It has been quite a while since I’ve shared any kind of update on my blog regarding our adoption. In fact, the last post I wrote wasback in November, when we first learned we were beginning a new season of waiting.

If you are just happening upon my blog, we have been in the adoption process two years. You can read more about it here.

We still remain in that season and I truly hope we are nearing the end of it.

Hope.

That word has such new meaning for me. It’s a peculiar thing, really. Hope is the one thing that I have clung to in order to keep breathing. Every day and every week, I cling to the hope that we will receive that news we’ve been aching to hear for a year. Still, everyday and every week goes by without word that we can move forward.

I feel like a rabbit with a carrot dangling in front of its face. You know, like in the old cartoons?

The prize sits right there, just out of grasp. I pray and hope I’m praying right. I war to keep my thoughts on God’s word and His promises and fight to not allow fear to run away with my mind.

I fight tears every time I hear their sweet voices on the other end of the phone…just across the ocean…asking, again, when we are coming back. And without a definite answer, I say, again, “We hope very soon.” For six months, it’s the same answer.

A mother’s heart cannot be tamed. No matter how hard I try and pray for my mama heart to be tamed from the pain I feel to be away from them, it simply cannot be suppressed.

Sometimes I pretend not to care in hopes of alleviating the pain. But to no avail.

And hope? What used to be a sweet aroma to me is becoming more of a stench. Hope delayed is leaving me heart-sick.

I’m beginning to feel left gasping for air by it.

Earlier this week I just poured it out on God,

“God, I don’t understand how it’s no problem to work in everyone else’s (as in, those around us) adoption case and bring their children home, even against all odds, yet ours is so complicated and horribly drug out. We are heart-sick and physically ill from holding onto hope week after week–month after month–only to be heart broken over and over and over again. No matter what I believe or how I trust or how hard I fight or pray. I’m left empty of hope fulfilled. Hope has become my enemy because it has repeatedly stabbed my heart. I have nothing left but shards.” 

And then…

…yesterday morning, after writing this just the day before, I received a phone call from my husband just minutes after he had left for work. Through sobs he blurted out, “We got approved!”

I could hardly believe it. We were approved — after 13 months of waiting — to move on to the final steps of our adoption process. 

My cries mattered to God. My pain was His pain. He is faithful…even in the darkest moments, even when we’re feeling hopeless.

God is going to finish what He started.

“He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” 1 Thess. 5:24

Hope didn’t disappoint after all.

So now, we prepare to travel in the coming weeks. And we prepare our hearts to welcome home two girls who know no home or family the way we do. Whose past is a dagger for them…even if they don’t yet realize it.

Would you like to partner with us? We are still in need of travel expenses in order to fly to bring our girls home. All donations are tax deductible and your support is greatly appreciated. 

A little goes a long way. If everyone who is subscribed donated just $2, we’d be fully funded.