to fight for the last scoop of corn casserole at holiday meals.  She will learn from the Nelson’s to be the first to say ‘I love you more than you can ever say’, to be blessed to be spoiled by THREE grandma’s, Nana, Mimi and Grammy and to love Ohio State football. 

But the most important thing that she will learn from all the grandma’s and grandpa’s and aunt’s and uncle’s and cousins that she is being adopted into is that she is family.  Not because she is blood, but because she is loved.  

He will quiet you with His love

I think one of the hardest parts of this wait is knowing that my little girl is half way around the world and I have no idea how she is doing.  Is she sick? Is she being held?  Does someone love her and is teaching her how to be loved?  Is she lonely? Is she hurt? Is she hungry?  There are so many hard stories that come out of the conditions of orphanages in China and the experiences of the children living there.

To be fair, there are a lot of amazing orphanages, as well, with nannies that love on the babies and care for them well.  But that is not where fear takes us, is it?  In those moments that I give fear too much room in my heart, I wonder, what if she is not in one of those good orphanages?  What if she is lying all day in a crib made of wooden boards as I have heard of?  What if the only interaction she has with people in a whole day is the quick feedings and changings and is left to herself the rest of the time?  What if she has already learned not to cry out for her needs because she knows that no one will come?  Even with the best of intentions, how can a few nannies who are given charge of so many little ones give the love and care that a baby should have?  They can't snuggle her and give her extra love when she doesn't feel good because there are so many other babies to take care of as well.

These are the places I go to when fear gets a hold of me.  All of those things very well might be 'true' for my daughter right now- but they are not Truth.  The truth is, she is a daughter of a God who cares deeply for her.  The truth is, she has a family that she doesn't even know about yet that loves her and is praying for her before they have even met her.  The truth is, that even before her mommy can be there to hold her, she has a Father that has never let her go.

As I have struggled through some of these fears lately, God has reminded me of these truths.  He has reassured me with Zephaniah 3:17 reminding me that this is His heart for His child in China, "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

So before I can be with her, God is with her and He is making a way to 'save' her and give her a family.  Though I fear she is lonely and unloved, God reminds me that He takes great delight in her.  Though I fear she might be afraid with no one to calm her, God reminds me that he will quiet her with His love.  And though I long to hold her at night and sing to her as she falls asleep, God reminds me that until I can, He will be rejoicing over her with His singing.

So, in light of all that Truth, I am trying to steer my heart towards new questions and thoughts in prayer.  Lord, what are YOU delighting about in her today? Lord, when her heart is crying out today, will YOU draw near and quiet her with your love?  What songs are YOU singing over her?  Will you sing her a song about the family that loves her and that is coming for her?

Oh, and Lord... when my heart begins to fear again, and despair in the worst, will you quiet me with your love, as well?

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."